need help planning east west trip

Hi, I am new to this forum found it by chance. I need some help to make my plans. This will be my first visit to the USA. I will arrive in New York start of May 2015. My intention is to visit the Grand Canyon then Yellowstone, move on to Vancouver then Alaska. The part I need help with is which route to take across the States. I realise America is so vast and I will only see a small part of it, but I want to see as much as possible. I will have about 2 weeks to make the trip from New York to Vancouver. Anyone got any ideas about suggested routes or must see places between New York and the Grand Canyon. This is a once in a lifetime trip for me and I really would appreciate any help and advice.
Thanks, holly12

Welcome to RTA!

The middle of May may just a tad too early for Yellowstone - most facilities don't open till the last week in May. The roads *should* all be open, but there's no guarantee. It's also a bit early to drive to Alaska, and there is going to be a huge one-way dropoff fee for a rental car, if you can even find a company in the lower 48 who will rent one for dropoff. It also takes about 10 days to drive from Vancouver to Alaska. If you are planning on leaving the car in Vancouver and taking the ferry or other public transportation to Alaska, leave the car in Seattle. A cross border dropoff is generally not possible or very expensive.

The best thing you can do to plan your route across the States is get a good set of paper maps or a detailed road atlas, and look at them to see what catches your eye for attractions.

For planning purposes, it will take you 4.5 days to drive from NYC to the GC, 2 days from the GC to Yellowstone, and 2 more days to drive to Vancouver - all taking the fastest routes and driving 10 to 12 hours a day with minimal stops. This will eat up more than half of your 2 weeks, that really doesn't give you much time to see both the GC and Yellowstone and anything else.

Welcome to the RTA Forum!

I'm curious as to what you are planning for transportation for this trip? I don't know of any car rental company that will allow you to rent in New York and drop the car off in Alaska. Even trying to drop the car in Vancouver would be difficult to expensive, because most companies do not allow you to drop the car off in another country, and those that do charge very high fees.

I also suspect that despite your acknowledgement that America is a vast place, you don't fully appreciate just how vast it actually is. It takes about a week to drive from coast to coast, and when you throw in the detour south to the Grand Canyon before going back north to Yellowstone and Vancouver, you're looking at about 10 full days of driving - leaving not much time left for other things on a 2 week trip. If you don't know what else you'd want to see between NY and the Grand Canyon, you might want to consider flying west so you have much more time to explore, beyond just looking out of a window.

If this is indeed a driving holiday, I agree May could be a little early to make it a pleasant and memorable trip. Especially going north to Alaska. There is still a high likelyhood of snow along the way.

If driving to Alaska is part of this trip, I urge you to *now* order and study The Milepost, which is the bible of all those who take the trek north. Any and all the information you could possibly want and need is in The Milepost. It is published in March, but you can put your pre-publication order in now.

Lifey

Hi, thanks for the info. If I make it to Vancouver every thing after that is sorted. It was crossing the States I don't know much about. I have been looking at maps etc. just asking for a bit of advice from those who know better. Thanks for the comments.
Regards, holly12.