Cross Country RV Trip
 

Hi everyone,

My friends and I are taking a road trip from New York to California in June after graduation. We've done some significant research but we're still split on the decision. Half the group wants to rent a large car or a van, and the other half wants to rent an RV. This is a pretty ambitious plan and personally, I don't think a car or van could do this trip. On the other hand, the RV is much more expensive but is probably built for a 5,000 miles journey. Plus, we wouldn't have to worry about hotels every night. We'd have a mini apartment with us the whole way.

I was hoping for some insight on this situation- from personal experience etc. Should we rent a van or go with an RV? Cost is an important factor so keep that in mind when answering.

Thank you,
Peter Griffin

How many are you?

Seven

You won't have to worry about hotels but you will presumably have to worry about an RV campground--which are often not as cheap as you might think.

How many of the seven are prepared to share the driving pf an RV?

I hate to break this to you but you might find you are going to have a problem renting anything depending on your ages. If you are graduating from high school I doubt that you are going to find anyone that will rent to you because I'm going to assume no one is over the age of 21. If you are graduating from college then you will probably be 21. I've read there are extra charges for drivers under the age of 25. I would suggest calling both RV rentals and car rentals and finding this out.

That said, you are going to need a large motorhome to sleep 7. That's going to be more costly. One way charges are usually very high. A larger RV will cost you more in gas. Figure 7 miles per gallon. Depending on where you are headed, you might not have to worry about hotels, but you might have to worry about finding a campground that isn't full. Private campgrounds can be costly and they usually charge extra per person for parties over two. If you plan on visiting big cities the RV is going to be a bad choice. If you plan on going to some of the national parks like Yellowstone, the RV will make it harder to find places to park. The good side to the RV is you don't have to pack and unpack nightly. You can cook your own meals that can save you money. Check before you stay, but many Walmarts let you stay overnight for free.

I don't think you will find a car comfortable enough for 7. I would not worry about a large van making the 5000 miles. They are build for it just as much as an RV. Have you considered bringing camping gear so you could camp if you felt like it?

Good luck!

Utahtea

6 out of the 7 will be 18, 1 will be 17 and all will have drivers licenses. So we'll all be able to drive the RV. The most a campground costs (according to a few online sources) is max $50. Should we expect to pay more? Camping isn't in a favorable opinion.

Will renting the RV itself for a one way trip exceed $5,000? (excluding fuel & maintenance). We plan on mostly visiting National parks and monuments. Not so much big cities. As of right now, we're planning on visiting Nashville & Las Vegas as the two big ones.

We've researched and found Cruise America which seems to offer an RV suitable for our party. I plan on calling them soon for more information.

ALSO-

If our parents were to rent the RV under their name & we were to drive it, is that acceptable or illegal?

With all do respect, your significant research is pretty insignificant. No Mommy and Daddy can't rent you the RV. And insurance is a huge considerations and cost. And having a drivers license for a couple of years does not prepare you for driving a huge RV that will sleep 7 adults, if, and I doubt they will rent one to a group in your age category. It's extremely difficult for anyone under 25 to rent any vehicle. Utahtea is well versed in this type of travel so heed her advice.

I certainly don't want to rain on your parade, but attention must be paid to the details.

Your plan won't work - period.

Renting a motor home is out of the question, and decent motels won't rent to groups of teenagers.

one option you might consider is driving a couple of your own cars (or your parent's cars if you don't own cars yourselves) and taking camping equipment.

ps: your 'significant research' is quite lacking.

I'm not going to insult you, but the basic message is that this won't work unless one of the group is in a family that already has an RV and will lend it to you.

Even then, you can't just stop to sleep in an RV pretty much anywhere east of the Mississippi. Out West you can usually stop in casino parking lots or at many Walmarts, and there is federal land where you can camp for free, but there are no facilities .

You are going to be a tempting target for every cop in the United States. Seven teenage boys = booze and dope whether that is true or not. Every time you pulled into a camp ground, all the older people would say, "Oh, no", your every move will be watched, and if you breathe wrong, the complaints will fly.

What you _can_ do is go on an extended backpacking trip together. You must be rich kids even to be thinking about this, so maybe you could take the summer to hike the Appalachian Trail or the Pacific Crest.

I admire your sense of adventure. But this is not going to work. You need a fairly large RV. Driving it is not something I would recommend for inexperienced drivers - and even at 17/18, that is what you are. If you can even find someone to rent you one, the insurance for people your age would be exorbitant.

You can not rent a car or van until you are 21, and even then there are expensive surcharges until age 25. One-way rentals of anything adds a great deal to cost.

It is illegal to lie about who is driving the vehicle. If you have any kind of an accident, the insurance will be void and you will end up paying for the damages on your own.

