Anyone do a road trip across America?

[Douglas Dubh]

PS…I would suggest May as a good time. Weather is better, schools aren’t out yet so not as crowded and rates are still cheaper than summer.

Trouble with May is that parks in the Cascades or Sierras may still be covered in snow. Crater Lake and Lassen Volcanic National Parks may have limited access. Make sure to check conditions before you go out of your way if you have parks like these on the list.

 

[lukenick1]

I did this three years ago with my kids who were older teens at the time. We had the best time! We drove from Massachusetts to CA and back over 7 or 8 weeks. We took our minivan and packed a tent in a Thule on top with a few supplies.

We drove pretty much straight to Colorado via Kansas..so mid country and then slowed down. We camped two nights near Boulder, CO but then found it easier and cheaper to stay in basic motels. I looked for ones with kitchen facilities as much as possible to cut down on food costs. We also brought along an induction cooktop with a large pan as well as a cheap toaster. They were so useful and saved us so much money.

With a hotel/motel it was nice to have a shower and or kitchen and laundry at the end of the day. We used TripAdvisor to pick hotels and everyone was perfect for our needs. In addition, we found them more cost efficient than many campgrounds. Camping is definitely not as cheap as it used to be. We are huge campers but for this trip the hotels made more sense for us cost wise and time wise setting up and taking down. Plus, the summer we went the temps were well over 100 degrees and the ac in hotels were crucial.

We visited 11 National Parks, drove Route 66 and the Pacific Coast Highway and it was all amazing. In all, we drove about 11,000 miles. I urge everyone to get out and see this beautiful country as much as you can.

My son is actually doing this with a friend now. He met a friend in Portland, OR and they have been traveling in a van for a month seeing all the National Parks. Right now they are in Rocky Mountain National Park. I am sitting here very jealous.

So my advice is GO! You will NOT regret it! Have fun planning!

PS…I would suggest May as a good time. Weather is better, schools aren’t out yet so not as crowded and rates are still cheaper than summer.

Awesome! Would you mind sharing your route? How many hours per day did you drive? Thanks

 

[lukenick1]

Are you wanting to do this in one shot? How many days so you plan to take to do the trip? What do you want to see? Parks to hike? Cities to shop? Sporting events? The type of trip will really decide what kind of route to take.

We're planning kind of the same thing, but breaking it into 2 different trips. We're doing an east and west national parks trip where we visit and hike around the all national parks and pull a camper to camp instead of hotel. Our route is determined by where each park is and stops are either at the parks we want to explore or we're finding a rest area or campground to stop at on the longer drive days.

No time limit we are planning to do this after we sell our business. Not sure timeline yet. I am interested in nature and just fun things to do. Not a huge city fan but would like to visit some cities for sure like Chicago, New Orleans, LA. NO sports......

 

[lukenick1]

We did a 5 week 25 state road trip last summer, towing a 21 foot ultralight Coachmen camper. Started in Michigan, down the coast of Carolinas, across the panhandle of Florida, New Orleans, Baton Rouge, up through Texas to Mesa Verde, Grand Canyon, Utah parks, Salt Lake City, Yellowstone, Badlands and home across Iowa/Illinois.

I saved my vacation time for a long time, and had to go in the summer because my kids were out of school. There are apps that list safe free places to camp - Walmarts are only sometimes an option because of local laws. We also stayed at a Cracker Barrel, a City Park in New Mexico, and a great art center in West Virginia - I will look up the apps. We boondocked south of Wall Drug, South Dakota on the edge of the Badlands.

We made National park reservations a year in advance, and some of the very popular locations that weren't national parks that early too.
We ended up staying 2 nights of the 35 in hotels - life just got in the way of plans and we needed the easy button

Total miles was 8,500 in 35 days. We did have a couple really long driving days, but we planned it that way - there's not much to see as you cross Texas, so we just planned to make that a really long day. We stayed in a campground 2 or 3 days each time and 4 in Yellowstone. All of the free places we stayed only overnight, and they generally expressly forbid you setting up camp/grilling etc. It was easy enough to heat up some soup and grilled cheese or chili etc. in those places, or just sandwiches. We generally just slept and moved on in the morning.

