On our bucket list is a road trip across American and back towing a small camper. Has anyone done this and have a great route to follow? I want to see as many sights as possible and also not sure the best time to take this trip. Thought we would start going west through the north and return through the south. The least amount of driving every day is our ideal route i know that sounds stupid right on a road trip but we just don't want to spend hours in the car on any given day. Prefer to sight see/make stops along the route. Is parking in Walmart parking lots overnight for free still a thing? Thanks for any direction, advice, tips, etc. Want to start gathering info and plan early. We figured bringing a camper would be the most budget friendly. BTW Connecticut is our starting point.
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.