Road Tripping in the USA!

Quartz · 1 Feb 2022 at 10:32

I'm planning on going to America for the eclipse of April 8 2024. I'll be seeing it in Plano / Dallas. I have an acquaintance there. I have another acquaintance in Atlanta, Georgia, and a former colleague in Savannah, Georgia. So I'm thinking of a leisurely road trip visiting all three, starting in Plano. But is there lots to see en route? Or is it mostly boring?

And do rental cars come with dashcams these days?

SoliD · 1 Feb 2022 at 10:42

Quartz said:
I'm planning on going to America for the eclipse of April 8 2024. I'll be seeing it in Plano / Dallas. I have an acquaintance there. I have another acquaintance in Atlanta, Georgia, and a former colleague in Savannah, Georgia. So I'm thinking of a leisurely road trip visiting all three, starting in Plano. But is there lots to see en route? Or is it mostly boring?

And do rental cars come with dashcams these days?

Plenty to see/do between - I did a 3 week round trip from Houston in 2017. bit of a write up about where we went https://www.overclockers.co.uk/foru...ing-in-the-usa.18227057/page-68#post-32019251

b0rn2sk8 · 1 Feb 2022 at 12:07

Why do you need a dash cam in a rental car?

Get a $0 damage collision waiver (which many booked from the U.K. come with) and even if you hand the car back in a thousand pieces you are covered.

Do you remember the episode of top gear where Clarkson got the ‘fastest car in the world’ otherwise known as a cheap hatchback from Enterprise?

Jimbeam3678 · 1 Feb 2022 at 22:01

b0rn2sk8 said:
Why do you need a dash cam in a rental car?

Get a $0 damage collision waiver (which many booked from the U.K. come with) and even if you hand the car back in a thousand pieces you are covered.

Do you remember the episode of top gear where Clarkson got the ‘fastest car in the world’ otherwise known as a cheap hatchback from Enterprise?

They are exclusions though, so read the fine print.

uncle_rufus · 2 Feb 2022 at 12:21

Ashish Doshi said:
thanks, a lot to go through!?

b0rn2sk8 said:
Id just read the whole thing, loads of really good information.

If you want some extremely detailed information about a similar trip one of my threads which started out asking about a honeymoon trip also includes a pretty verbose writeup of what we did (I never quite finished the writeup but it might be of interest)

https://forums.overclockers.co.uk/t...s-op-updated-11-08-19-final-version.18858993/

ramirez · 2 Mar 2022 at 08:05

Hi folks, am doing a Chicago to New Orleans road trip at the end of March. Has anyone done that trip?

I've been looking at Turo Vs. standard sort of rental cars. Is there any way to guarantee something like a Mustang, Camaro or Challenger from Chicago from the usual hirers?

b0rn2sk8 · 2 Mar 2022 at 09:07

I wouldn’t have thought Turo would even work if you are going one way, it’s a private hire and they’ll want their car back where it started.

As for regular hires, no guarantee without paying $LOL but the chances are that’s what it will be as that’s what they tend to stock in that class, particularly if it’s a convertible.

Maccy · 2 Mar 2022 at 09:19

I booked with Avis and went for a 'Mustang or similar', asked when we got to the desk could I have a Mustang with the V8 and they were fine with it, think it was an extra few quid per day.

uncle_rufus · 2 Mar 2022 at 09:48

Hmm it varies though - I booked "Mustang or similar" on our trip and when we got there to pick up the car (at Vegas Mccarran) they literally had a single car available and it was not particularly "similar" to a Mustang in my opinion

(I can't quite recall what it was now, just a pretty bog standard american saloon)

StarShock · 2 Mar 2022 at 10:40

I did that about 10 years ago and we got a camaro SS, that was quite a lot of fun

Vanquish-Storm · 11 Mar 2022 at 17:44

Are there any sim deals that work in USA anymore? Just something like a sim only one month with data more than anything

EDIT: haha sorry just realise this is motors I did a search and this thread came up but with info on mobile from 2019

FerretBoy · 11 Mar 2022 at 18:15

I'm going on my USA road trip this year (3rd year lucky) and will be using my Three contract.

SoliD · 13 Mar 2022 at 07:50

FerretBoy said:
I'm going on my USA road trip this year (3rd year lucky) and will be using my Three contract.

Doesn't go roam change from May so you have to pay a fiver a day?

b0rn2sk8 · 13 Mar 2022 at 09:42

In my experience any included roaming in Three is also throttled to hell and back so even if you have a decent data allowance, don’t expect and more than web browsing and maps.

As soon as you fire up anything like Spotify it’s ‘nope sorry’.

You are normally better off grabbing a local sim.

Quartz · 13 Mar 2022 at 10:27

b0rn2sk8 said:
Why do you need a dash cam in a rental car?

To protect myself in case of accident - to demonstrate that it was the other driver's fault - and to protect myself from corrupt police.

FerretBoy · 13 Mar 2022 at 13:43

SoliD said:
Doesn't go roam change from May so you have to pay a fiver a day?

Ah yeah, thanks for pointing that out

Peerzy · 13 Mar 2022 at 22:22

Quartz said:
To protect myself in case of accident - to demonstrate that it was the other driver's fault - and to protect myself from corrupt police.

Book through the proper websites and you'll have $0 excess and all the insurances you need for an accident. A dashcam could make no difference. Additionally I'm not sure the US police go around targeting law abiding tourists and normally they'd pull you over from behind and the dashcam would be filming in front.

I've encountered police twice in 4 US trips and over 10,000 miles. The first time I was speeding (unintentionally) through an area marked for roadworks (but none were happening at the time). My paperwork was checked, the guy asked about our trip and gave me a warning (thankfully allowing me to avoid the fine which was doubled due to the roadwork area). The second time I was pulled over on the hard shoulder of a motorway and they stopped to check I was okay and if we needed any help.

Quartz · 13 Mar 2022 at 22:26

Peerzy said:
and the dashcam would be filming in front.

You really should have front and rear dashcams these days. And sensible people have front, rear, and interior cameras - I'll be upgrading to one when my current camera fails, maybe sooner.

Peerzy · 14 Mar 2022 at 08:55

Quartz said:
You really should have front and rear dashcams these days. And sensible people have front, rear, and interior cameras - I'll be upgrading to one when my current camera fails, maybe sooner.

You're going to fit 3 dashcams to your rental car for a holiday when you would be fully insured with a $0 excess?

Sounds a bit weak tbh, I'd be looking to hook into the cars wiring and run an DVR in the boot with a full set of 8x Hikvision 4K cameras. You'll need some sort of 4G SIM and server as well to push the raw video into a cloud provider so that it's offsite/car and that would stop the corrupt Police from deleting it all. If you weld and modify the boot slightly you should get all this (plus obviously, a UPS) into a 6U rack that would fit nicely.

Quartz · 14 Mar 2022 at 09:27

Peerzy said:
You're going to fit 3 dashcams to your rental car for a holiday when you would be fully insured with a $0 excess?

One dashcam with three cameras. Being insured does not protect you from criminal prosecution.