Hi there.

I am an Aussie living in the UK

Thought about coming to America for a bit of a road trip on a few occasions but I have never really followed it up.

I watched a fascinating documentary on TV the other night about a guy who drove from Illinois to California and I really have to give it a go myself and follow in his footsteps, do what he did, visit the places he visited etc etc

Can anyone offer any travel tips for a journey of this length??

Firstly, a road trip through North America can be fascinating if you like driving. Especially in the West, driving is smooth an easy. Highways seem endless, straightforward up to the horizon with hardly any traffic. And gorgeous scenery around you.

Secondly, I would not drive from Illinois to California, because the midwestern plains will be a boredom. I would prefer a stretch or loop through spectacular landscape in the Southwest. Some of the most beautiful states are New Mexico, Arizona, Colorado, Utah and California. In this region, landscape is surprisingly diverse: colourful deserts, high mountains, green valleys, deep canyons and lots and lots of spectacular landscape formations.

Thirdly, we always enjoyed driving 300 to 400 miles per day (5 to 6 hours) and spend the remainder with seeing attractions or hiking. Travelling the USA is very easy - you easily find accomodation (although it gets tight in the major parks in high season) and supplies.

Here is a very personal list of places which I had included into several roadtrips and which I had extremely enjoyed:

- Santa Fe, New Mexico (my absolute number one).
- White Sands, New Mexico.
- Tucson, Arizona.
- Grand Canyon, Arizona.
- Monument Valley, Arizona/Utah.
- Lake Powell, Arizona/Utah.
- Mesa Verde, Colorado.
- Dinosaur Natl. Mon., Utah.
- Salt Lake City, Utah.
- Yellowstone, Wyoming.
- Death Valley, Nevada/California.
- Yosemite, California.
- Highway 1 between San Francisco and Los Angeles, California.
- San Diego, California.
- San Francisco, California.
- Sonoma Valley/Northern Napa Valley, California.

There are many more: Bryce Canyon, Zion, Grand Teton, Joshua Tree...

We also enjoyed Texas (there are recent threads about Texas). Why not driving the route Austin - San Antonio - Big Bend - White Sands - Tucson - San Diego? (this would be a route for winter)

Depending on the time you have and the season you are choosing, you have many options for road trips, either loop drives or stretches from A to B (requires an open-jaw flight).

Do some web research on the places on my list (wikipedia as a start) and give us some more specifications about your trip and you will receive a wealth of information from the Fodorites.

You will need to plan this trip by the time of year. Weather in the U.S. can be very diverse and driving over the Rockies in the winter is not a good idea. Chicago in the winter will be cold and dark and snowy as well. So ask others what time of year would be best for this. Summer can get very hot in the southwest. I've never driven over the Rockies so I don't know which months are best. Fall is a lovely time in the United States and beautiful in the midwest.

Hi Traveller1959, thanks for your reply.

It's really those midwestern plains that appeal to me!! It was very barren and desolate on this documentary that I watched...the whole area had a mysterious almost etherial quality to it and I just want to do the same route as the guy in the documentary as he clearly had a fantastic time!!!

Thanks Kelliebellie

I'm not entirely sure what time of the year this guy did the journey on this documentary...the weather looked hot although it did rain considerably during one part I think.

Thought you were going to do it by lawnmower?

http://www.fodors.com/community/unit...-lawnmower.cfm

That was just a bit of fun!!

I wasn't seriously going to try!!!



By skateboard, maybe.... ;-)


So seriously guys...is this trip recommended????

I am going to speak in general terms....If you really want to see the country stay off the Interstate Highways as much as possible, it doesn't matter what your likes and dislikes are as far as what you want to see... I always to this when we travel the country side. This years Road Trip was 10.5K miles thru 25 states from Florida to the Pacific NW and return. If not a member you may want to join a motor club like RAC (I guess its still around) and get AAA maps and Tour Books of all the states you are planning to visit. There is more satisfaction in doing your own trip routing than blindly trying to follow an electronic device plastered to the dash of the car.. In addition stop at a friendly WalMart* store on arrival and invest $5.97 in a current Rand McNally Road Atlas...

Others have given you an excellent list of places to visit on your trip. On the other hand I have given you some ideas as to how to see more and enjoy the vastness of the U.S.A.

You may even want to stop in the little town of La Crosse KS and visit the Barbed Wire Museum, we did several years ago...

Give it a break Cris P Bacon...no one cares.

Well, I care! I live in the middle of the country... the flyover part... (!!!) and I think Cris would enjoy his drive. Go for it, Cris.

I'd suggest doing it either before the summer heat or before the winter chill settles in. In other words, try for late April or late September. How much time will you have? I've driven to the west coast several times, and have taken northern and southern routes.

Wow, a rare troll on fodor's...too bad.

To get a real feel for a US road trip read William Least- Heat Moon's "Blue Highways" where he drove on "roads less traveled", the blue highways, around the country.

