Ideas for 5 weeks starting in Iowa finishing in NYC

Hello - I will be coming from Australia early next May to pick up my daughter from university before taking a road trip together. We will be hiring a car and we want to spend 5 weeks starting from Iowa and finishing in NYC in early June. We want to drop into Canada for a while and also would like to include Philadelphia, Washington DC and Boston as well as plenty of interesting places on the way. We do not want to just stick to the major highways all the time. Does anyone have any suggestions on routes or "must do/see" things and places?

Hello and welcome to the RTA forums !

I am not familiar with this part of the country, but what I would suggest you do [while the US sleeps] is to take a look around the forums and other RTA road trip pages [tool bars above] to get some ideas of your own, and put some dots on the map. Use the search function and also just scroll down the page and you will find 'similar threads,' click on one of those and repeat as necessary.

I say this, as you will find a reoccurring theme at RTA, we don't do "must see" or "must do", the roadtrip is an individual thing and one man's joy is another's idea of hell !! Certainly once you have some idea's down let us know, and we can help fill in the blanks, but to be honest with 5 weeks you could go just about anywhere in the country "on the way" to NY, including the Californian coast.

Enjoy the planning !

Let me add that if you plan on going into Canada, you need to check with the car rental company to make sure you can take the car across the border.

This is our indicative plan with guesstimated timings but open to suggestions! My intentions at the moment are to mostly try to stay away from major highways so that we can make the most of the driving experience. Is this too optimistic &/or likely to take up too much time driving?

Day 1 – Ames, Iowa
Days 2-3 – to Chicago more or less along Route 20
Days 4-6 – Chicago
Days 7-8 – Northern Indiana/Southern Michigan
Days 9-13 – Southern Ontario and Niagara Falls
Days 14-15 – Buffalo, NY to Ohio Amish townships via Lake Erie shoreline
Days 16-17 – SW Pennsylvania to northern Virginia
Day 18 – Appalachians/Blue Ridge Parkway
Days 19-20 – to Norfolk and Virginia Atlantic coast
Days 21-23 – Washington DC
Days 24-25 – Philadelphia
Days 26-27 – Scranton via Catskills to Albany
Day 28 – Albany to Boston
Days 29-31 – Boston
Day 32 - Rhode Island and Connecticut
Days 33-37 – New York City, New York
Day 38 – Travel home to Australia