Back in grad school I got a 30 day bus pass (no rail passes in the USA) and traveled across country one summer, sleeping at the homes of friends and relatives. If there wasn’t anyone I knew, I stayed in college dorms (many colleges rented these out during the summer), so i technically stayed in no hotel or motel rooms. (The dorm rooms were also a lot cheaper than motel rooms – important on a grad student’s income). I contacted everyone in advance, by the way, and cleared it with them first. Simply showing up at the door and asking for a bed severely bums people out.
The one exception was at Lake Tahoe, where I had a relative who was an executive at a casino. He put me up in a room at his hotel that night – for free.
I couldn’t drive across the country and have free beds available. What I did when I moved across the country was move to a city with public transit so all I had to do was sell my car, put my stuff on a moving truck to be delivered, and hop on a plane. When I got here there were trains and cabs to get me where I needed to go so the whole move took about 5 hours.