However, that all ended when my father passed away. The final trip was in 1983 (I believe), so details are very fuzzy. Still, the basic routes are there.
In 1976, Greyhound had a “see America” promotion that allowed a rider to go in one direction for some time period (a week? a month?) for $76.00. I rode from Pittsburgh, PA to Sacramento, CA.
I don’t remember much from the trip, other than the impression that your average Greyhound user is not someone I enjoyed traveling with.
My two longest trips have been from San Diego to Key West and back(via Chicago and Rt 66), and San Diego to Cape Hatteras and Bar Harbor and back (via Chicago again). Both were 3-month roadtrips planned pretty much day-by-day.
Being out on the open road–with total freedom to go wherever and do whatever I wanted was a dream of mine since I was a little kid. I still take long road trips, but I doubt they’ll ever match the nirvana of those two open-ended adventures
Twice. Ivylad was in the Navy, and we went from Connecticut to San Diego to Charleston, SC.
We took I-10(?) through the southern part of the US. Texas is a long-ass state to cross (took us two days) and there’s a good place for Chinese food in Benson, Arizona.
Twice. Key junctures:
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Rhode Island, across Pennsylvania, visit with friends in Iowa, South Dakota, Yellowstone, Montana Idaho, Oregon. A week, with sightseeing and two cats.
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Maryland, Iowa, Colorado, Utah, Idaho, Oregon. Four days.
Both in 14’ moving vans.
Not me, but my wife and daughter have both done it, multiple times.
About 20 years ago my wife bought an RV, took the kids, and drove the RV around the edges of the country for a book. (Got an agent, couldn’t see the book.) She went from NJ to Florida to California along the southern border, then up the Pacific Coast and East along the Canadian border. It took months because she interviewed interesting people on the way.
My daughter drove her car from Maryland to California to get it back, with my wife. I think it took 6 days. Next month she is driving it back with her English boyfriend; that will take longer because they are stopping off to see things.
I myself have driven from Boston to Florida, NY to Illinois, and California to Saint Louis, but all on different trips.
It is a very good album.
If vertical counts (and it should, you horizontal elitists 
), I did Minnesota to Florida and back again. College spring break trip, stopping only for gas & potty breaks. We had four drivers.
Of the drive down, I only remember that we hit Atlanta at dawn while I was driving.
Strangely, I don’t remember much about the stay down in Florida. :eek:
I’ve made coast to coast (and back to the original coast) vacation road trips twice. It’s not clear to me if the OP wants stories like that or all at once super fast crossings.
We focussed on getting to as many National Parks as we could. We’re talking now about how we could manage the time of to make a similar trip next year with my son.
Just wanted to say, Welcome!
I’ve made a trip from Boston to San Francisco, for a temporary move. We took 4-1/2 days to do it. Twelve hours of driving per day, switching drivers about every two hours. We’d take a 10-15 minute break when we switched. It sounds long, but the breaks and switching really reduces fatigue. And we could still get a good 8-9 hours sleep every night.
To help relieve boredom, we listened to LOTR audio books. We also kept a table of license plates by state. I think we ended up seeing plates from about 40 states, mostly missing ones from the south east (we even got Hawaii!). We also took a photo of the “Welcome to …” signs at the border of each state.
It was a lot of fun.
When I was a kid (mid 70s) my parents and I took a motorhome road trip across the country, from California to the East Coast. I still look back on it fondly–it was the summer of 1976, so we got to be right in the middle of all the Bicentennial hoopla (we were in Boston on the 4th of July).
The trip back took about 5 days–we were trying to get there rather quickly so we’d have more time once we were there. We drove through the southern part of the US (Texas, Virginia…I don’t remember every state we visited) and then came back via the northern part (Vermont, New York, a little dip into Ontario, Canada, etc.)
This was before easy entertainment like DvDs and iPods, of course, so I spent a lot of time in the little bed area above the motorhome’s cab, reading comic books (Richie Rich!). I remember we spent a lot of time listening to an 8-track set of my dad’s called “Grand Old Country,” which wasn’t exactly my cup of tea but since I was obsessed with C. W. McCall, “Convoy,” and 18-wheeler trucks at the time, even that was kind of fun. My dad did all the driving, since my mom didn’t like driving the motorhome and I was only 11.
I don’t remember a lot of specifics about the trip (probably could if I sat down and really thought about it) but I do remember the whole thing very fondly. I wish we could have done it again back then, and sometimes I find myself wishing the spouse and I could do it now (but neither of us has the time nor the desire for that much travel). Closest we’ve come is a trip to England and Wales in 1997 where we did all our own driving and visited various internet friends scattered around those two countries. That was a lot of fun as well.
Springfield, Massachusetts to San Diego, California. Accomplished in January of '86, so I took the southern route. Except for the first and last day, I drove 14 hours/day, IIRC.