Our planning started because my kids read a book of roadside attractions, and needed to see the worlds largest ball of twine and the geographic center of the US - among many other things. On the way we added a stop to see an Uncle, the ship my dad served on in the Navy, and the Bonneville Salt Flats.

So many amazing things we saw and did - memories for a lifetime

I'll dig up some of the resources I used and post them this weekend.

Thank you!

 

[lukenick1]

We did a trip similar to this the summer before last (2021) but in the opposite direction. I got a LOT of advice on Tripadvisor, some of which I took, some of which I didn't.

We drove a small-ish SUV (Lexus 450h which are not terribly roomy) and put a rooftop carrier on top to hold camping supplies, but we mostly stayed in hotels. We figured it probably evened out since we don't have a camper and renting or buying one would have been an added cost, plus the hybrid got good gas mileage and a camper would not, plus we drove many places that either a camper couldn't have gone or I would not have felt comfortable trying to drive one. In particular I remember the "road" to a ghost town in California (or maybe Utah? Or Nevada?) that I would not have wanted to drive a camper up. Also the Tioga Pass...yikes.

We started in Tampa, Fl, went through the southern states to California, then spent some time touring around the southwestern/midwestern area, then up through Colorado and into Montana, got as far north as Glacier National Park (couldn't go into Canada due to COVID), then drove across the north to Maine and visited Acadia National Park then back down the Eastern coast to home. We were gone exactly 8 weeks.

We mostly focused on national parks--I think we went to around 23 of them?-- but also saw other things like the Johnson Space Center, Las Vegas, New York City, Niagara Falls, etc.

I could give you our itinerary and my opinion of the places we visited if you're interested in more detail.

I did the vast majority of the driving (I think we covered over 4000 miles) and my passengers were my two teenagers. My husband had to work but he flew out a few times and we'd pick him up at various airports. He joined us for our Grand Canyon visit, then again for the Arches National Park/Great Sand Dunes NP/Black Canyon of the Gunnison NP stint, and finally for the Glacier NP/Yellowstone NP/Grand Tetons NP portion of the trip. By that point (6 weeks into the trip) my daughter was homesick (more like "boyfriend-sick" haha) and flew home with my husband from Jackson WY, so my 13-year-old son and I did the last two weeks just the two of us.

It was a great trip, but very much different from "going on vacation" for a week or two. It became a sort of temporary way of life, which is an adjustment we had to go through.

Would love detailed info! Thanks

 

[lukenick1]

We did a road trip like this in 2009. We started with the idea of renting a small camper, but -- after looking at prices -- we figured out it was cheaper to stay in hotel rooms. Much cheaper, actually. I'm using 2009 prices: the camper rental was going to be almost $1000, and they charged a per-mile cost on top of that. And we realized just how much gas those campers require. In the event, we were glad not to be driving a big clunky vehicle through some of the cities we visited. The math might've been different if we knew someone from whom we could've borrowed a camper.

What we did:
- We had planned to do a month, but my husband's job forced us to reduce it to three weeks. As a result, we flew to Vegas and rented a car and drove among the Western national parks (we are on the East coast).
- My husband was traveling for work a good bit then, so he purposefully chose specific hotels to build up rewards points. About half our hotels were free or reduced because of this -- we saved points for about two years. We also stayed in cabins in national parks, and we got some very cheap rooms from Pinterest.
- Our first stop in Vegas was Walmart, where we bought a cooler and filled it with sandwich materials, fruit and drinks. We typically had breakfast at the hotel, lunch from the cooler and dinner at a restaurant. We abandoned the cooler at the end of our trip /left it in our rental car -- but it saved us quite a bit.
- Here's a website that was useful: https://www.roadtripamerica.com/
- We bought an America the Beautiful Pass at our first national park. It cost about $100 and was absolutely the best value along the trip. Don't buy your pass until your first stop -- your 12 months start counting when you buy it /not upon your first use.
- We spent a huge amount of time mapping out our stops so that our drive was efficient, but we were on the road a lot. At times it was necessary to do a marathon driving-day, but we never did two of those in a row. When we knew we'd be in the car a long time, we tried to plan for a suite or two rooms so we could spread out a bit -- and we tried to get hotels with pools /exercise rooms. We needed some movement after being in the car a long time.
- We visited lots of national parks and historical sites, but we had teens then, so we included a rock concert, a water park and other things that were more "for them" than for us.
- We didn't do everything we wanted; for example, I am still genuinely distressed that I've never seen a redwood tree. We mapped out the major things we wanted to do, then added in things that were "on the way".
- I had a huge notebook with maps, pre-paid tickets, etc. We literally never took a wrong turn on that whole trip.
- We packed light -- one rolling carry-on each /5 outfits total. We washed clothes every couple days. We packed a pair of jeans but no jackets (we traveled in July). This was a mistake, as I was forced to buy $$$ sweatshirts when the temperature dropped to the low 50s in Yellowstone. On the positive side, they were good quality, and we still have them.
- Our favorite stops were the Grand Canyon (North Rim), Mesa Verde National Park, downtown Denver, and Custer State Park.

