Birthday Trip: Nashville TN to Los Angeles California

Thanks for clicking on my post! My birthday is coming up soon and I wanted to have a birthday road trip. I wanted to go around March 24- April 3 or so. This is my first official road trip and I need some help. I want to know the best route and what all i should try to see. Also how to keep costs down and if I should sleep in the car or stop at hotels along the way. I definitely want go to a beach in California and see The grand Canyon. I was also interested in seeing St. Louis and Louisiana. I've never really been further west than TN. Any advice is welcomed! Thanks so so much in advance!

Hi, and Welcome to the Great American Roadtrip Forum.

The first thing you should do, is get some good maps of the areas you plan to travel. AAA has excellent maps (free to members) or you may prefer a road atlas such as Rand McNally. Then follow the advice in this paragraph:-

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Originally Posted by AZBuck

Start with maps. Not GPS, not software, not Google, but real honest-to-god paper maps that show you your entire route, that you can mark up (and erase), that you can stick pins in, and that show something about the land you'll be driving through. Those are your essential tool in any RoadTrip planning process. Start by marking all the places you know you want to visit. Then connect the dots. Then look for more places of interest and scenic routes along the lines connecting the dots. Repeat until you've got as many sites and roads as you think you want.

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Good maps have most, if not all, the routes at your disposal, and show the attractions along the way. We really do not do 'best' anything on this forum, as what you may regard as the 'best', other people might regard as something to stay clear of.

Enjoy the planning.

Lifey

How much time do you have for the trip ? It's unclear whether you are leaving between March 24 and April 3rd or if that's the time you have. If it is just 10 days or so then you are not going to have a lot of 'beach time' or much time at the Grand canyon, as it will be close to 8 full days of driving out and back with a few breaks from the car but with no major sight seeing detours. That's before adding detours into St Louis and so on. Sleeping in the car is not really a good idea as it's hard to get proper rest, especially after spending a long day on the road cooped up in it and then there are safety issues, so you should only rest in a 24 hour service area if at all.
The 'best' route is the one that takes you to where you want to go within the time you have, once you have worked on your time frame and what else you would like to see we can help fill in the blanks. Look at taking a different route in each direction so you see new parts of the country both ways.

Camping is another option... much better than sleeping in a car. If you don't have camping gear you can start simple and expand your gear during each camping trip. For starters you will need a tent, ground cover for the tent, sleep pad/cushion, and sleeping bag and/or blankets. At elevation it will cool down to around freezing overnight so be sure to have plenty of blankets to sleep on and under.

A ten-day trip is rather ambitious for making it all the way out to the coast and back to Nashville, about 40 hours driving time each way (at an average 50 mph to account for gas station, eating and rest stops). A very aggressive 60mph average speed of advance would take 33+ hours. In other words, 4 to 5 days each way just driving without any touristing and detours.

Oh, and I didn't even count Southern California coastal area traffic!!! And you DO want to see more than one beach!!!