Planning Summer 2010 Road Trip

Hi there...
I am beginning to plan a US road trip for my husband and I for this upcoming summer. I am very new to all of this and I don't know where to start exactly.

We will be leaving from the west coast (Oregon) and heading across to the east coast. I would love to see as many states as possible, specifically southern states. I would love some help calculating a route and finding out how much all of this is going to cost me.

We are going to rely on staying with people we know in other states and camping, to cut costs of motels. I am curious as to how much gas would cost for a trip like this, so if someone has done something similar I would love to hear about it.

We are planning on stopping at Yellowstone for sure, other than that I have yet to figure out where all we will be stopping. I would like to start in Oregon, go down the west coast, through Arizona/Texas/Florida/etc, up the east coast, and back through the northern states. Although this is probably going to end up being too expensive. I really don't know what kind of a budget to set. A few thousand dollars? Would that be enough?

Please share any ideas, tips, stories, or anything with me. I am trying to learn as much as possible, but I am just beginning. Thanks so much!!

Becky

Hello and welcome to the RTA forums !

At this early stage in your planning and the fact that you are covering such a large area all I can suggest is that you get the map out and start researching to find places that you would really like to see and get some dots placed on the map. You can use the search button to find your way around the forums and road trip planning pages that are full of great info and routes. Until you get an idea of how long you will be on the road, how far you will get in that time, the vehicle you will be using it's not possible to answer those questions. When you have done a little research and got some dots on the map we can certainly help you join them together but untill then and not knowing what your "goals" or interests are makes it impossible to offer any meaningful advice.
RTA's fuel cost calculator is a great tool for working out the gas costs, once you have the answers.
Have a look around and gather ideas and as you start to build your trip keep asking questions, enjoy the planning.

Ok great, thank you for the feedback!

I've been researching a bunch today and have decided on some important factors. First, we're going to be taking my 2000 chevy malibu, which gets about 30 miles/gallon. I did the fuel calculator and it came to $700 for gas, because I estimated that our trip would be roughly 7,000 miles.

The routes I chose are number 8 (US-20) for the way there (except we'd be starting in Eugene, OR) and number 9 (US-50) on the way back on Road Trip USA (http://www.roadtripusa.com/).

Destinations we plan to see are: Yellowstone, Niagra Falls, Boston, Chicago, WA DC, Mt. Rushmore, Virginia City... and that's all I have so far, but of course there will be more. We are going to get a national parks pass which seems to be a great idea. Pretty much all of those destinations are pretty close to the routes we chose.

We are planning on bringing a portable stove to cook food and mostly living off of groceries, and occasionally going to restaurants. We are hoping to camp and stay with friends/family for the most part, and occasionally staying in cheap motels.

So far I'm anticipating $700 for gas, but what would be a good estimate for food and lodging costs, according to what we have planned? I like to break things down and look at them separately. Hopefully this is enough information to answer my question... again any advice, ideas, things to see, etc would be greatly appreciated!! Thanks :)

There is nothing wrong at all with the Roadtrip usa site and book, however, I get really concerned when people use those route suggestions as the letter of the law.

Roadtrips are about being able to get out there and make your own adventure, not simply trying to recreate someone else trip. Too often, I see people act like The 10 routes there are the only 10 options for roadtrips, and never explore beyond what becomes a very very narrow path.

Personally, I'm a much bigger fan of letting the destinations pick the route, and not the route force your destination. Use those routes as a starting point, not the be all end all - because there's a whole lot more out there than just whats listed on those handful of routes.

For budgeting, I'd round your fuel figure up to $1000 to factor in both the potential for fuel cost to rise, and to factor in inevitable driving within town that will almost always increase your overall mileage by at least 20% from your point to point distances.

Cheap motels will usually be around $50 for an average, while a campsite will usually be in the $15-20 range per night. For food, you can keep things around $10 a day per person if you are doing most of your own cooking, with only an occational stop at a restaurant. Increasing that to $15 to $20 will probably be needed if you plan to eat out more than a couple times a week.

Ah, yes that does make sense. I just came across that site and it seemed to know what it was talking about, so I thought those routes would be a good place to start. But it definitely did limit what I was hoping for... so I will be looking into other things as well. I just got freaked out of the idea of starting from scratch haha. So is there a way to create a route through mapquest, or another similar tool?

