I want to take a cross-country road trip; advice?

In My Humble Opinion
1

We are east coasters and have done very little travel anywhere else. I went to Dallas once, and have been to various places along the east coast. But I would love to especially see some national parks like Badlands, Glacier, Grand Canyon, Yellowstone, etc. Flying is expensive and would take away some of the fun. We are willing to camp, but probably not every single night along the way. We considered taking the train, but that can get a little expensive and it is sometimes difficult when you could potentially have a lot of luggage (e.g. tent, cooler). We have a brand new car that will make the trip just fine, but it is quite small. We could rent a larger vehicle, but some rental companies don’t allow you to take their vehicles that far.

Any advice is appreciated. Right now I am primarily concerned with costs. I have no idea how to go about figuring up what such a long road trip will run us. It’s just two adults right now. We’ve tried wrangling some friends into it, and while they all agree it’s a cool idea, none are willing to commit.

Also, suggestions for places to visit are welcome. The itinerary is wide open right now!

2

Go, you’ll have a great time.

When do you want to travel? There’s still plenty of snow up high out west.

What do you like to do? Are you interested in hiking, sightseeing, museums, cultural sites, cities?

How long will you be able to take? It’s a big country and I always find it better to pick just a few places and see them more thoroughly rather than flit from place to place.

3

Camping most of the time is the best way to save costs, for sure. Second is planning food and eating groceries, not at restaurants.

Do online research before you go to find campgrounds and cheap motels. In my limited experience, I’ve had better luck with no-name family-run motels in the West and Midwest, and better luck with big chains in the East. I’ve found government-run or nonprofit campgrounds nicer than KOA type places.

If you plan a route (which I recommend), find out about lots of options: campgrounds and motels do sometimes fill up, or turn out to be too crappy to stand, and sometimes you just need to spend a day longer than you thought somewhere because something is so great.

There are more camping options once you get away from the East Coast and the eastern Midwest (past Chicago or so). Ditto away from turnpikes. Some even take reservations. Note that in some parts of the National Forests and Grasslands, they allow camping generally (what they call “dispersed camping”), not just in designated campgrounds like National Parks, though there are of course rules.

Take good bug spray and sunblock so you can enjoy all the gorgeous places you’re going to see! Oh, and if you are coffee drinkers, figure out how you’re going to make coffee while camping. Getting the water hot enough is the hard part.

4

Your available time will dictate how far you can travel, and will go a long way toward determining the overall cost.

For planning purposes, I’d pick up a copy of Microsoft Streets & Trips. You can experiment with different routes to your destinations - interstate highways for covering distance, or backroads for entertainment. Paper maps from sources like AAA can alert you to scenic roads, which you can then plug into MSS&T.

If you’re serious about covering distance, on the interstate highways you can do 600 miles in a day. If you’re tough and determined, you can do 800, but that means keeping your stops very brief, and at some point this stops being a fun vacation. You can do 500 miles on back roads in a day if you aren’t stopping for touristy stuff. Don’t plan a whole bunch of max-distance days in a row; this will get to be a real drag in a hurry. I’ve ridden a motorcycle from Ann Arbor to Denver several times, and I typically break it into a 750 and a 550 mile day; once I hit Denver, I take my time traversing scenic twisty roads for fun.

Cost:

What kinda hotels do you like? Crusty hotels? Fine, 60/night. Hampton Inn, Holiday Inn Express? Double that. Lodging cost = /night times # of nights.

Camping? KOA’s can be nice, but not always - but they are always expensive. When I was a kid my parents had a national campground guide: no matter where we were, at around 6:00, Mom would whip out the book and find a satisfactory campground somewhere just up the road. This book, or something like it, is probably still available. If you’re not staying at a KOA, expect to pay $10-$20 a night. If you want to stay at a campground IN a popular national park, you’ll want to make a reservation far in advance. Note that a lot of nat’l parks have numerous private campgrounds and hotels just outside the park boundary, so don’t sweat if you can’t get a space inside the park.

