My suggestions, which you are free to adopt or not. When you read it you’ll realize I’m big on contingency planning.
Keep the gas tank 1/2 full or better. (The spouse and I once got caught in a multi-hour traffic jam followed by gas stations without fuel due to everyone fleeing from the toxic waste spill cleaning them out - a quarter of a tank wouldn’t have been enough in that situation, so it’s been a 1/2 tank for me ever since)
Bring drinks with you, half of them water, and “travel food” - stuff that doesn’t require refrigeration and has protein. I like nuts, jerky, and fruit myself along with a box of crackers. I hear there are also coolers you plug into your car to keep cool, in which case you might take something else. It’s very unlikely, but if you have to camp out in the car for a bit due to some unforeseen occurrence you’ll be a lot more comfortable if you’ve got food and beverage. And sometimes I don’t want a full meal at a restaurant so I like having the option for a quick snack at a rest stop.
Spare cash. Keep this separate from what’s in your pockets, as a backup for just in case, whether that’s accidentally losing your money or emergency shelter/vehicle repairs or whatever. Keeping it separate isn’t so much for theft concerns as making it hard for you to spend it without really needing to do so.
Hit the visitor centers when you enter a new state, if they have them on your route. Aside from a place to pee, you can get travel information (quality varies - some states are quite helpful, listing things like construction areas. Others not so much), paper maps often for free (back up for the GPS, but I’m old school), and information about lodgings and attractions along your route.
Pace yourself. Yes, you’ve driven long trips before and this is just more of the same, but because it is more of the same don’t wear yourself out.
Stay hydrated. It fights fatigue. Particularly in the desert southwest - when I was there on business (twice) I was always amazed at how the climate could suck the water out of me. Really, it’s not a bad idea at all to carry a couple of gallons of water when traveling through the desert. If you have a breakdown and are stuck out there without air conditioning you will need it. Is it likely to happen? No, but if it does, you’ll be glad you did.
Don’t speed. I know, you like to go fast, but cops are looking for guys like you, traveling cross-country at higher speeds than legally allowed. Slow down, California will still be there, it’s not going anywhere (well, not fast at least, it’s creeping along at about the rate your fingernails grow, you’ll easily outrun it at legal speeds).
I’m not going to tell you to leave the gun at home because I doubt you will, but I also don’t think you’ll need it. Keep alert, avoid trouble. I’ve been taking road trips solo for a couple decades now and never felt a need to carry one.
Don’t hesitate to making a stop if the weather is bad or there’s a wreck on the road up ahead. If you see the all truckers getting off the freeway or pulling over maybe you should, too. I’ve found it a lot less stressful to take a break for a couple hours - have a meal, a nap, see a tourist attraction - while the problem or the storm is going by and then resume the trip rather than push on through a mess. If you aren’t on a rigid schedule and some crappy, stress-inducing thing is occurring take a break. Like I said, California will still be there.
Driving during the day means stuff will be open - restaurants, shops, visitor center staff, and so on. I prefer to keep my driving in daylight (although I’ll drive at night if required). Dawn to noon has fewer drunks, exhausted drivers, and so forth to worry about on the road with me and it’s my preferred long-distance driving time.
Try to avoid going through urban areas during rush hour.
I’ve taken four road trips, only one of which was fully coast-to-coast, but the others went most of the way.
I’d definitely recommend the I-40 route, see the Grand Canyon, detour to Las Vegas, and then head down the I-15 to LA. If you’re not on a strict schedule, I’d recommend veering a bit north into southern Utah to see some of the spectacular National Parks there before proceeding back to the I-40 in Arizona.
At the “welcome centers” at the border of pretty much every state, they have booklets of cheap hotel coupons. (Room Saver is the name of one of them, IIRC.) Grab one as you enter the state, and call ahead to make sure they have a room at the booklet rate available, and that will be your cheapest possible rate. It’s definitely better than AAA’s discount.
Get a second opinion on the car’s cross-country-worthiness to be on the safe side. My and my wife’s first cross-country trip was done in 1996 with a 1987 Ford Tempo, and it had almost 100K on it. We did get it checked beforehand by a mechanic we trusted, and he said it would be OK, but it wasn’t. It broke down three times, and one of those times caused us to spend an entire extra week away, never mind the cost of the repair itself (basically, a new engine). Double-checking can’t hurt. Measure twice, cut once.
Enjoy! I’m itching for the opportunity for my next cross-country trip to arise, and a route through the south and southwest is definitely what I want to do, as I haven’t been that way since that first trip, way back in 1996. Those are the states we have never re-visited with our kids.
About four years ago I accepted a new job. They paid for our move, but we had three dogs we didn’t want to fly, so we rented an RV and drove from Seattle to Baltimore. It was the best vacation we’ve ever had- our only regret is that we did it in just a little over a week. We should’ve stretched it out to two or three weeks.
Take your time. I agree with the others who say that you should travel during the day if you can. There’s more to see, and it’ll be a lot easier to get emergency car repair if you should need it.
Stop everywhere that sounds vaguely interesting- odds are, you won’t ever drive by there again. There are places we skipped that I now really regret.
Done it 2X. Not a lot of advice, but we had one time decided on night driving. What a pain. It seems all the long haul semis- run at nite, the road were full of them, and their headlights, higher than you think in your rear view and coming at you, got very tiring. And yes, a lot of things aren’t open. We had a tornado warning driving at night and needed to get to a building and off the road. There wasn’t a damn thing. Luckily, no tornado appeared.
If you get off the freeways in Texas, watch out for a ton of nasty speed traps where they will ticket you and demand payment immediately to the JP and oddly, these “tickets” will never appear on your license or insurance.