Cris p you have left a lot of negative comments on other posts that were totally out of line. I hope no one helps you here, and I hope you stay out of the US.

Just a genral note about your desire to go across the plains. I'm kind of with you on that. If you come from the UK, (or the east coast like me) heading across the plains has it's appeal. It's not all flat and boring by any means. (western KS and eastern CO, yes, but not everywhere) If starting from IL, consider getting down to Grand Island NE, thne taking Rte 2 diagonally NW thru the Sand Hills region. This is supposed to be a fantastic drive, I've been wanting to do it for some time now. It'll put you up in NW Nebraska, where you can then take in the Black Hills/Badlands before heading farther west/southwest. BTW, "Carhenge" is on this route near Alliance, NE-not that that's the main reason to go, but it's there!

http://www.byways.org/explore/byways/16470/

This is a great site for some scenic byways and backroads to take.

Sounds like a great trip, one day I'll follow your footsteps (once the kids grow up a bit).

I would recommend renting a car instead of buying one. The US system is not friendly for a fast buy/sell.

Also, as I told my wife before we went to Israel - in Europe 100 miles is "far", in the US 100 years is "old" - just keep that in mind

Cris, I drove once from Illinois to CA and it was a great trip. We started in Chicago and took just over 3 wks. I flew back from CA. My companion was from North Carolina and had never seen the great plains. While I was bored by them (my family had driven many times over the Great Plains when I was a child), he was fascinated by the long stretches of prairie. We visited the Badlands of ND and Wall Drugs. We stopped at the foot of the mountains - just before Yellowstone NP. We spent a few days in Yellowstone, drove down to the Grand Tetons for backpacking (where I met a mosse on the trail), then up to Glacier National Pk. We camped just about everywhere. Then we cut across Idaho and into Washington. We visited Seattle, Mt. Rainier (stayed a few days) and the Pac Coast, camping in the rain forests. We drove through Portland and down the Oregon coast, then went to San Francisco for a few days. It was a fabulous, fabulous trip that I will never forget. The national parks in the US are spectacular and I would encourage you to make this trip.

Cris, you need to post the route that the documentary suggested, or you will continue to get responses all over the map (so to speak).

Former midwesterner, Dick Durand.

Thanks dbdurand.

The trouble is I'm not 100% sure of the route that this excellent documentary took across America...it was a little confusing as I've never been to the USA before and I cant recall any of the towns they mentioned really.

I'll do my best to describe what this documentary said though, it was a superb production and gave me a real insight as to what America is like. As a result of what I saw I can't wait to come over.

Basically it started off with this guy doing a road trip from Chicago to California. He picked up a Hitch Hiker on the way and gave him a ride. The Hitch hiker was a really nice softly spoken guy, but after only a few miles he told the bloke doing the documentary that he had killed and mutilated another driver a little bit earlier. The bloke doing the documentary was naturally a bit scared by this and actually pushed this hitch hiker out of the door of his moving vehicle!

The documentary continued, naturally the presenter was a little shaken by what he had seen and done. God knows how he carried on really. It was incredible. Superb journalism I reckon. But not long later a station wagon overtook the presenters car with a young family in it. In the back of this car.............was the actual Hitch Hiker that the presenter had pushed out of the car earlier!!!! I couldn't believe it!!!

The presenter tried to warn the family in this car about their psycho passenger but in the process nearly smashed his own car up and was forced to stop. A little while later he managed to get his car going again and stumbled upon the station wagon a few miles up the road....the family were inside...all had been murdered.

The documentary then got a bit strange. This crazed hitch hiker was trying to kill the presenter. All through the programme. He ended up killing loads of cops and a spunky looking sheila who worked in a road side diner that the presenter had managed to score with in a motel room. He abducted her and tied her inbetween a tractor unit and a semi trailer before driving away and decapitating her.

Thank god he was eventually arrested by the cops. But as the presenter carried on his journey towards california, the same hitch hiker escaped in a Police wagon, killed all the cops on board and then tried to kill the presenter by firing a shottie repeatedly in to the front of the presenters car.

The presenter managed to kill this hitch hiker by running him over, taking the shottie off him and pumping him full of lead. The documentary ended with the presenter sparking up a smoke and watching the sun slowly start to set somewhere over the desert.

It was a fantastic documentary about a normal every day roadtrip across America. I definately want to do the same thing.

I hear you can buy a gun in Wal Mart in America....could I buy one too?? Or do I have to be a citizen???

I have not seen this documentary, but there is absolutely no need to follow a preassigned route. America has a fantastic network of roads, and it is easy to create your own itinerary. And planning the route is part of the fun. You will enjoy it much more than rather following a beaten path.

You havent seen it traveller1959??

It was a superb documentary...a real insight into every day life driving across America.

Thats what I liked about it....it was so true to life. I actually felt like I was THERE.... y'know???