2 College Seniors, 5 days and the Southwest

Big surprise, we're Road trip Nubees!
My friend and I are college seniors looking for an alternative to the usual trip down to Mexico for spring break. So we decided to instead go from LA to El Paso and visit a couple cities and sites a long the way.

Time:
We want to leave March 11th at night and return March 17th at night or 18th morning, giving us 4-5 full days inc. travel time..

Destination:
Not too much time so thinking...
Flagstaff, Albuquerque, El Paso, and back..
are there better cities to visit?

Transportation:
Bus or rent a car? Whats cheaper?

Accommodations:
visited some Hostel sights with good/descent reviews from $20-39/night
suggestions?

Main concerns:
NEEDS to be CHEAP! starving students just want to explore w/out digging a debt. Safety, two girls alone in a road trip isnt the best equation. We also like more natural/scenic sights..hiking, free admission parks and but also DONT wanna miss the big tourist attractions and local life :)

Anyways, running out of time fast and I would really appreciate all of your suggestions and recommendations! :)

Here's a link to a yahoo travel planner I made with more details!
http://travel.yahoo.com/trip-view-18...t_fun#comment1

Welcome to the RTA Forum!

I find it a little bit odd that you are asking about cities to visit, but then say you want to visit natural and scenic sites. While the 2 things aren't totally exclusive, most of your national parks and other great parks are going to be outside of cities.

As far as transportation, Bus tickets will certainly be cheaper than renting a car, especially being under age 25. However, there are some strong downsides to bus travel. You're locked into the bus schedule, you can only go where it goes, and it will take much longer to travel between two points on a bus than in a car. For example, if you want to visit the grand canyon, you'll have to take a bus to Flagstaff, and then take a private shuttle to the Canyon and back. That's one of the easier options. If you wanted to stop at the Petrified Forest on your way from Flagstaff to Albq, you'd have to get off in Holbrok and find a taxi or another way to get to the park and then back to the bus depot in time to make the next bus. There's also the factor of having to get from the bus stations (usually not located in the best parts of a city) to your motel for the night. You'll have to figure out what the "real cost" of each option is, and what your priorities are.

In fact, as a look at your schedule, I'm not entirely possible that bus travel would even be possible. You are looking at a total of a 2,000 mile trip, which would require 4 full days worth of driving by car, and since at 800+ miles El Paso is more than a full day drive to LA, you'd really be pushing things to fit everything in as it is, and that's before any detour to the Grand Canyon or elsewhere. I'm not certain that you'd be able to physically get bus tickets to get to all the you've listed in 5 days.