Road trip from Key west til Seattle

[Allan Petersen]

Hi,

I´m new here, but hope some one can "help" me.
Are planing a 5-6 weeks road trip from Florida to Seattle.
The plan is to spend about 12-14 days in florida, (Disney, Key west, Miami, Daytona, Everglades and so on.)
After florida we are thinking about going this way:

New Orleans-----Memphis-------Nashville-----St. Louis-------Kansas City------Des Moines-------Minneapolis------Sioux Fall------Rapid City----Yellowstone-----Spokane------Seattle

We dont want to drive on the Hwy, only if we need to make up time or if there is nothing to see or do for a long way.

I need some one to tell me what we NEED to see and what is fun, we want more local then main streame.

I know this is a long trip and no one can tell me about the hole trip, but if some one can tell me about a super Victorian Hotel we need to stay at, og a world known steak house, a museum that i world class, a city fair, swamp race, lumber jack tournement or anything that make the trip special.

I only think i will do this trip one time, i have done most of the east and west before ( NY, Boston, NJ, CT, CA, Vegas, Arizona, and so on)

[AZBuck]

Welcome aboard the RoadTrip America Forums!

You've certainly come to the right place to get advice for a RoadTrip, but there is a problem. It's tough to give specific advice for a trip, such as yours, which is literally "all over the map". Don't despair, however, there are a ton of resources here that will help you find just what you're looking for. You'll just have to dig a bit. for starters, check out our lists of free restful stops along the major cross-country highways. While those are meant for people with limited time fro breaks while driving, they will give you an idea of the plethora of sites available to you wherever you drive. Next, be sure to poke around and play with the RoadTrip Map Wizard, which is intended to help you find unique attractions within easy side trip distance of whatever road(s) you decide to take. New sites are being added to it on a daily basis. Finally, an effort that predated the Map Wizard by a bit but is still quite useful are these lists of 26 or so things to see and do in each state, ranging from the painfully obvious to the almost unheard of.

AZBuck

[Allan Petersen]

Hi AZBuck,

Thanks for your replay.
I know it is hard to come with things to do on at trip that is this long.
But i can say it an other way.

After Florida we know that we want to see:

New Orleans, Elvis house, Mt. Rushmore, Yellowstone and then end in Seattle.

We dont care if we have to go one way, and then back to see another thing, what we want to do i to make a rute where we see the most and get the best tip.

We are coming from Denmark and thats why we like to have an overall plan, but the miles, time and $$$ is not the problem with in limit, but we want the best trip ever.
My last trip was 3 weeks:
SF-LA-SD-Phoenix-Flagstaff-Page-Grand Canyon-Bryce Canyon-Dixie National forest-Zion National park-Vegas-Death Valley-Lake Tahoe-Sacramento and back to the SF area.
I think we did 300 miles on the Hwy and the rest on normal small roads where we see alot.

[AZBuck]

OK: "Elvis house" and a "route where we see the most and get the best trip." Now see there are a couple of details I can work with and give you some specific things you should work with and toward. From New Orleans, then, do not head straight for Memphis, but rather first go to Natchez MS via US-61 known as the Blues Highway and/or the Great River Road. Natchez is a great old river town on the Mississippi with several old plantation homes you can still tour. From there take the Natchez Trace Parkway all the way up to Nashville. You will be hard pressed to find another road as scenic and tranquil anywhere in your travels. PLUS, as an added benefit, it passes right by Elvis' other home. his birthplace in Tupelo MS. You can then get from Nashville to Memphis, again skipping the major autoroute, I-40, and instead taking US-43 and US-64 and making a stop at Shiloh for a bit of American history.

So what else were you hoping to get to see. The more specific you can be, the better we can help you.

AZBuck

[Allan Petersen]

Hi AZBuck,

You are my new best friend :-)

We dont have any plans other then we would like to see:
New Orleans, Elvis house, Mt. Rushmore, Yellowstone and then end in Seattle.
We might like to see Mall of America also if we go that way, but over all our mind is open and we will go where the road takes us, but it is always nice til have a overall plan.

I like the way you told about the way from New Orleans to Memphis, and that is what we need to plan the trip, i have only don the east and west cost an it would be easy for me to do a trip there.

We like the the open road, national parks outlet malls, small citys, old historie.
I think what i try to say, is that we like to se all the things there is in the books, so we know that we have seen the tourist atractions, but also the small local hotel, wine maker, ranch or what there is there you dont see as a tourist because you dont know its there.

What would you do and what way would you go if you where to do this trip??

THANKS :-)

[AZBuck]

It is possible, of course, to build fascination, scenic, and historic legs for a RoadTrip in any part of this country (or any where else for that matter) you simply have to spend sufficient time pouring over maps, the web (particularly sites such as RoadTrip America), and thinking about what it is you want to do. Let's take the next major portion of your trip - north from Memphis to Minneapolis - as an example. The obvious thing to do for both scenery and history, and great small towns, is to follow the natural feature which has shaped this land: the Mississippi River. Forget heading inland through Kansas City and Des Moines, Instead, 'simply' follow the Great River Road north along the Mississippi. On the way, you can stop at a wide variety of venues: modern ghost towns such as Cairo IL, former French fur trading centers such as Cape Girardeau and Ste. Genevieve, the turn-of-the-century world city of St. Louis (site of the 1904 World's Fair and Olympics and still home of a great free zoo and world class art and history museums), Hannibal - the childhood home of both Mark Twin and the Unsinkable Molly Brown, Nauvoo - one of the early centers of Mormonism which today is being rebuilt as a living history museum, and a host of wildlife refuges that support some of the great bird migrations of North America.

AZBuck