So since you can't rent anything, the choices are now either public transportation or driving what you own. If 2 people own cars, you can all do that - and in fact, as much as you like each other, being able to break up the group might be desirable after a while. Camping or cheap hotels - you can find some that will take 4 people/room will end up being cheaper than an RV, even if you could rent one.

Public transportation - revamp your trip and fly someplace and go from there or take a train someplace.

And make sure any hotels or campgrounds will take people under the age of 18 or 21 - when our son was that age that was a problem. And don't think you can lie - they ask for ID - or sneak people in - there are surveillance cameras and the people who staff these hotels were not born yesterday and you will be caught.

So I think you can still have a post-grad adventure. Just not in the way you were thinking.

Agree that your age is going to make a huge problem.

European kids this age travel in groups all the time - but thy are traveling in places where public transit is the rule - trains go almost everywhere with buses filling in.

As you may know trains in the US are nothing like those in europe, don;t go many places, have very sparse schedules and are often very expensive. Bus is more possible in terms of going many places but not that pleasant - esp for a group and still is not good for many national parks.

I think your only option is to use a couple of your own cars to travel in - and find motels along the way that will take a group of teens (MANY motels will not take people under 21, especially in groups, without an over 21 to be responsible - and may require very large damage deposits.) So you would have to have credit cards with hihg limits, since it takes a while for vendor holds to be removed from you credit limit.

Also you need to run a zero-based budget, make sure you all have access to credit and debit cards, and if you are interested in national parks check out availability (lodgings often rent out many months in advance).

I know this sounds like a wonderful adventure - but you really need to do a lot of research to find out what is possible.

Have you considered europe instead? There youth travel is incredibly popular with a very supportive infrastructure. (A couple of years ago my 19 DD and a couple of friends went for almost 6 weeks and loved it - meeting young people from all over the world in the process.

Yes, another thumbs down on a motor home mostly due to being younger than 21 but other reasons also. Too many ifs. But it sounds like you could have a great time traveling one car pulling a fold down camper with stove as well as another vehicle and with some sleeping in tents. You can enjoy campfires and hiking etc. We've done lots of family camping in years gone by with tent, fold down campers, then trailers. You could get a large screened tent with fold down table form group meals. So this might be better than motel rooms.

Ackislander, I find your message to be very offensive. First of all- we are a group of 7 girls and our parents are not all rich. We all have part time jobs and are working very hard for this.

Same goes for you janisj- having never done this, we thought our seven pages of research was significant. My apologies that it wasn't up to your standards.

Thank you to everyone else who was much more kind to us.

Have you considered going by train?

In their defense, I think given that you signed of with the name Peter, many of us made the assumption that it was a group of young men. Even if it were possible to attain an RV for this trip, I find it rather naive and cocky to assume that all of you would be up to the task of driving one for hours a day on unfamiliar roads. Take a wrong turn - have you ever done a three point turn in an RV with height clearance to consider?

7 pages is insignificant when considering such a grand trip cross country. What do you girls want to see and experience? Which route are you considering. Just knowing where to stop from state to state each evening would require files - not pages.

Due diligence is required. Don't resent people who see clearly that due diligence has not been done. Keep researching. Best wishes on whatever adventure you decide.

And remember, the people who you found insulting were simply trying to give you guidance. They took time out of their day to offer suggestions.

For those unaware, Peter Griffin is the name of the main character in the popular animated TV show "Family Guy".

OP/Peter Griffin - aside for some mild snarkiness, we are really all trying to help you plan your post-grad adventure. I think there is a consensus that renting an RV, van or car is not going to work out because of rental rules.

I am happy to help with suggestions for an alternate plan

I'm sorry to say that at your groups age you are not going to be able to find a place that will rent you an RV or any other vehicle. Even if you rent from a less known place or a private party, I doubt they will allow one way travel.

Do any of any of you have an older sibling that could go with you on this adventure or even one parent?

Good luck to you all. I hope you find a solution. Once you do, please come back and we'd love to help you plan your trip.

Utahtea

Hopefully this won't be snarky but
- camping/parking in National Parks is often booked a year in advance.
- aside from paying for parking, you often need to pay for hookups.
- can you empty your holding tanks yourself?
- 7 girls in 1 bathroom that is maybe 3'x3'?


And as far as Las Vegas, you do know you won't be allowed in any casino, right?

I agree with rizzo0904. Depending on how many days you all have for the trip, Amtrak will get you to California with the least hassle. I'm taking the SouthWest Chief in March all the way to Los Angeles. The Boy Scouts have been using this route to get kids to the annual Jamboree at Philmont for decades. http://blog.scoutingmagazine.org/201...mont-jeopardy/
I don't know how one way trips work with rented RVs but I'll guess it is not cheap. A 15 or 30 day USA Rail Pass will get you from New York to California and back depending on how long you spend in CA and other cities.
Nashville and Las Vegas are not served by Amtrak but you can rent a car(s) from Barstow for LV or Memphis for Nashville.