Fuel? Figure 25 MPG. Fuel cost = $2.40/gal times # of miles divided-by 25 mpg. Shortcut: ~10 cents per mile.

Food? You’re going to be eating out pretty much every meal, except maybe continental breakfasts at hotels. Figure lunch + dinner times two people = $30/day.

National park entry fees vary. If you’re going to visit a lot of them, consider a seasonal all-parks pass of some sort, which may be cheaper.

That pretty much covers the basic costs. The rest is touristy stuff, like T-shirts and other souvenirs.

What to do/see:
As a kid, I made numerous trips out west with my family in a station wagon towing a pop-up camper. We did lots of camping and hiking in the mountains, so I enjoy that stuff a lot. As an adult, I ride a sport-touring motorcycle, so I really enjoy scenic, twisty roads, which happen to be mostly found in the same areas. But I also enjoy the change of scenery/landscape as you move across the country; watch for this as you go from farmland to ranchland to scrub to mountains to desert. A few favorite destinations, tours, and roadside attractions from recent memory:

-the Great Platte River Road Archway Monument near Kearney, Nebraska. Touristy on the outside, but the exhibits tell a neat history of the place.

-Pikes Peak, but only if you’re in good health; summit is at 14,000+ feet.

-Rocky Mountain National Park. If you’re going sometime other than June/July/August, check for road closures.

-Loveland Pass.

-Million-Dollar Highway from Ouray to Durango, Colorado.

UT128 into Moab.

Dead Horse Point state park.

Canyonlands (“Island in the sky” district).

UT95 from Blanding to Hanksville.

UT24/12 from Hanksville to Bryce Canyon.

Bryce Canyon nat’l park.

Zion nat’l park. (short, sweet hike: entering park from east on UT9, watch for parking lot just before tunnel entrance several miles into park. Trail goes up from north side of road to an incredible overlook. ~1 mile roundtrip, excellent vistas.)

Grand Canyon nat’l park. Short rim hikes on the south rim are easy, especially if you make use of the shuttle bus.

Hoover dam; look into the tour.

Yosemite nat’l park. Scenic approach is from Lee Vining, over Tioga Pass, into the valley. Fun/short hike is from valley floor up to Vernal falls and Nevada falls, but expect to get wet unless you’re going very late in the season.

Las Vegas strip. Gotta see it to believe it.

Been a long time since I was at Glacier, but I’d love to go back. Consider going there.

Salem Sue, a giant fiberglass cow in western North Dakota.

See www.nps.gov for national park pages; they’ll tell you what you need to know about all the national parks, including road maps, trail maps, safety warnings (that’s really important in some of these places) and lists of potential activities. Other stuff can be found on Wikipedia or elsewhere on the web.

See also www.roadsideamerica.com for amusing touristy roadside stuff along the way, e.g. the giant wooden squirrel in Longview, Washington.

As you do your planning, accept that you will not be able to do everything in one trip; this was hard for me when I was setting my my first road trip west as an adult. Don’t try to cram too much into one vacation, or you’ll be stressed the whole time. Give yourself plenty of time to do the things you do plan, and leave other stuff for future trips.

5

Figure out a travel plan first. It is number of days travelling and mileage that will drive the cost.

Sit down and just say, I want to see XYZ, spending 3 days here, 2 days there, 2 days travel in between etc.

Plug all the destinations into Google Maps - I find this is invaluable for calculating mileage and driving times.

Once you’ve sat down and figured out the ‘where’ and the ‘how long’ you can figure out the mileage to calculate gas costs, nights accomodations. Add in a per-day food bill, entry fees for sites you want to visit, etc and you’ve got an estimate of the road trip cost. After that, tweak your itinerary as needed to fit your budget.

6

Oooh, great ideas! Thanks!! We are relatively young, but not particularly active, and both somewhat clumsy. So some light hiking sounds good. Climbing probably not so much, and (remarkably) my husband can’t ride a bike. Sightseeing, taking pictures, museums, historical places, all good. We both love music and food and history, so those should provide some opportunities. I’m a teacher so don’t really have any time restraints as long as we go in the summer. Husband can get time off as long as he lets them know early on, but it’s not paid leave, so too much won’t be a good thing.