Before using software or online mapping programs, I believe in doing your preliminaries the old-fashioned way. Go buy a US road atlas - I personally prefer Rand McNally. Visualize your trip on a paper map first, then you can use something like Google Maps to plan it in more detail. The paper maps will have all the points of interest.

Ok, I will definitely do that! Thanks for the idea :)

Hi, I posted some questions on here about a month ago regarding a summer roadtrip with my husband. Well, I've been doing my homework and I have come to a conclusion that it's pretty impossible to do what I would like to. So I am hoping for some alternatives or some advice on how to make it work.

We're going to be leaving from Eugene, OR on June 27th. We have 3 weeks.
I am hoping to start out on 1-5 S, and get on the 101 and see Redwood NP, down to San Fran and then LA. We'd love to see the Grand Canyon and also some of the N. parks in Colorado. Those are the main sites in the west... but then on the East coast I am dying to go to Maine (Acadia NP), as well as DC, NYC, etc. But going all the way up to Maine seems pretty impossible with our time limit, because on the way back we'd like to take a more northern route and hit Yellowstone for a couple of days. Is there any way that we could see all of these places, including Maine in 3 weeks? I don't want to be super super rushed so I'm thinking no. I've heard and seen photos of Maine and it looks so beautiful... but if we have to cut it out then I'll deal with it.

I don't even know if this is doable in 3 weeks with cutting Maine out anyway. I would love some advice/thoughts on this. Thanks so much! Also our budget is around 3k if that helps at all.

In your first post you mentioned that you would like to see as many States as possible.

There is a huge difference between seeing a place and enjoying what it has to offer. For me three weeks would not be enough to just see the main national parks west of the Rockies.

Lifey would leave the east coast for another trip

I really do think you need to choose between touring the West and the East.

The West has so many places and covers some much area that while 3 weeks is a very nice amount of time, that amount of time will fly by just going to all of the places you've said you want to see in the west.

On the flip side, the east is a smaller area, but its going to take a lot of time to get there. You really are looking at about a week of travel each way just to travel cross country, leaving you just a week to see NY, DC, and Maine. You could certainly stop and see a few things as you make your way across country, but those stops really would have to limited - perhaps a day in Yellowstone and a quick swing through Mt Rushmore and the Badlands one direction and a quick tour of a park or two in Colorado on the way home - but doing much more than that is going to make your time out east extremely rushed.

Most of these people have been giving good advice. My advice would be to cut back on how far you will go & contrate on what you want to see, 3 weeks or 21 days is long enought to have a nice trip but if you traveled 300 milles a day you could cover 6300 miles but wouldn't have much time to see the sights or enjoy them. Pick out what Nat Parks you want to visit then decide how long you will need to enjoy them. Take Yellowstone which you talked about to really see & enjoy I would plan at least 3-4 days maybe 5 if you wanted to tour Grand Teton N P which is just south of Yellowstone. You know what you want to do just remember take your time don't try to cover too much ground. When you get that far along in your planing let us know where you-all will be going and maybe we can point out things in that Park or area

billy bob

Thank you all for the advice! We will work on narrowing our trip down so that we can not be so rushed and we can enjoy it more. I'll let you know what we decide :)

At the end of June, my husband and I are setting out on a 21-day road trip from Eugene, Oregon, through CA, AZ, NM, TX, CO, WY, MT, ID, WA, and back to OR.

We have a budget of roughly $3,000 and we are driving a '00 Chevy Malibu. We plan to camp out, stay with friends, or stay in motels/hotels. I will list our basic itinerary below, but first here is a list of some of the fun/random things I would like to do while on our trip, if you know of any good locations for these things within our route, please let me know!!

-horseback riding/trail ride
-roller skating rinks
-drive-in movie
-cool museums
-awesome 50s diner
-hot air ballooning??

We are planning on going to mostly national parks, a few theme parks, and interesting cities....

Here is what I have come up with so far!