Cheap rooms from Pinterest?????? Didn't know that was a thing?! Details please.....

 

[Douglas Dubh]

No time limit we are planning to do this after we sell our business. Not sure timeline yet. I am interested in nature and just fun things to do. Not a huge city fan but would like to visit some cities for sure like Chicago, New Orleans, LA. NO sports......

In that case, you should take a year, and spend about a week in each state. I've been planning such a trip for several years now, and actually have a binder full of notes and maps. I'd recommend leaving in the spring. Spend March in Rhode Island, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Maine, and Vermont. April driving through New York, Pennsylvania, West Virginia, and Kentucky. May in Tennessee, Arkansas, Missouri, and Kansas. June in Nebraska, Iowa, Illinois, and Indiana. July in Ohio, Michigan, Wisconsin, and Minnesota. August in North Dakota, South Dakota, Wyoming, and Montana. September in Idaho, Washington, Oregon, and northern California. October in Nevada, Utah, Colorado, and southern California. November in Arizona, New Mexico, and Texas. December in Oklahoma, Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama. January in Florida, Georgia, and South Carolina. February in North Carolina, Virginia, Maryland, Delaware, and New Jersey.

 

[HeatherC]

Awesome! Would you mind sharing your route? How many hours per day did you drive? Thanks

Sure! The first two or three days we did long drives…like 10 hours. After we reached Colorado we tended to drive no longer than like 3 or 4 at most between places.

We took 84 all the way to Scranton, PA then 81 south and then 80 to Cuyahoga National Park in Ohio. We spent an afternoon there then headed to Indianapolis and down to Route 70 all the way across KS to Denver. We then camped a couple nights at Golden Canyon State Park which was nice and toured the local areas near there…Boulder, BlackHawk.

Then we headed towards Utah with stops at Independence Pass (must do), Hanging Lake, Glenwood Springs and an overnight in Rifle, CO at a small but very clean motel called The Western Star Inn.

Utah we went to Moab first and stayed at The Virginian Motel which had a kitchen….very basic but was very clean. We toured Arches, Canyonlands, Deadhorse State Park, etc. From there it was down to Escalante and then Bryce and Zion.

Then Paige, AZ to Horseshoe Bend and Antelope Canyon….absolute must do! Then to the Grand Canyon from the eastern entrance which has way less crowds! We stayed in Cameron, AZ at the Cameron Trading Post. This was a campground and hotel. We stayed hotel side and it was perfect.

From there we drove Route 66 to CA and met my husband in LA where we visited with friends. After we drove up the coast with stops all along with way. In Monterey we stayed at a Best Western which was perfect for our needs.

After CA we headed through ID to Yellowstone and stayed in West Yellowstone at the City Center Motel. After was Grand Tetons and Jackson Hole, WY. We stayed at the Kudar Motel there. We then drove to Denver and put my husband on a plane and headed towards Mt Rushmore and Badlands. We stayed near the Wall Drug Store in Wall, SD at a motel called The Sunshine Inn. Very clean and basic and about 10 min from Badlands. From there we began our home with stops in MN and Chicago.

I would do it again in a heartbeat!

The hotels I’ve mentioned were all from TripAdvisor and were very reasonable and clean. Would stay at any of them again.

Hope this helps!

 

[MrsPete]

Cheap rooms from Pinterest?????? Didn't know that was a thing?! Details please.....

Oh, no -- I mean to say Priceline. And they aren't as good as they used to be. Sorry to get you excited.

 

[lukenick1]

Sure! The first two or three days we did long drives…like 10 hours. After we reached Colorado we tended to drive no longer than like 3 or 4 at most between places.

