Looking into planning epic USA Road Trip

Stringy

Stringy

Stringy

Soldato
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Please read first - The first post is just background of the idea, it has evolved to not necessarily be coast to coast so read the entire thread before commenting too heavily. Thank you :)

Good day to one and all,

I am currently looking into planning an epic 2 week road trip from LA to NYC stopping at various places across the way for a minimal amount of sightseeing and maximal amounts of partying.

Period - End of March/Beginning of April

Stop offs - Looking at 2 nights in Vegas as a definite must so far, probably want to take in New Orleans (what's it like these days?) and possibly Memphis and Washington DC - but pretty much blank canvas other than Vegas!

Flights look to be about £500 (into LAX, return from JFK) and a decent sized car/SUV for 3 adults to be around £500 split between 3 of us.

Complete budget will be around £2500-£3000 per person (looking for near bottom end of that) and more than happy to slum it in budget accom for a lot of it.

So what I want to know is this:
Has anyone here done anything like this before, and if so have they got any tips?
Is 2 weeks long enough? (bearing in mind budget inflation with increase in time and needing time off work...)
Any recommendations for stop overs in middle america?
Cheapest car hire company is the USA?
With fuel costs is the budget reasonable? (bearing in mind fuel split between 3)
Best place to get a cowboy hat for the trip?
 
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That sounds way too short. I'd stick with states around the West coast if I were you. Lots to see there.
 
KPeh said:
That sounds way too short. I'd stick with states around the West coast if I were you. Lots to see there.
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I agree with this.

You'll be driving non-stop if you want to cover all of that distance in two weeks.

Did LA -> SF -> Vegas -> Grand Canyon -> San Diego -> Back to LA in a little over two and a half weeks last year.

Had a blast. :)
 
Agreed 2 weeks is far too short to cross America. I did just the west coast in 2 weeks and still didn't get to see everything I wanted. I like the idea though, if I had the money and time I'd almost join you :p
 
Driving will only consume 25% of the trips awake time, and we're not fussed about sightseeing per-se - but it's these facts and snags that I want to look into.

It's the experience of the road trip that we're looking forward to almost as much as anything - We're open to all suggestions and criticisms of the idea, and adjustments to it - For example LA to Miami has 10 hours less driving in it if it's vaguely LA->Vegas->Houston->New Orleans->Miami. I've already suggested hugging one coast as it means we could always return the hire car to the same place and save a bit of money, and I think it will probably remain on the table as an option.
 
It would be daft to attempt that in 2 weeks - crossing the US from LA to NY in the most direct route is almost 48 hours of driving, at 8 hours a day that is 6 days of *just* driving.

IMO either take at the absolute minimum a month to do it, or stick to say, the West Coast.

You could do LA to Miami would be a bit more manageable, but one-way fees are pretty expensive too so you have to factor that in.
 
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I flew to NY with 4 mates and flew back from LA. Spent 1 month there driving across (total of 4500 miles). Went New York -> Philadelphia -> Washington DC -> North Carolina -> Panama City (for Spring Break) -> New Orleans -> San Antonio -> Carlsbad/Roswell -> Vegas -> LA.

Amazing trip. Spent about £3k spending money but stayed in a fair few hotels as well as staying at RV parks and slept in our RV. Any questions, just ask. Still got a lot of our itinerary saved.
 
thats a big drive for 2 weeks. took my wifes parents 1 week to drive from new mexico to new hampshire. your going to be sat in the car most of your holiday. Either take a longer holiday or do either the west, or east coast.

Ive got a 10 hr drive on friday from hampton, new hampshire to toronto. have a look on the map it aint that far.
 
Sounds like the sensible thing to do is either increase duration or reduce scope thus far, thanks for the advice!
doofski said:
I've got a 10 hr drive on friday from hampton, new hampshire to toronto. have a look on the map it aint that far.
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It had occurred to me to look at a map and route planner, but thanks anyway.
 