Day 1: leave Eugene heading south on 1-5 to Highway 101, stop in Bandon, OR. Get back on the 101 to Redwood N.P., camp for the night
Day 2: drive to San Fran, see Golden Gate Bridge/Fisherman's Wharf/etc for the day. Drive to Santa Cruz, stay the night
Day 3: spend the morning/afternoon at the beach boardwalk/amusement park, and then drive to LA to stay with a friend
Day 4: have our friend show us around LA, drive to Anaheim in the pm to stay the night
Day 5: Disneyland all day, then drive to Vegas, stay the night
Day 6: Vegas for morning/afternoon, then drive to Grand Canyon, camp for the night
Day 7: Grand Canyon all day, drive to Phoenix to stay the night
Day 8: drive to El Paso, TX to stay with friends
Day 9: drive to Carlsbad, NM for Carlsbad Caverns. drive to San Antonio to stay the night
Day 10: drive to Austin, spend the day. stay the night there
Day 11: drive to Amarillo (or somewhere near there), stay the night
Day 12: drive to Canon City, CO to see the Royal Gorge Bridge, camp for the night
Day 13: drive to Rocky Mountain N.P., spend the day, maybe horseback riding? camp for the night
Day 14: drive to Fossil Butte N.P, camp for the night
Day 15: drive to Jackson Hole, and then maybe go to Grand Teton N.P.
Day 16: drive to Yellowstone, spend the day, camp
Day 17: Yellowstone all day, camp
Day 18: Yellowstone in AM, then drive to Coure D'alene, ID, stay the night
Day 19: drive to Lynnwood, Wa to stay with family
Day 20: drive to Orting, WA to stay with family
Day 21: arrive back to Eugene, OR

Let me know what you think about this. There are some days that have quite a bit of driving (7, 8, or 9 hours) which seems like a lot to me but I suppose that is normal for a road trip? I was trying to keep it to around 5 or 6 hours of driving a day but that didn't quite work out for all the days. I don't want to feel super rushed during the trip and I'd really like to be able to enjoy things instead of feeling like we have to keep on the move constantly.

If you know of any great places/sights that I have skipped over please let me know, this is just a rough draft and is open to changes and what not.

Thanks so much!

Day 1: OK - that's about a 7 hour drive.
Day 2 - No way. That's about a 7 hour drive on 101, a lot longer if you take CA-1 - and you also want to sightsee around SF after you get there AND drive another couple of hours to Santa Cruz?
Day 3 - what??? It's a good 7 hours to LA from Santa Cruz if you do NOT take the scenic way - and you are going to do this after playing all day? You will also miss the spectacular coast road scenery.
Day 4 - OK, but don't underestimate LA rush hour traffic.
Day 5 - All day in Disneyland then drive 5 hours to LV?
Day 6 - drive 6+ hours to the GC after playing in LV all day?

I'm not even going to go any farther - I feel you are way overextending yourselves. You are going to be so exhausted by the time you get this far you won't enjoy the rest of your trip at all!

While in SF, take a boat ride to Alcatraz Island and take a tour of the island. After leaving SF, I'd, highly, recommend driving down the Coast to Carmel and Monterey.

Hello and welcome to the RTA forums !

I have to agree with glc that your trip on the whole is at too fast a pace to enjoy things, another couple of examples are driving from Amarillo and then see the Royal gorge bridge which is in the region of a 7 hour drive and you could spend hours looking around and enjoying the attractions and then next day "drive to Rocky Mountain NP and spend the day horse riding" but you have a 4 hour plus drive and need to set up camp as well.

I think that you might be better off scaling back some and take the time to enjoy the places that you do get to.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by rebeccajanet

There are some days that have quite a bit of driving (7, 8, or 9 hours) which seems like a lot to me but I suppose that is normal for a road trip?

---

There's nothing wrong with having a few days where you spend a lot of time on the road, but then expect those to be days where you are mostly just driving. The problem with your plans as you've laid them out, is that you on many instances are trying to do both full day activities and do nearly a full day of driving.

Others have laid out several instances of this, but the biggest offenders are clearly Redwood to Santa Cruz - which would be a very very long day, that that's before you even try to see SF; Disneyland and then a 5 hour drive? That's not insane, that's suicidal, before you think about "seeing vegas" then following day before another 5 hour drive to the Grand Canyon. El Paso to San Antonio is a good 9 hours, before your detour to Carlsbad, so now you're looking at 12+ hours of driving and you hope to see the caverns on top of that.

You've scaled things back from your originial goals, but not all that much. When you consider the fact that instead of going to the east coast, which is 3000 miles away from your home, you're now shooting for San Antonio, which is still 2500 miles from home, you're still looking at a very ambious distance, and still trying to do more than what time will actually allow.

