Any Advice for a family road trip from Las Vegas to New York and Back for 4 weeks

[Courthlexmyk]

Hi we are a family of 6 from New Zealand and we will have our holiday in States on April 1 to May 13 and planning to have a 4 weeks road trip from Las Vegas to New York and back. Any suggestion for a child friendly stops? Any recommendations for a long term car rental?

[Lifemagician]

Hi, and Welcome to the Great American Roadtrip Forum.

A cross country trip from LV to NYC can be done in six hard days on the road, so with four weeks you have the time to make the return trip, but you will have to be very careful that you do not choose too many sights to go sightseeing, as the time will soon pass. But there should be enough to see some of the most significant sights, and make child friendly stops along the way. How old is/are the child(ren). There are special age appropriate activities for children at all National Parks and Monuments.

The first thing you may like to do is get hold of some really good maps, which show you your road and highway options as well as most of the attractions along the way. If these are not available locally, I suggest you purchase a Rand McNally road atlas from the RTA store via the link at the bottom of this page. If you order it now you will have it in a couple of weeks. It will be invaluable while you are planning. I would suggest that you consider a different route east and west.

When the atlas arrives, you might like to follow the advice in this paragraph:-

Start with maps. Not GPS, not software, not Google, but real honest-to-god paper maps that show you your entire route, that you can mark up (and erase), that you can stick pins in, and that show something about the land you'll be driving through. Those are your essential tool in any RoadTrip planning process. Start by marking all the places you know you want to visit. Then connect the dots. Then look for more places of interest and scenic routes along the lines connecting the dots. Repeat until you've got as many sites and roads as you think you want.

Enjoy the planning.

Lifey

[Southwest Dave]

Hello and welcome to the RTA forums !

'Child friendly' stops are everywhere depending on their ages, for example most City parks are great for toddlers to run around and let off steam from the car so we will need a bit more info. What are your interests, what routes are you taking, how old are the Kid's and so on, the more info you offer the more meaningful advice you will receive. I would suggest you look around the forums and get a good map of the States and do a little research to try and form a route based on places of interest, one route out and another back so you get to see new places. Try and get the kids interested in the planning process and let them have some input [again, depending on age] so that they have a vested interest in the trip, it'll make it more fun for everyone.

For Car rentals, it's really a case of shopping around and comparing deals for the type of vehicle you want at the time you travel. We usually have luck with car rentals.com. As you continue with your planning feel free to ask questions.

[Mark Sedenquist]

Any suggestion for a child friendly stops? Any recommendations for a long term car rental?

Family road trips are the best! Here are some more trip planning suggestions (articles we have published) that might be helpful:

Overview tips

Web resource links (I've not worked on this page in a while -- so some links might not be the best at this point in time -- it's on my list for a re-do.)

Five Car Games by Jeff Sechler

As far as long-term rental. No question, my choice is always to use National Car Rental. I rented a car for 35 days in July. Maintenance is generally excellent and if it is not -- they will make it right.

As far as kid-friendly places to stop. Depending on the ages, anyplace with a pool or park can be kid-friendly. But here is a list we've compiled for travel around the USA.

Enjoy the planning!

Mark

[DonnaR57]

As far as kid-friendly places to stop. Depending on the ages, anyplace with a pool or park can be kid-friendly.

Our daughters were *always* happy if a motel with a pool was promised. This was from age 3 up till they moved away. When they were between 3 and 10, a playground was just as good. We stayed at a couple of places that had both, and they were in "seventh heaven". While we were actually on the road, they each had a small bag of things for the car -- small toys, Gameboy, Walkman (OK, they're adults now!), or anything else that was small. YMMV, but we never had a TV or similar in the car, and only rarely had one in the trailer with us. We did have an arsenal of tapes when they were smaller -- as their tastes in music changed, that's why the Walkman was a choice for them.


Donna