7

Any particular US historical subject you like best?

Any particular kind of music?

What’s the range of amount of time off your husband could or would take?

8

Do you have a AAA membership? My ex and I got campground books for all the states we were visiting from them for free. The books list a ton of information about the campgrounds including amenities, rating, and price. It made our trip very easy.

Also will your small car tow a small trailer? We towed a gutted tent camper that stowed all our stuff nicely.

We met some terrific people along the way (New England to Florida Keys, Florida West Coast to Texas, New Mexico, Colorado, and Wyoming) and had the trip of a lifetime.

9

Don’t plan on being in your car 8 hours a day every day. You won’t cover as much overall distance, but you will be glad you have time to stop and look around without feeling compelled to “press on” the whole way.

10

I’ve driven up to 12 hours a day (solo) simply to get past much of the middle of the country that I wasn’t interested in. With two people you can drive up to 16 hours a day fairly easily to cover some serious ground. You learn to sleep in the passenger seat. It’s good to see the smaller out of the way places, but I drove from Chicago to Denver just as fast as I could. :slight_smile:

Get a AAA Gold Membership (it makes towing a car reasonable), a cell phone, and a simple emergency kit. Check your tires before you go but it sounds like this is a fairly new car.

If you are willing to camp with the bare basics you can pretty much always stay at National Forest primitive campsites for a very minimal fee per night. They’ve got a place to put your tent and outhouses, some have running water, but they’re cheap or free and usually right near some great trailheads. After exploring/hiking you can spend a night in town to shower/eat out/sleep in a bed.

If you’re talking a two month road trip it’s nice to break things up with some civilized stops along the way. Look for some music/food/cultural festivals that interest you and you can plan some of your trip around those. It’ll give the summer some structure which is often helpful during the planning process. Even throwing in some decadence like a few days in Las Vegas can be a welcome change.

As for National Parks, Rocky Mountain, Glacier, Yellowstone, Yosemite, Arches/Bryce/Zion/Canyonlands are all good places to stay a while and mix driving/sightseeing with hiking. I could (and have) spend a week or more in each without a problem running out of things to do. Some of the best hiking is actually in the National Forests with more primitive facilities if that’s your cup of tea. The Wind Rivers in Wyoming, Inyo and Sierra in California, or primitive National Parks like Northern Cascades are great for getting away from it all.

11

For the times when you will be in mid-size to large cities along the way, and will want a hotel room for the night, make sure to check out Priceline.

With a little know how (and flexibility about what specific hotel to stay at) you can get a luxury room that might normally go for 150+ dollars a night for under 50 bucks…

I just got back from New Orleans, where I stayed in one of that cities most posh hotels (Intercontinental) for much less than others got Motel 6 type accomodations.

Of course, upscale lodging does not appeal to everyone. (in fact the Intercontinental N.O. was actually almost TOO nice, as I usually felt a little under-dressed when coming after a late! Crescent City evening)

Enjoy your trip, Matthew

12

Driving trips are awesome. Keep a log of your mileage and purchases. It’s fun to look back on it years from now. A trip diary is a good idea, too.

You might want to plan a balance of scenic/city stuff. All that wide open space can really get to some people after a while.

The routes others have suggested are awesome. There are utterly spectacular sites in the American West. Make sure you have enough photo storage. You can’t take too many pictures at most of the parks mentioned here.

If you’re on medications, make sure you have all that stuff in order, as well as any medical info you feel would be pertinent should you get sick or injured.

Have fun!

13

Maybe Native American/western expansion time period.
Mostly rock/folk/country sort of stuff.
More than two weeks would probably be pushing it. Wish it could be longer.

Would definitely consider AAA if we decide to make the trip.
Never thought about the trailer, but great idea. Will check into it.

