Student road Trip Chicago to LA

[Simon Yoxall]

English students planning a US road trip from Chicago to LA! Where should we visit (bearing in mind we are english students 21yrs +)? Where should we rent our RV? Any general advice?? Ideally want to spent majority of the trip travelling down west coast surfing!

So any advice at all on this would be great!

[Mark Sedenquist]

English students planning a US road trip from Chicago to LA!

Welcome to the Great American RoadTrip Forum! Since you want to spend your time surfing -- maybe you ought to rent a relatively less expensive car to travel from Chicago to the west coast. It will be several hundred dollars to rent a RV in Chicago and drive to the west coast (and back?).

Here are some tips for you:

An overview about how to rent a RV

A checklist of what you should think about when picking up a RV rental

Information about campgrounds

Information about boondocking.

Mark

[Simon Yoxall]

We are just travelling one way from Chicago to LA then flying back to the UK. Money is not too much of an issue as we get a almost $1.90 for every £1 Uk Pound we have. There will be 6 of us, could we get an RV big enough for 6 adults. Can you suggest any places you feel worth stopping at whilst on route to the west coast, ideally we would like to experience different US cultures but also see some of the big tourist attractions and also more obscure ones !? Vegas and some National parks would be good!

[Mark Sedenquist]

There are several ideas in this thread --that would apply on your adventure as well.

Mark

[W. Larrison]

Hi Simon -- and welcome to the RoadTrip America forum!

First of all, how long do you have for this? the reason I'm asking is its more than 2000 miles from Chicago to the california beaches by the shortest route. If you drive 500 miles a day, its 4 days to get to the beaches. And then you'll need 4 days to get back.

[Editor's Note: In this case it is a one-way trip:

We are just travelling one way from Chicago to LA then flying back to the UK.

If I had to lay out a route... I'd head west to San Francisco. That'l take you through some interesting country. If you have the time, take the swing through Colorado and you could bag a 14 for bragging rights back in the UK (a "14" is a day hike up a 14,000+' peak -- there are several you can do as a day hike in Colorado, not far from this route).

Then from SF, I'd head south along Coast 1 (aka "PCH", "Coast Highway, etc.).

If you're into surfing, definitely hit the beaches near Santa Cruz. Mavericks has some huge surf at time, and the surfings not bad there. Then I'd work my way down the coast. However, most of the surfing beaches are from Jalama Beach south, once you get out of the Monterey/ Santa Cruz area. Check out this thread for a recent discussion of surfing beaches in California.


We'll all be planning out a route
We're gonna take real soon.
We're waxing down our surf boards,
We can't wait for June.
We'll all be gone for the summer,
We're on surfari to stay.
Everybody's gone surfing - surfing USA

[Simon Yoxall]

We will be travelling for 1 month give or take a couple of days (depending on flights)! So we will have plenty of time to check out places along the way.

Thanks for your previous posts they will be very useful!

Do you think it would be worthwile doing Vegas the Desert and the grand canyon??

[PNW Judy]

All are amazing in their own unique way!