Not much I like better than a long road trip, and I like 'em even better when there’s minimal planning and no hard timetable. And I take the interstate only when I absolutely have to. The junk that pops up at every off ramp is the same anywhere in the country. You could effectively simulate that trip by driving the local beltway for a few days straight. It’s the older routes that really give you the opportunity to see the country. Like others have said, you’re likely to only do this once or twice in your life, so try to absorb as much as you can.
And no need, IMO, to sweat all the what-ifs. You’re crossing America, not overlanding the Sahara in a loaded Land Cruiser. Help for anything is a cell phone and a credit card away.
Yes, US-78 northbound doesn’t turn into shit until just before you cross into TN. There’s a shorter way mileage wise to get to Memphis from Gadsden, but I’m not sure if it’s faster. It just strikes me as out of the way to go SW from Gadsden to B’ham, just to go NW to Memphis.
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I’m thinking about US-278W from Gadsden to I-65N in Cullman. About 4 miles N on I-65 exit and take AL-157 N/W. This will take you to Sheffield, AL on Alt 72W. Continue on Alt 72W and it’ll turn into regular US-72W and take you across MS to Memphis. Punch that into mapquest and see what the mileage and travel time is. No, it’s not particularly interesting driving. You’ll get plenty of that later on in your trip.
When I drive Westbound, I try to find a place to overnight before 4 pm local, so I don’t have to drive into the sun. Actually, when I’m on the road, I like to start rolling at 4:30 am or so, so I don’t feel guilty about calling it quits for the day at 3 pm.
I drove out super fast on a southern route (69 hours) and took the above route back. Take your time if you’ve got it. The Badlands, Mt. Rushmore, Yellowstone, the Grand Tetons are all spectacular.
I’m an anti gun nut so I’m asking why would you even consider carrying a gun? I grew up in LA, and statistically I’m much likelier to die in a car accident than a gun battle. Seriously, pull over if you are tired and take a rest and your trip will be a lot safer, Don’t stop in Detroit, OK? I don’t think you can carry a gun through national parks anyway.
Seriously, your defensive driving skills will save your ass way more than any hand gun. Just drive super fast at 85 mph like everyone else in LA and you’ll fit in. Do not drive slow in any lane other than the right one.
I drove cross country and back twenty years ago and it was one of the best times of my life. I have one huge recommendation:
Unless getting there quickly is important, for God’s sake, STAY OFF THE INTERSTATES. They’re boring as shit. Miles and miles of identical divided highway punctuated only by rest stops and fast food chains.
Take older highways that actually go through towns. Take this once in a lifetime opportunity to actually see the country you live in. Once you get off the interstate you’ll see all sorts of weird, interesting stuff.
In the days of yore when it was sufficient to do so, I stuck a $20 inside the visor so I always had money for a tank of gas in the car, no matter what. When I was married and my wife went cross-country alone to visit a friend, I stuck $60 in her two visors and told her to leave it there in case of emergency. Of course, she spent that money first. :rolleyes:
Cooler on the back seat, filled with ice, bottled water, pop, fruit, jerky, trail mix, etc. No processed snack junk. I now take a small (cheap) square garbage can and set it on one side in the cooler, then put the dry stuff inside that.
Yup. I park in the right lane with my cruise control set at the speed limit, or perhaps 2 mph above it at very most. Doesn’t matter what other traffic is doing except in cities. Over the long haul you’re just calmly parked in the proper lane, doing the proper speed, driving in a consistent and safe manner.
I sometimes enjoy driving alone on the road in the middle of the night, but then I’m a night owl. Otherwise the point is valid. I’ve sometimes had issues finding an open gas station in the middle of the night and once pulled into a station in bumfuck nowhere only to have my car die about 50’ from the pumps and roll up to it, because I’d run out of gas right there. Considering I was at least 30 or so miles from anything else at 3am, I would have been sleeping/reading in my car waiting for it to open if it hadn’t been.
I can’t disagree more. Sure, you might find interesting stuff going through towns. But the majority of the space you’ll traverse is not inhabited, and in the places that are, odds are that the town doesn’t have anything all that notable, and the trade-off is that you’ll be mostly on one-lane highways where the speed limits are lower, and traffic lights and crossings make you stop, and one slowpoke or left-turner can waste a lot of your time. On top of that, you’ll probably have more wear and tear on your car from the extra meandering distance and the fact that many of those local roads are less well-maintained.
I love road-tripping America, and I consider interstates a godsend. I use the AAA tour books and the internet to tell me ahead of time which small towns might have something to offer me, and I’m willing to bet I’m not missing all that many tourist gems that have hidden themselves unlisted and can be discovered only if one comes across them unexpectedly.
I have a real soft spot for the town of Van Horn, Texas. When I was moving to Georgia from Arizona, I made the drive from Tucson to Van Horn the first day - I didn’t intend to stop there, but I’d left Tucson and wanted to get through El Paso before I stopped…and all of a sudden I was out of El Paso and there didn’t seem to be any more towns until Van Horn. I got a room at the new Hampton Inn there, they recommended me a place where I got fantastic steak, and that night I saw fireworks (for the HS Jubilee reunion that was happening) and some fantastic stars.
So yeah, look at the stars in west Texas if you drive through there.
Van Horn is also home to Chuy’s restaraunt, John Madden’s favorite place to stop when he’s passing through.
From my road tripping experiences, it’s a given you’ll miss a lot if you only drive the interstates. There are out of the way places with fantastic and weird things to see strung all along the Blue Highways. But the thing is, even with no time constraints, you just can’t see everything.
