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Hello All!
This is my first time on this site, I've road tripped all over the US and Europe when I was a kid with my family. Now I'm planning a my first big road trip coast to coast, leaving from San Francisco to New York via I-80. Any advice, eateries, quirky or eccentric places to stop along the way are welcomed. I'm also having difficulty figuring out when to stop for the evening after a set number of miles (or hours), any comments on this is also welcomed.
Welcome!
If you are simply driving point to point to get there, we recommend ~600 mile days. If this is the case with your trip, it's a 5 day trip and your overnights would break down to:
West Wendover, NV
Cheyenne, WY
Des Moines, IA
Toledo, OH
Now, if you want to take longer than 5 days and do some sightseeing, get off the Interstates, and do some exploring, that will change everything.
I normally get on the road by 8am or so, and try to get off the road around dinnertime. This gives me time to check into a hotel, get situated, get some dinner, and kick back for a while before going to bed. I seldom make hotel reservations, I've never had problems finding a place to stay around any place with any kind of population near any Interstate. If you have a smartphone, get the hotels.com and Gasbuddy apps. You can also get the Tripadvisor app to find places to eat.
As glc said it's a minimum of 5 days, although I would recommend at least 6 days just to shorten up a couple of days to catch breath and find "eccentric places". How long have you actually got and are you interested in sight seeing along the way ? If you had 8 to 10 days [or more] and there was no particular reason for taking I80 then I would consider taking US50 [The Lonliest road] to I70 through Southern Utah and Colorado for the scenery and attraction possibilities and continue through to St Louis.