LA to NY in May

My boyfriend and are planning on driving LA to NY in May 2007 to round off a round the world trip that we're going to start in Jan. Although it' seems a long way off at the moment we're going to book our flights soon so I need to set a provisional date for flight home and so I also need to know how long we'll be driving for.

At the moment the plan is to spend about 3 weeks doing it. Is this the right amount of time? We're both eager to see a lot more of the US than we've done before, my experience being limited to theme parks in FL so far, but being from a teeny tiny country I really don't know how long this is going to take.

Also, what should we expect to pay for motel rooms?

We're also very open to suggestions about routes. Although we know we want to see the South we've not got fixed ideas really. Any comments welcomed! :)

Roz xx

look into historic route 66, the "mother road".. will take you from LA all the way up to Chicago.

Welcome to the RoadTrip America Forum!

Three weeks is a good amount of time to spend to get a taste of the country (though the "right amount of time" would be continuous for me), but the decision then is how much of the natural world do you want to mix in with city life? And how many miles a day do you want to drive? I

ask that last because with that much time, it's possible to zig-zag across the country and take in a lot of the scenic wonders as well as major cities.

Motel room rates can vary greatly, depending on proximity to attractions, major events in the vicinity (fairs, shows, etc) and facilities. Towards the coasts and the cities, costs are higher (example: our last trip we spent $90 for a jacuzzi room in Kentucky, then $120 for what was mostly a regular room in Maryland). Mom & pop operations (independents) cost from $35 on up in my experience.

Three weeks should be adequate time to get a quick taste of a few places. We spent a year and 37,500 miles vagabonding around the US - and still found ourselves making choices each day about what to see and what to pass up. Hopefully, your three weeks will whet your appetite to do more traveling in our own great country!

You may want to take a look at our journal of our year long trip. If you go to www.roadtripdream.com and click on "our travel journal" it will take you to our original website -- there are tons of pictures and the travelogue is broken down pretty much by state -- have a ball looking around.

As to hotel rates, we often found perfectly adequate places in the $50-$70 range. Our experience told us that anything under $40 was usually pretty scary -- with a few notable exceptions! Our average, including taxes was $85 - which included high cost areas like NY, DC, Boston as well as low coast areas like the mid-west and a real splurge at the Greenbrier in W. Va.

Have a ball.

Carol