Help and tips needed! NY - Boston - Montreal - Chicago - Nashville - NY.

We are a Norwegian couple planning our first (but probably not last!) American roadtrip! We are just so excited!

We have three - four weeks, and we want to see these places, maybe in this order:
New York (cheapest to fly there)
Boston
Montreal
Detroit
Chicago
Decorah, Iowa (to visit friends)
St.Paul/Minneapolis
Chicago
Nashville

We are thinking of travelling by train, Greyhound, rental car and by air, and we have a budget of approx 10.000 USD.

Is this possible in three weeks/ a month, or is it just too much stress? If this is impossible - what do you recommend the most?

Looking forward to recieving tips from all you globetrotters out there!

You'd probably be better off renting a vehicle for the whole trip. Shouldn't cost more than $1500 to rent.

The itinerary sounds realistic too, but you'd be moving around a lot. It would tons of driving, but you'd get to see much of the inside of America. Just try not to listen to a.m. radio.

Hello and welcome to the RTA forums ! [To both of you].

I agree with the above, renting a car is the best way to see the US, and picking up and dropping off in a different place on multiple occasions could get real expensive.

To drive the complete loop is about a full week of driving for 9 to 10 hours a day, so even if it took 2 weeks to complete the journey at a steady pace you still have time for sight seeing.

Unless you have a specific reason for heading through Chicago twice you could head down through St Louis to Nashville instead of doubling back on yourselves. Take a look around the forums and planning/route pages in the tool bars above, and with the aid of a good map see what you come up with. When you have decided how you want to go about things, I am sure we can help to "fine tune" your trip.