We took 84 all the way to Scranton, PA then 81 south and then 80 to Cuyahoga National Park in Ohio. We spent an afternoon there then headed to Indianapolis and down to Route 70 all the way across KS to Denver. We then camped a couple nights at Golden Canyon State Park which was nice and toured the local areas near there…Boulder, BlackHawk.

Then we headed towards Utah with stops at Independence Pass (must do), Hanging Lake, Glenwood Springs and an overnight in Rifle, CO at a small but very clean motel called The Western Star Inn.

Utah we went to Moab first and stayed at The Virginian Motel which had a kitchen….very basic but was very clean. We toured Arches, Canyonlands, Deadhorse State Park, etc. From there it was down to Escalante and then Bryce and Zion.

Then Paige, AZ to Horseshoe Bend and Antelope Canyon….absolute must do! Then to the Grand Canyon from the eastern entrance which has way less crowds! We stayed in Cameron, AZ at the Cameron Trading Post. This was a campground and hotel. We stayed hotel side and it was perfect.

From there we drove Route 66 to CA and met my husband in LA where we visited with friends. After we drove up the coast with stops all along with way. In Monterey we stayed at a Best Western which was perfect for our needs.

After CA we headed through ID to Yellowstone and stayed in West Yellowstone at the City Center Motel. After was Grand Tetons and Jackson Hole, WY. We stayed at the Kudar Motel there. We then drove to Denver and put my husband on a plane and headed towards Mt Rushmore and Badlands. We stayed near the Wall Drug Store in Wall, SD at a motel called The Sunshine Inn. Very clean and basic and about 10 min from Badlands. From there we began our home with stops in MN and Chicago.

I would do it again in a heartbeat!

The hotels I’ve mentioned were all from TripAdvisor and were very reasonable and clean. Would stay at any of them again.

Hope this helps!

Awesome I am taking notes....thank you! I am all about clean for sure!

 

[MrsPete]

My kids earned over 100 Junior Ranger Badges on the two trips, plus saw and did a lot of other interesting things.

Oh, yes! Ranger programs are great -- for kids and for adults (not that adults get ranger badges). I remember programs about condors, about the formation of the rocks in Yellowstone, and more.

National Parks are such a treasure.

One of the best memories of our trip was July 4 in the Grand Canyon. The rangers and other staff put together a small parade, which was followed by a water fight. Well, the fire truck was last, and it started the action by spraying the crowd (they had an area marked DRY for anyone who wanted to avoid it). They gave every kid a water gun -- like the big water guns -- and it went on for probably 30 minutes. My kids were insanely happy.

If it was me I would plan the route around the sights I wanted to visit

Yes, that's how we started. We made lists of things we'd like to see -- then we put together a rough plan hitting as many of those sights as possible. Some things were dropped because they were too far off the path, and others were added as we studied the pathway /discovered smaller attractions that we would drive near.

i would suggest if you are not a seasoned camper to do a shorter route/term trip before you commit to such a large one. if you enjoy a few weeks on the road then plan for the longer term.

Excellent suggestion.
A couple reasons we opted not to camp on our cross-country driving trip:
- Camping equipment takes a great deal of space. Just the sleeping bags and pillows would double the amount of luggage we took on our cross-country trip. And you need a tent, cooking equipment, towels for the shower.
- Setting up camp /breaking camp each day requires time. This is time you're not moving down the road.

With a hotel/motel it was nice to have a shower and or kitchen and laundry at the end of the day. We used TripAdvisor to pick hotels and everyone was perfect for our needs. In addition, we found them more cost efficient than many campgrounds. Camping is definitely not as cheap as it used to be. We are huge campers but for this trip the hotels made more sense for us cost wise and time wise setting up and taking down. Plus, the summer we went the temps were well over 100 degrees and the ac in hotels were crucial.

Yes, this played into our choice to use hotels instead of camping -- also, most of our hotels included free breakfast each morning, which was a time and money saver. Our teens were happy to relax each evening with a TV and often a room of their own.

We, too, are big campers, but we were happy that we didn't camp for this trip. Our goal wasn't slow, lazy days hiking and talking around a campfire. Our goal was to see things on the opposite side of America.

