Road Tripping in the USA!

Soldato
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Bryn Celyn Wales
I’ve been to Texas, Louisiana and Tennessee multiple times.

I actually don’t find Texas that interesting. Austin is nice and probably my favourite town in Texas. San Antonio is fun for a day or two but there’s not a lot to do, Houston and Dallas are boring (IMO) and most of the rest of the state is huge expanses of nothingness with a few little towns which all blend into one after you’ve visited a few.

New Orleans is fantastic and 100% worth a visit. Lots to do, great food, great bars and feels quite different to any other city I’ve been to in the US. The surrounding areas can be quite dodgy though - I felt more in danger in Baton Rouge than I ever have anywhere in Mexico, which should tell you all you need to know.

Nashville is great too, particularly if you’re into country music, and Memphis is worth a visit as well. The best way I can describe them is that’s how I always thought the US was before I visited it.

Not sure how you’re planning on getting to San Diego, but if you’re driving, that’s a hell of a long way from your other destinations so I’d be tempted to fly. If you have the time, it could be fun to rent a car in San Diego and do LA, Vegas, San Francisco, Napa Valley etc
Cheers man. Yeah once in texas... I'll be flying to San Diego... so basically now, looking at weeks 1/2/3 over tenessee/mississippi/texas... then weeks 4/5/6 over california way... but will be highing a nice big fat car. So, any good places over way and yeah just let me know as starting to build the trip now... so imagine me landing in nashville... I've got three weeks of adventures before landing in say Dallas then for a flight to San diego!

Bear in mine, I wanna see real america as well, not sure the cities... and I do love mountains and great scenary so... anything you reccomend would be good!
 
Soldato
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I've done the Houston - Dallas - Memphis - Nashville - New Orleans - Houston route. It was probably the best of all the road trips we've done.

Plenty to see and do, including Jack Daniels Distillery, and from Nashville you can take a day trip out to the Corvette factory (do the tour) and the museum.
 
Soldato
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Monterrey, Mexico
Cheers man. Yeah once in texas... I'll be flying to San Diego... so basically now, looking at weeks 1/2/3 over tenessee/mississippi/texas... then weeks 4/5/6 over california way... but will be highing a nice big fat car. So, any good places over way and yeah just let me know as starting to build the trip now... so imagine me landing in nashville... I've got three weeks of adventures before landing in say Dallas then for a flight to San diego!

Bear in mine, I wanna see real america as well, not sure the cities... and I do love mountains and great scenary so... anything you reccomend would be good!

Sounds like a good plan. In terms of recommendations, I think I might have posted this before, but anyway, here are my favourite places.

San Antonio:
River Walk and the Alamo are worth seeing, but that's about it. I wouldn't spend more than a couple of days there personally. It's worth remembering that you generally can't leave your car overnight on street parking, so make sure your hotel includes parking in the price. A lot of them don't, and ask for a ludicrous sum of money for it as they know you don't have any other option.

In terms of eating in San Antonio, there used to be a really nice restaurant called Bella on Houston but I think it's closed now unfortunately. There are a lot of great restaurants and bars on the river walk, but you'll pay top money for them.

Austin:
Pretty much the standard stuff like you'll find on Tripadvisor really: it's a nice town to walk around, and there's a lot of nice bars in the centre. Circuit of the Americas is well worth a visit.

New Orleans:
Willie Mae's is a must if you like fried chicken, although it's hugely popular so you need to get there early. The Carousel Bar is amazing, albeit a bit touristy, and there's quite a few jazz bars / old style pubs that around the French Quarter. It's generally just a great place to walk around. The Gumbo Shop does really good Gumbo, which is a traditional dish from there, so well worth trying.
They have a lot of old style trams which can be fun to take a ride on, particularly after a few drinks. I'm not massively into museums / history etc, but there's a lot of historical sites in the city, and outside there's swaps / old plantations etc you can visit.

Nashville:
You can walk down Broadway / Music Row / Arts District etc - loads of great bars with live music, especially at night. The city is also pretty much surrounded by forests / rivers etc, so it's definitely worth exploring outside a bit. IIRC there's quite a few nice places to stop between Nashville and Memphis, plus Lynchburg to the south which I've never visited but can imagine is probably worth it if you're in that part of the world anyway.
 
Soldato
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Birmingham
Hi all, anyone help me with a couple queries about Canada.

The first one - car hire - I started a thread in general. I was trying to determine if there were added extra costs to car hire in Canada. Price comparison sites are coming back at around £125 for 5 days hire, which sounds too cheap. Can anyone confirm if that's about what I should expect.

Second - mobile phone use. My network (Virgin) does not have a roaming plan for Canada so charges are ridiculously high. How can I get to use my phone abroad in Canada for 'normal' costs?

Thanks
 
Soldato
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Birmingham
@danlightbulb my O2 sim worked fine in Canada in 2019, didn't check my Three sim though. I think Canada is a bit better than it used to be!

Ive done a lot of reading up on various networks roaming charges.

Its pretty dire. Every PAYG tariff Ive seen doesn't include any areas outside of Europe.

Contracted tariffs vary, very expensive plans *may* include Canada, but a lot of plans seem to need a bolt on.

O2 needs a £5 per day bolt on even on a contract plan.

Its a joke, really.

It will cost me about £40 to get a 30-day contract SIM with the appropriate plan, which Id then have to immediately cancel so it covers just my trip.

My only other option is to try and get a PAYG sim locally when I get there.
 
Soldato
Joined
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I'm about to go to Toronto for a week. Hired a car with enterprise, wasn't cheap. Will use insurance from my amex card.

Plan to buy a sim out there, although reckon it's not so important with hotel WiFi etc. Pre downloaded maps.
 
Associate
Joined
27 Sep 2008
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1,296
Hi all, anyone help me with a couple queries about Canada.

The first one - car hire - I started a thread in general. I was trying to determine if there were added extra costs to car hire in Canada. Price comparison sites are coming back at around £125 for 5 days hire, which sounds too cheap. Can anyone confirm if that's about what I should expect.

Second - mobile phone use. My network (Virgin) does not have a roaming plan for Canada so charges are ridiculously high. How can I get to use my phone abroad in Canada for 'normal' costs?

Thanks

Phone plans are very expensive over here in Canada and also the cheaper plans are capped at 3g speeds. The max I can get is 120kbps. It feels like going back 15 years in internet terms and everything takes ages to load. I also use my O2 SIM card from England which is also capped at 3g speeds over here. At least it's a lot cheaper and unlimited data, can also use the minutes to phone home.

I have been over here a year and spent the summer roadtripping from the east to west coast over 20000km so can possibly answer any other questions you might have. I have bought a car so can't help with the rental question. Unfortunately petrol prices are skyrocketing over here so a smaller engine will be better if you are doing a lot of km
 
Soldato
Joined
8 Jan 2005
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wiltshire
yeesh, planning a West coast road trip for next year. Flights are not too bad but hire car prices have gone absolutely nuts. We are looking at paying near as dammit triple what we did in 2018 for the same period.
 
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