Day One: Springfield to Washington D.C. (Visits Uncle.)
Day Two: D.C. to Somewhere in Georgia.
Day Three: Georgia to Mid-Texas.
Day Four: Mid-Texas to Tucson, Arizona.
Day Five: Tuscon to San Diego.
Sightseeing in DC, but nowhere else.
I’ve done NC to CA and/or AZ several times. I grew up about 15 minutes from I-40 in NC and now I live ~90 minutes from it in AZ, ~2,000 miles away. It doesn’t make it all the way to LA, but it’s one hell of a long road. I’ve done it on I-10 as well, which goes all the way but doesn’t go north up to NC.
My buddy did it in August (of 2003) without stopping except for gas. And not only did he not have AC, he had to blast his heater to keep the car from overheating, and he got lost in Dallas during rush hour. Possibly the worst road trip ever that didn’t involve death or sodomy.
I drove solo from the San Francisco area to Boston. Since it was winter, I went south to Orange County, and then east along the southern U.S. (AZ, NM, TX…) and then cut back north to Boston. The trip took me five looong days.
My husband and I did it when I moved out here. Well, he drove, I rode along. It took us 5 or 6 days and we took 80 the whole way. From Middlesex County, NJ to Sonoma County, CA in a U-Haul towing a car and with a small dog and my youngest son.
That was 9 years ago last month and it’s kind of a blur and was mostly hell from what I recall. Tornadoes, puking kid, dog having seizures, hot and uncomfortable since we were trying to not run the AC, and just generally no fun at all. Add to that a little apprehension regarding the fact that I was moving across the country to live with some guy I’d met on a message board just 6 months earlier, and you could say I was something of a ball of nerves.
Best trip?
Pulled into Budweiser brewery in Columbus OH, picked up 24 pallets of beer, went to Jackson MS.
Yeah, did CA,MA, MX, TX, ect…
only lasted 6 months otr (over the road)-
man, they don’t pay you,
I would make them 800 bucks/day, and get paid an amount not even worth typing,
You guys know about, 
,stufff,
heh,
another thread,
My dad had wanderlust for blood. He planned our cross-country trip in the Winter of 1958-59. We left Arlington VA on June 10th, 1959, came back home five weeks later. Two adults, four kids, in a '56 Chevy. Camped all the way. Stayed in a motel perhaps two nights. Saw 8-10 National Parks. Took the Southern route out, Mesa Verde/Grand Canyon. Saw Disneyland, up to SF, over to SLC, Yellowstone/Tetons.
Redid this myself in later years, four times, with two wives. Not on the same trip, however. Wouldn’t trade the memory for anything.
phila to san francisco to phila.
phila to san diego to phila.
if it had been up to my father, there would have been no stopping from phila to calif. have to make good time. no need to see those road side attractions.
we did the trips when he went from 1 week vaca to 2 week vaca. the trips were to be one week to ca see sites then go to the usual nebraska for a week.
we spent less than 24 hours in san francisco before he said we had to leave. apparently, no fog is a sign of doom!
mum put her foot down on the san diego trip and we spent 4 days there and actually went to disney land! whoo hoo. then we hit a bad storm forming on the wy/ne border. i think dad set a land speed record staying ahead of the storm across nebraska. we pulled into omaha, grabbed stuff out of the trunk into the hotel, kabam! 15 minutes later the storm that followed us hit. it was quite the doozy.
I’ve driven from L.A. to Fort Myers, FL and from Fort Myers to Santa Cruz, CA; From Santa Cruz to Fort Myers and from Fort Myers to Yankton, SD. There have been some side trips along the way, too. So, I have yet to drive from sea to shining sea but I have driven from sea to shining Gulf of Mexico and back a couple of times. I’ve always taken the “southern” route, as much as possible, with a few jaunts off to the side in Southwest Texas; I wanted to visit Alpine, Texas one last time and I wanted to see the Big Bend country again.
I’d make those same trips starting tomorrow if I could----I would insist on buying a larger car than that damn Scion my Darling Marcie insisted on buying.
Most of this has been covered already, but I did CA/NV border to Upstate NY, then to NJ shore and back in about 5 days. Heavy snow eastbound from start to Nebraska, heavy rain to Upstate, clear back to Nebraska, then heavy snow back thru Utah.
I look back on it now and consider it a “Suicide attempt”.
I did something similar, later on, and then remembered why I swore* I would never do anything like that again!*
I’ve driven frequently across the American continent, from Pacific to Atlantic and back again, often in the same day. Here in Panama it takes a little over an hour, since it’s only 50 miles.
I haven’t driven coast to coast in the US, but I did hitchhike it in 1973, from New York City to Eugene Oregon. It took eight days.