Great idea.

Thanks everyone for the input. I want to do it soon because I am afraid if we put it off that life will just take over and we won’t actually do it. Having the money is the biggest thing, but I figure the bills will always be there… and there is so much I want to see.

Keep the suggestions coming!

14

Get the AAA membership, then go down to your local office and get a USA map and as many regional/state maps, tourbooks and campbooks as you can carry. Those alone will be worth the price of your membership.

When you get home, pin the US map up or lay it on the floor. The main routes will become obvious, along with the major points of interest along the way. Using the state maps and tourbooks, you can zoom in on possible side trips, check lodging availability, etc. That will give you a good idea of all of your options.

When you get ready to hit the road, you don’t need to haul along all of the maps/tourbooks–just bring the ones for the first part of your trip. You can hit AAA offices along the way and get new ones. Plus, the local folks will have info on road conditions and attractions in the immediate vicinity. When you’re on the road, keep an eye out for Welcome Centers and Visitor’s Bureaus, too. You can get some great info from the volunteers that staff them. (They’ll also talk your ear off if you let them!)

One caveat applies to ALL roadguides/travel websites: ALWAYS verify business hours, tour times, admission prices, etc ahead of time. Driving an hour out of your way to see some off-the-wall museum only to find that it closed two years ago is really a drag!

15

I highly recommend the Little Bighorn Battlefield National Monument, especially since you also mentioned interest in the Badlands. Those two places, and the area between them, are all stunning.

My husband and I drove from Seattle to upstate New York in July 1997 and visited the Monument, before the Indian Memorial was installed. There was some appalling racism in the visitors’ center at that time. I would love to see it again now.

Near the Badlands, I think we camped in the Buffalo Gap National Grasslands, but I’m not sure – I’ll ask my husband later. It was transcendent… except for the BLOODTHIRSTY SWARMS OF MOSQUITOES. Our backpacking tent, without the rain fly, can have the panels unzip to be mostly a little screenhouse – watching the stars from our sleeping bags, in the middle of gorgeous nowhere, was something I’ll never forget.

16

Then you’ll definitely enjoy the Archway museum:

If your travels take you through Nebraska, make it a point to stop here.

17

Back in 1994 I spend 10 weeks driving from North Carolina to California and back again. Sometimes I stayed with friends but mostly I camped. Some recommendations:

  1. Government campgrounds are nicer and cheaper than KOA.
  2. Stay off the interstates. Part of the fun is rolling into a little town in the middle of nowhere. If you keep to the main roads all you’ll see are guard rails and chain stores.
  3. Don’t overplan. Pick out a few big things to do along the way, but give yourself plenty of time to stumble on little surprises.
  4. You really don’t need much stuff. I fit all my gear in the trunk of a Miata!
  5. Plan on covering about 200-300 miles a day. Any more than that and the trip becomes an endurance test of how long you can stay in the car, not a voyage of exploration.
  6. Roll your windows down. Sure you’ll get hot and windblown, but you’ll also feel much more like you’re IN the landscape instead of just looking at it. The only time I put up the top of my Miata was crossing West Texas.
  7. Try to avoid crossing West Texas. Particularly try to avoid crossing West Texas in August in a Miata with the top down.
  8. Have fun!
18

Unless you absolutely need a trailer don’t even think about it, especially if you’ve never driven with a trailer before. It will limit the roads you can drive, add more things to break down, and will cause you to bring far more stuff than you need.

KISS!

19

Mt. Rushmore - it’s bigger than you think.
Devil’s Tower - it’s right by Mt. Rushmore and it’s gnarly. I think Crazy Horse is close by as well.
Check out caves. Lewis and Clark Caverns, Shasta, anywhere you can do a walking/spelunking tour.
Try to squeeze in a rafting trip along your route, it’s great fun this time of year.
Mt. Vernon is fun for a couple of hours, same for Teddy Roosevelt Island.

20

Maps, Schmaps; If you don’t have one, Buy a GPS. or add it to your phone.