Help planning a roadtrip

[ddorron]

Hi all,

I am planning on doing an 18 day roadtrip with my brother around the united states.
We either have the option to start in miami and go anywhere and end in indianapolis. Or start in indianapolis and end in indianapolis.

I was initially thinking of Miami -> las vegas -> indianapolis but i am not sure if that gives enough time to "see" the places...

any suggestions from those who have more experience than me is greatly appreciated

thanks,
daniel

[Mass Tim]

Welcome to the RoadTrip America Forum!

With the amount of time you have, you can easily make this trip with enough time to get in some great sights along the way. If you were planning a jaunt up to New England, for example, I'd say you don't have enough time.

As far as "the places" what did you have in mind? Miami would be a better starting point if you were going to stop somewhere in Florida, or the southern parts of Georgia and possibly Alabama. After that, Indianapolis seems to be the better starting location in terms of miles, particularly if you wanted to head up to the northwestern states.

Will you be renting a car? If so, starting in Miami and ending in Indianapolis will result in some hefty one-way rental fees.

[Southwest Dave]

Hi. It looks as though you have some choices to make. Whereas we can help with the planning of your roadtrip, it should be your decision as to where to go, based on what is most appealing to you and your tastes/interests, of which we know nothing. After all, the beauty of the road trip is about getting to do what you want to do. Once you have the dots on the map we can certainly help join them up and offer suggestions.

Your initial thought of heading from Miami to LV to Indianapolis is certainly doable and would be about 8 days dedicated to driving. That could create a nice loop and encompass the Four corners region that has so much to offer, National parks like Grand canyon, Zion, Bryce Canyon, Arches, Rocky Mountain NP, great driving roads, mountain towns, Lakes, Tribal Parks, Historical sites, Desert, Red Rock and Alpine scenery just to name a few things that come to mind when I think of this region. There are great City's, like New Orleans, Memphis, St Louis along with Vegas and many others.

This could be said of anywhere in the entire USA and with 18 days you could head almost anywhere. So as you can see you might have a little more research to do [so much info at RTA, just dig around the forums and tool bars above] to get some dots on the map and get a rough idea of how much time you want to spend in the car compared to 'seeing places' and then we help you figure it all out.

[RahRah]

I personally prefer to set road trips up as loops; start and end in the same place. It saves money on drop fees for rental cars, unless you find a rental location that needs a car back from your starting point, or somewhere near your starting point and they'll waive the fee and actually sometimes lower your rental rate (I've had that happen twice, but it's hard to find and takes a lot of calls to make that happen since you can't do it online).

Starting in Indianapolis and ending there gives you some really great options to get to and from Vegas and see a lot along the way, well within your 18 days.