We have to assume that this little road trip has been a bit of a wake up call for Ashley, she's probably learnt more about Alf, Ada and parenting in general in these few days than she has in more than two and a half years, dragging a child to various different hotels on a mini road trip is something that requires organisation, serious planning and not just checking that there's a park at either end of the travelling day for the child. She probably thought that because Alf is fine going between their house and NNBs places in UK and France that Alf is already the perfect traveller and wouldn't be phased by the frequent new environments that they were going to have on this trip, when in fact he's reacted in the way I would have expected and found it a challenge, and therefore had disturbed sleep and was probably more challenging with his behaviour in general too.
It also shows just how much of a disaster it would have been had they actually done the USA road trip that she wanted, there's probably a fair amount of relief that Ashley is feeling now that they weren't able to make the timing work for that trip now she's seen what parenting away from home in unfamiliar places looks like.