No- the OP group is too young - I don;t think even Rent a Wreck would rent them cars at that age.

And for Las Vegas - you have to be 21 to even enter any of the casinos - not just gamble. And the casinos are strict - they can;t afford to run afoul of the government.

My post was not meant to be rude.

My point was that if you thought renting/driving an RV was at ALL a possibility, then you have not done any sort of adequate research. One of the very first things you would/should have discovered was that renting an RV or car is a non starter. Since you did not discover that, then yes, your research is lacking.

I made a IMO very useful/practical suggestion to drive a couple of your own vehicles and take camping equipment.

If you consider that rude, then you have more worries than how to get that elusive RV

I actually was trying to help you.

the first sign that you haven't really prepared/researched - "I don't think a car or van could do this trip"...why they heck don't you think that a vehicle could drive across country??? another word of caution...having 7 girls travelling together in a combined space and sometimes be a recipe for the end of friendships. from someone older and wiser...be leary. there will be many days when some members of the group want to do one thing and others will want to do something else. with only one vehicle, how are you going to make these decisions.

Until you posted your reply, I thought you were naive and perhaps entitled rich boys.

Now I find that you are girls and naive but only some of you are rich.

You can have a great adventure, but you can't do what you want to do. This isn't "Road Rules."

You can do the trip in two cars with everyone swapping around from car to car, or you could do the trip by train and Trailways or Greyhound bus, but you still have the underage lodging problem. If there were only three or four of you, you could do Air BnB but how many places will have room for seven?

Tent camping? More likely, I think, than motels except the kind of motels that rent by the hour.

Backpacking? River rafting? Horse trekking? Chartering a sailboat? Go for it.

I applaud these young women for wanting to explore their country - but agree that they need to do a LOT more research before they figure out how they can manage this.

I know the OP says they have several pages of notes - but a trip like this a realistic amount of research (except for people with unlimited funds and time) is more like a thick loose leaf notebook - or the computer equivalent.

Besides the basics of the getting around (which they missed completely) they need to do several pages of research on each place they want to stop (weather, lodging, dining, what to do/see and what days and times those places are open).

I would encourage them to try to find 2 cars (either older family cars they can buy - for less than the RV would cost) or from friends (but don;t buy anything without having a mechanic look at it) giving them a lot more freedom at a much lower cost (they still have the car or can resell it when they get back).

But agree that a lot more thought is going to be necessary to really plan this trip.

At the risk of piling on, you have to be 21 or older to operate a Cruise America RV rental:

http://www.usandcanadatravel.com/mot...ondition.shtml

I'll second the recommendation of considering Europe. Europe is much better suited for teens who want to explore. Public transportation is everywhere, frequent, and with a little planning usually very inexpensive, especially if you can get "student" rates. Attractions also offer huge student discounts. And lodging should be much easier (though you might want to check with the folks on the Europe board since things could have changed in the last 25 years).

Don't get me wrong, the US is great. I did my first cross-country roadtrip (in my own car) when I was 22, and I loved it so much that I've done it again almost every year for the 25 years since. It's an amazing country. Unfortunately, without multiple cars that you (or your families) own and an over-21 chaperone, you're going to face age discrimination at every turn.

I'd second the train if your main purpose was to get to California and you just wanted to see the country as you went rather than fly over it. Amtrak will allow you to ride without restriction, it's safe, and if you're willing to ride in coach can be pretty inexpensive. The problem is when you get off the train someplace in the middle of the country, you're stuck with no easy way to get around without a car (which you can't rent).

So, I'd recommend Europe now, and then see the US after your college graduation. If you're really determined to do the US now. If you really want to do the US now, I'd say look at where Amtrak stops, and see if you can find tours to parks of other attractions you'd like to see.

have you looked at joining a group tour with a company like greentortoise ? You would probably fly to San Francisco/LA or return from there and have someone else worry about things like accommodations, gas, car trouble, etc. It might not be much more costly than the trip you are planning and would be much easier on your folks. (Can you tell I'm on the older side?)

I have to 2nd (or is it 3rd?) Europe as more practical for now.
It is easy to travel by train everywhere, the travel structure supports young people with hostels, transportation passes, etc.

I wonder if their "research" included looking at hostels here in the US.
It didn't include the first premise of "ability to even think about renting even a car, let alone an RV".
A driver's license doesn't guarantee the ability to drive a huge vehicle. I almost want to ask if their families own cars--maybe live in an urban area without the need. The lack of knowledge of "a car or van not being able to make the trip" had me wondering also.
The idea of a young persons' tour is pretty good. A family friend (young woman) did that, visiting several parks out west after graduating high school.