Road Trip Across USA
 

Hi All,

I'll be taking a vacation to the US from Bangladesh in August, I plan to take a road trip across the US starting from the Detroit area and heading towards Las Vegas. Just wondering if anyone could point out some interesting places along the route that I can stop over at. I am planning for the trip to take 2 weeks, so I would like to see as much of the country as I possibly can before I head back.

Thanks,

Head back? Are you flying out of Las Vegas or driving back to Detroit?

I'll be driving back.

Well, I suggest:
Stop:
1) Chicago(Millenium Park/Field Museum/Shedd Aquarium/Top of John Hancock building for the view)
http://www.choosechicago.com/Pages/default.aspx
2)St.Louis (The Gateway Arch/St. Louis Cathedral/Take in a Cardinals ballgame at Busch Stadium)
http://www.explorestlouis.com/
3)Memphis (Get some great barbecue/Visit Elvis' home and final resting place at Graceland)
http://www.memphistravel.com/
4)Dallas (Visit the new Dallas Cowboys football stadium in Arlington/the Sixth Floor Museum in Dallas [from where President Kennedy was assassinated)/the Stockyards in Fort Worth [where they still parade cattle down the street and you can see a daily rodeo]
http://www.fortworth.com/
http://www.visitdallas.com/
http://stadium.dallascowboys.com/
5) Albuquerque -(Scenery/art galleries/good food/with a stop first in Roswell, NM to see the area where many speculate an alien crash-landed in the 40's.)
http://www.itsatrip.org/
http://www.go-newmexico.com/Roswell
6) Flagstaff/Grand Canyon- need I say more?
http://www.flagstaffarizona.org/
http://www.nps.gov/grca/
7) Vegas- Again, need I say more?
http://www.visitlasvegas.com/vegas/index.jsp
8) St. George, UT (Zion National Park-gorgeous)
http://www.go-utah.com/st-george
9) Denver, CO- Rocky Mountain National Park
http://www.denver.org/
http://www.nps.gov/romo
10) Kansas City,MO
11) Back thru Chicago (catch a Cubs or White Sox game)
12) Detroit

-Of course, this is a pretty aggressive schedule. You won't get more than a day in any one place. You could skip Memphis and head directly from St. Louis to Dallas.

Raj, US is a big country. Do you have anyone to share the driving with? You will get tired pretty quickly. You should consider bus or train. Or you could fly from Detroit to Vegas if Vegas is your big-ticket item. (I suspect you are flying in to Detroit because it was the cheapest ticket?)

Good luck planning your trip! I'm sure there will be many more suggestions show up here!

Ahhrg, you are choosing to drive through USA's lest attractive region - the midwest. And you have just 2 weeks to cover 5,000 miles or so!

I LOVE driving those endless highways through North America - but I would not choose to drive through the midwest. There is spectacular scenery in the southwest and many interesting cities and natural wonders in the northeast (in fact, not far from Detroit), but the stretch between Detroit and Las Vegas is, frankly said, not first choice from a tourist's view.

You will lose at least four days with driving through endless, boring fields.

I do not know what you want to do in Las Vegas, but if I where you, I would fly into any southwestern city (e.g. Denver, Salt Lake City, Albuquerque, Phoenix..) and spend the two weeks driving through spectacular southwestern scenery.

Or skip Las Vegas and see beautiful places like Chicago, Niagara Falls, Washington D.C., Pennsylvania etc. from Detroit.

Thank you all for responding. It is very difficult to get a travel visa into the USA from the part of the world that I'm from so this will likely be the last time I will be taking a vacation to the US, so I will be trying my best to see as much of it as I can. I will unfortunately be traveling alone since my wife could not take time off of work to join me but I plan on making stops at hotels along the way if possible.

Thanks again.

Depending upon your routing through the midwest, you will NOT have to tolerate four days of "endless boring fields." Yes, there are many miles of fields. The midwest grows lots of corn and soy beans. But there are also some really pretty areas in southern Illinois and central/southern Missouri (the Ozarks). Once you reach Denver, the Rocky Mountains are just spectacular! I'm in central Illinois (cornfield country) and it takes 1 very long day to drive to Denver, but I prefer to stop along the way if I'm traveling solo.

I would not suggest you drive across Iowa and Nebraska on I80. The scenery has very little variation. This is perhaps the road that traveller1959 drove. I avoid it when I'm going west.

Raj,

Do you have someone you are meeting in Detroit?

If not, it might make more sense to fly from Bangladesh to Los Angeles or San Francisco and see San Diego, Tuscon, Phoenix, Grand Canyon, Las Vegas and back to San franciso and Los Angeles.

This will give you, on average, two days in each place and give you a good mix of nature and city. The US West is dryer than anyplace in South Asia.