I have to agree with everyone else. And I know by experience.
Last summer me and my 6 yr old left Baltimore and traveled to
Mt. Rushmore, the Badlands , Yellowstone and Mt. Glacier.
It was 31 days and 3000 dollars with us sleeping at campsites most of the time.
The biggest things was making reservations in March for our June trip = the National
Parks book up fast and at Yellowstone when we were in a tent under the freezing rain
and snow there was not a hotel room to be found for 100 miles so we just 'roughed' it
at our campsite. Also we budgeted 600 for emergencies and we did end up using it
for losing our keys in the Dakotas and needing 4 new tires in Montana (don't ask)
I have to say we DID see alot of wonderful places that we NEVER could of planned
or known of but we also visited about 85 percent of what we planned. 3 days was just
not enough to See Yellowstone but 4 days at Glacier National Park worked for us.
I can tell you this--- we were CERTAINLY glad to get home!
This year we will keep it to 3 weeks, as well.
I wish you well on your journey and hope you travel plans work out for you!

Hmm ok, thanks everyone for the feedback. When I did it on Google maps, there were really only like 5-6 days that had around 7 hours of driving, if I remember correctly. But maybe I shouldn't be basing this off of google maps. It seemed do-able to me, but now I can see that we would be on the go constantly and that's not what I want. The way that I saw it, though, is that if we left at 7am in the morning (or 8) we'd still arrive at our destination at around 2, even with 7 hours of driving. To me that still seems like plenty of time to see a destination, but it obviously depends where. The one thing I am not really down for is driving at night, and there are a few days in there where we'd be driving at night, so I'm hoping to find some way to spread that out. My husband has laid his foot down, and we cannot extend the length of the trip at all. I've already had to cut a ton of stuff out and cutting out more seems hard... but I'm sure I can do it. If you guys could give me some specific ideas of things to cut out that would be awesome, or alternatives for certain ideas. I really really appreciate all your help!

Google doesn't have to get fuel, eat, go to the bathroom, stop and look at attractions, and is never delayed by traffic or construction. Always add 20% to Google drive times. Does this give you a better perspective? You also need to look at rush hours in and around major cities.

The first thing I'd do is cut out Texas. You can go see your friends in El Paso, but continue to NM and CO from there.

Well, a few things, first any online map assumes you'll never have to stop or slow down for food, fuel, or any other breaks, so they are always going to be very optimistic.

Second, even if that was accurate, 7 hours in a car is draining. To expect that after you've woken up early to get out on the road, that you're going to be up for a lot of siteseeing is just not that realistic. You're also not factoring in that you'll need time to get your campsite, set up and tear down. If you're going to be on the road at 7, you're going to have to be up at dawn to clean up, tear down, and pack up.

And Finally, ignoring all of that, I just don't see where you got that 7 hour figure in the first place. Many of the legs you've listed would be well over 7 hours, even by the very optimistic Google estimate. For example, Redwoods to Santa Cruz is 8 hours via google, El Paso to San Antonio via Carlsbad google's out at 12 hours. And others, like Anaheim to Vegas or Vegas to Grand Canyon, while fine in a vaccum, become impossible when you're planning to See Disney, Vegas, and GC over the course of 3 days.

As far as what to cut, the obvious would be Texas. Simply removing Austin and San Ant. saves you 1000 miles of driving, if you just went from El Paso north to Texas (dropping El Paso and exploring Colorado directly from Grand Canyon would also save a lot of miles). I'd also cut out Canon City, but that's simply because I strongly dislike Royal Gorge and think its one of the worst, most expensive, and poorly done tourist traps I've ever been too.

I have to agree with the others.

My husband and I share the same philosophy about traveling: We can sleep at home for free, so let's make the most of every minute. A 7-hour drive is nothing to us. But your plan is overly ambitious even by our standards. You're going to have to cut something out.

Moving every single night gets old, especially if you're planning to camp. Do not underestimate the time requried to set up camp and break camp every night/morning. If you're staying in hotels, I'd suggest that every 3rd hotel you plan to stay at least two nights . . . if you're camping, make it every other night you stay at least two nights. And remember, I'm always pretty ambitious in what I say we can do in a given amount of time.