3 weeks you could do LA->MIA pretty well I reckon, but then you'd almost be stuck in the middle of saying that an extra week you could have done it 'properly' or just taken a 2 week holiday to do California & Vegas 'properly'
 
There are two immediatly epic failures in this.

a) You do not really have enough time in 2 weeks to do LA to NYC. I'm just about manging to do LA to Vegas to SF to LA in just over 2 weeks next month.

b) £500 for 2 weeks car rental sounds about right but you MUST READ THE SMALL PRINT because one-way fees are almost NEVER included in the quote and are payable locally. LA to NYC is going to generate one hell of a big one way fee, maybe even doubling the cost of the rental.
 
you really want to get out and see some of what your driving through. Most yanks tend to be very friendly and talkative. Some big mean biker guy struck up a conversation with me while i was sat in the car waiting for the wife at dunkin donuts. on my first visit to the states in 98 my mate and i went for a quick beer in a bar in a dodgy looking area we were staying in, we thought 1 beer then we'll leave, turned out to be a cop and firemans bar and we left about 5 hours later had a great night chatting to the locals.

theres too much to see so dont spend most of your holiday sat in a car :)
 
Cheers for the pointers, sounds a bit like what I suspected...

So, East Coast or West Coast for 2 weeks? (ignoring Vegas, I've been before)
 
Miami -> Orlando or Tampa -> Jacksonville, FL -> Charleston or Myrtle Beach, SC -> <Insert Equidistant stop here> -> Washington D.C. -> NYC

All stops 2 nights, set off early enough in the morning and you'd get at least an afternoon the full following day in each place - Sounds like a good plan to me if I can sell it to the others! And the car hire is half the price the Coast to Coast was going to be with the one way fee, and all the drives are reasonably comfortable lengths. Could always reduce the stop between South Carolina and DC to a crash in a motel and go balls deep on the driving in order to get more time in the other places. Thoughts on this idea/alternative places to go?

I'm also going to look into a argument for the West Coast while building an argument against coast to coast - without more money and time it seems like a tiring endeavour. Will also look into a more localised road trip, take in less of the country (possibly only a couple of states) but increase the 'quality time'* spent in each.

*Read: Drinking, cavorting with locals, being hungover, eating awesome american food
 
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As others have said - that's gonna be a lot of driving in a very short space of time! Me and my mates (before I lived over here) did a huge circle around the country, starting and ending in New York - and that took 2 months.

If you don't care about where you stay overnight so much then do the "Holiday Inn Express" tour like we did. There's one every few miles along the interstate and they're cheap, clean and you get breakfast thrown in. Of course they all look the bloody same so you get sick of them, but it's somewhere comfy to sleep with a TV and aircon. There are cheaper motels of course, but you always get what you pay for.

For car hire you have to watch out for drop-off fees. We went in 1999 and National was the only one we could find that didn't charge a fortune if you dropped the car off at a different location - they didn't charge anything actually. Might be different now.

New Orleans wasn't my cup of tea. Washington DC is great if you stick to the downtown area - all the government buildings and monuments, etc. I would recommend Denver - wonderful city. I would forget LA (it's a dump) and go for San Fran or San Diego (especially if you like big warships!) instead. Vegas is a must-visit place, of course. As for other places.....depends if you like outdoorsy stuff or night life, etc.
 
when we went in 98 we landed at newark picked up the hire car then drove down to bowie near washington dc. spent a week there doing the civil war stuff and washington. then we drove up to toronto, round lake ontario then cap cod and boston. dropped hire car back off in newark and flew home.
 
If you're doing the East coast could I suggest Savannah and St Louis? both are really nice places to visit. Memphis is a definite, although it has had better times, and New Orleans goes without saying =)
 
Vegas - Big Shot at the top of the stratosphere is a must, as is the gun store shooting range

Grand Canyon helicopter flight is pretty awesome aswell, and if you have time hike down into the canyon

Memphis - visit BB Kings ;)

Washington - arlington cemetery - changing of the guard


Edit: also 2 weeks is no where near long enough to do coast to coast, i done it in 3 weeks and that was quite rushed (lots of driving)
 
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