Yes, heat was a concern. We traveled in July, and it was 117 degrees in Vegas.

 

[sdoll]

We have never done this, but this summer we did fly to Denver and took a road trip from there to South Dakota to visit the Badlands, Mount Rushmore, and Custer State Park. We then headed across Wyoming to Yellowstone NP and Grand Teton NP and then back to Colorado to visit Rocky Mountain NP before flying out of Denver to head home. It took us two weeks and we still drove over 3,000 miles. We had a great time and want to visit Southern Utah next.

It is a lot of driving and there really isn't much to see from point A to point B. I could never drive across the country as I just don't have the patience for it, but a lot of people do. I think we saw more trucks pulling campers than we saw cars driving. We also met and talked with so many people that were on road trips across the country. Again, it sounds fun, but for my family, flying to a location and doing a road trip from there is more feasible than driving across the country.

I'd figure out where you want to visit and then search for FB groups for those areas. Most of what I learned about the locations we visited were from FB groups. There are a lot of knowledgeable people out there that like to share their experiences. I also asked a lot of questions on the Community Board on the DIS. You could probably even do a search of the DIS on places you'd like to visit. Chances are a lot of places you have in mind have already been discussed on here.

Have fun!

This sounds like an amazing trip!!

 

[Dakota731]

This sounds like an amazing trip!!

I was surprised how much there was to do in SD! We went for Mt Rushmore, but Custer State Park and the Black Hills were amazing. Our kids loved the bison, the gold mine tour, and everything was a short drive away. It was one of our favorite trips.

 

[Douglas Dubh]

I was surprised how much there was to do in SD! We went for Mt Rushmore, but Custer State Park and the Black Hills were amazing. Our kids loved the bison, the gold mine tour, and everything was a short drive away. It was one of our favorite trips.

The coolest thing we did there was the Minuteman Missile NHS, but Badlands and Wind Cave and Jewel Cave are definitely worth at least 4 hours each.

 

[elgerber]

I was surprised how much there was to do in SD! We went for Mt Rushmore, but Custer State Park and the Black Hills were amazing. Our kids loved the bison, the gold mine tour, and everything was a short drive away. It was one of our favorite trips.

During COVID, when we lost our 30th anniv trip to Hawaii, we rented an RV and did South Dakota instead. We had a fantastic time!!
We couldn't see any caves, and the Minuteman building was closed, but we did see the missile. We loved Custer, went a couple of times, loved Crazy Horse, it was wonderful.

 

[MrsPete]

I was surprised how much there was to do in SD! We went for Mt Rushmore, but Custer State Park and the Black Hills were amazing. Our kids loved the bison, the gold mine tour, and everything was a short drive away. It was one of our favorite trips.

Another big vote for Custer State Park! Take the buffalo safari -- we had a fantastic guide who took us all over the park, including places not usually open to the public, and left us with a strong respect for what a buffalo can do.

I really want to go back in September. They do a round-up every year in September, and our guide made it sound really exciting.

 

[elgerber]

Another big vote for Custer State Park! Take the buffalo safari -- we had a fantastic guide who took us all over the park, including places not usually open to the public, and left us with a strong respect for what a buffalo can do.

I really want to go back in September. They do a round-up every year in September, and our guide made it sound really exciting.

They are live-streaming the round up tomorrow

 

[Dakota731]

During COVID, when we lost our 30th anniv trip to Hawaii, we rented an RV and did South Dakota instead. We had a fantastic time!!
We couldn't see any caves, and the Minuteman building was closed, but we did see the missile. We loved Custer, went a couple of times, loved Crazy Horse, it was wonderful.

My kids loved Bear Country there as well! And Devils Tower was a short drive away and was awesome to see. We spent a week in SD but could’ve even used more time. Unfortunately the caves were closed due to covid - I do love a good cave tour!

 

[elgerber]

My kids loved Bear Country there as well! And Devils Tower was a short drive away and was awesome to see. We spent a week in SD but could’ve even used more time. Unfortunately the caves were closed due to covid - I do love a good cave tour!

We did both of those too. Bear Country wasn't quite what I remembered from my childhood, but the baby bears and wolves were so fun.

 

[MrsPete]

They are live-streaming the round up tomorrow

No way! I wish I read this board more regularly ... I'm going to see if it's saved on You Tube. Thanks for this info.