Taking a trip across the US
 

My friend and I are planning a roadtrip across the US in 2 years. We'll both be 18 then, and it will be our last summer before college. We're trying to finish the whole trip between the end of May and the middle of August. We'd like to go thru every state in the US in that time.. Do you have any tips? Ideas? We need any advice we can get.

To get better advice from here, a tentative route would make it much easier.

Starting / Ending Point?
Driving?
Budget?
What do you want to see?

Right now its a crapshoot to what we would post.

Check out this post from last year http://www.fodors.com/community/unit...tal-states.cfm

and what tchoiniere said.

I applaud your desire to see the USA. Travel is an exciting part of life and it's wonderful to start young.

I'm not saying this trip can't or should not be done, but you are cutting it to the bone to try and do this in two and a half months.

Do you realize that's less than 2 days per state? Does it matter that you won't have much time to see anything but the highway, gas stations and fast food franchises?

I think you need to do a lot of reading and research with some maps and a realistic budget and then come back and talk to us. We're here to help when you have a plan and some specific questions!

You say nothing about your plans. I assume you own a car - since you can;t rent one at your age. Also, many hotels won;t let 18 year olds register - so you will need to search out hostels or other alternate lodgings.

If you give us more info - after having done some research - people will be able to help more.

We plan to start in Arkansas and then drive Northeast to see all the New England States. I'm not completely sure of the route because I'm not in charge of that.
Our goal is to go look at more unique sights across the country. Maybe not to stop and look at something in every state, but just to go through them.
Yes we're driving. And we don't plan to stay in hotels at all if we can avoid it. We'll camp a few nights and the rest of the time, we plan to sleep in the car.
Neither of us are positive on a budget right now, but being 2 18-year-old girls just out of high school, we probably won't have much..

You should plan on picking the places you really want to see in advance and then working your route around those spots.
If you go the New England from Arkansas, you could cross off a number of states by swinging briefly in to Miss, then across Tenn in Ky and WVA before turning east into Va, DC, Md, Del. Penn, then up I-95 into Maine.
Leaving you can cross NH and Vt, back into Penn beofe hitting Ohio, Mich, Ind. & Ill. Then it gets tricky as you need to weave from north to south and back to get into each state. Once on the west coast, it is easy to visit Cal, Ore, Wash, Nev. and Utah.
If you head back east on I-40 you'll get Ariz, N.M. Tex and Okla easy enough, but Kan, Colo and Missouri take a little more weaving. Near Ft. Smith turn south to visit Louisiana before crossing into Alabama and Fla. Up through Georgia and into S. Carolina and N. Carolina before you turn back toward Ark.
Have a great trip!

If you want to see anything stay off the Interstate Highways, otherwise all you will see is traffic and the lug nuts of the 18 wheelers..... Invest in a good set of maps and learn how to use them if you don't know how already, AAA maps are good.. Get the AAA Tour Books as well.... Use your head for planning your trip and not a GPS unit.... Plan your driving activity for only two or three days in advance. Don't be in a hurry and be flexible.. Sounds like you have the time to see it all.

Well you need to understand that sleeping in the car is not an option. Besides the fact that it's illegal in many places it simply isn;t safe.

If you try to sleep in your car overnight in shopping malls or similar their security will make you leave - ditto the police in residential areas. And many state/local parks are closed at night - and again you wold be forced to leave - unless they have camping areas.

As for just sleeping along the side of the road - well - where do we begin? Safety? Toilet facilities? do you plan on ever taking a shoer or changing your clothes?

This is not doable unless you are camping (and have reservations if it;s summer) or you stay in hostels.

One of my most memorable trips was a road trip across the US, 6 weeks, nearly 10,000 miles. We (2 women, 20 & 24) had a little Datsun pick up with a mini camper. That was 1977. We slept in the camper, locked, in upscale neighborhoods on the street, with friends, strangers, and in hotels when it was 112 in Phoenix and Sacramento. How we got away with it I'll never know. The world is a different place now. I shudder in retrospect at some of the places and people we stayed with!

I suggest at least a tent and find a campsite. Do some planning now. Learn how to set up the tent, over and over... Maybe even start saving some money for hotels. Learn how to fix a flat tire and where the oil is and the water.

Trying to hit all 48 states sounds like a goal rather than a journey. Trust me, go for the journey. You may be able to say you "hit all 48", but what great stories can you tell about enjoying a park, a sunset, people you met in a diner, backpacking, hiking, just sitting by a campfire? My greatest experience was at a newly opened campground in Montana, named for a famous Indian Chief named Chewing Blackbones. We sat around a campfire listening to people sing from all parts of the WORLD. We would have never experienced that if we were in a hurry.

I suggest you make contact with any old family friends or distant relatives around the country; family you might be interested in meeting or who might be interested in meeting you, and who might provide a night or two lodging. My DD did something similar many years ago, and stayed with Great Aunts and Uncles and cousins she had never met before. It gave her a sense of how big her extended family really is and how welcoming they all are. It was also a real safety net.

If you are a member of a church, you might also find connections through your church youth group or minister.

You might look at couch surfing.