Ok. I have a lot to take into consideration. One thing I wanted to mention to Midwest Michael is that we weren't going to be driving straight through from Redwoods to Santa Cruz, we were stopping in San Fran first so the drive was split up. But I understand it's still the same amount of driving time in the day, I just thought it wouldn't be so bad because it was split up. I was hoping not to cut out Texas completely because, well, that's one of the major states I wanted to see that I have never been to. But I suppose we could save it for another trip. I am going to come up with a new itinerary and post that once I get it figured out, thanks again for all your help!

I'm afraid that with such an ambitious itinerary, your sightseeing is going to be confined to through the windshield of your car. You just aren't going to have time to stop anywhere to do anything.

Yea, I have realized that now, and in my previous post I said I am going to re-think our itinerary and come up with a new one, which I will post within the next few days. Thanks!

Okay! I think I have come up with something that will work, but there are a few days that I am not sure what to do with yet so I would love some suggestions. I decided to cut out Texas and New Mexico completely and to save that area for another trip, which I think helped a lot. Here is the new plan:

Day 1: Eugene, OR to Bandon, OR. Stay in hotel.
Day 2: Bandon to Redwood N.P. Camp.
Day 3: Redwoods to San Fran. Stay in hotel.
Day 4: San Fran all day. Stay in hotel.
Day 5: San Fran to Santa Cruz for am/afternoon. Drive to LA in late afternoon. Stay w/ friend.
Day 6: LA All day, stay w/ friend.
Day 7: LA to Anaheim, Disneyland all day. Hotel.
Day 8: Anaheim to Vegas. Hotel.
Day 9: Vegas to Grand Canyon. Camp.
Day 10: Grand Canyon to Moab, Utah (this could change)
Day 11: Moab to Glenwood Springs, CO.
Day 12: Glenwood Springs to Rocky Mountain N.P. Camp.
Day 13: Not sure what to do with the next two days in between Rocky Mountain & Yellowstone... Ideas?
Day 14: ^^
Day 15: Drive to Yellowstone. Camp.
Day 16: Yellowstone. Camp.
Day 17: Yellowstone in am/afternoon, then drive to ...? Also not sure what to do inbetween Yellowstone and Lynnwood, WA.
Day 18: ^^
Day 19: Drive to Lynnwood, WA. stay w/ fam.
Day 20: Drive to Orting, WA. stay w/ fam.
Day 21: Orting to Eugene.

This seems much more doable to me. I would love any feedback that you guys have, especially concerning those 3 days where I'm not sure where to go inbetween locations. Thanks so much!

Becky

Quote:

---

Day 5: San Fran to Santa Cruz for am/afternoon. Drive to LA in late afternoon. Stay w/ friend.

---

That's the only thing that still stands out to me as being an overextension. Even going over to I-5, you are looking at 7 hours from Santa Cruz to LA. If you have 3 days to burn, add one in there somewhere if you can. I'd spend the night around Monterey and then head down CA-1 the next day. It will be a pretty full day, but you could make it from Monterey to LA in 1 day with an early start. If you don't care about seeing the coast between Carmel and San Luis Obispo, you can take 101.

Thanks GLC, I took that into account and split that drive up into two days.

I am getting super excited about our trip and I feel like I have come a long way in the planning process since I first began!

A couple of questions-- I'm thinking about getting reservations for a few places (i.e. Disneyland, Vegas) but I am nervous about making reservations and then somehow being set back a day on the trip or something, and having wasted that money. I guess this is a normal issue for any trip but is it better to just not worry about reservations and find what's available when we're there? Also, reservations for national parks like Grand Canyon & Yellowstone... is this necessary?

I am also still looking for some ideas for what to do for the days in between Rocky Mountain N.P & Yellowstone and in between Yellowstone & Lynnwood, Wa. Any ideas would be great, thanks!

Quote:

---

I guess this is a normal issue for any trip but is it better to just not worry about reservations and find what's available when we're there?

---

Yes it is, some do and some don't, each choice has it's ups and downs.

I think you might already be to late to find lodgings in popular places like Yellowstone and GC and the surrounding areas start to book up so it is something I would look into if you want to stay somewhere close. Some people like to "wing it" and others the security of a place to stay for the night, those that do "wing it" always seem to find somewhere but when I am on a tight schedule with things that I really want to see I like to know where I am staying for the night, as I don't have the time to waste looking for places to stay, but that's me !

One day I hope to do that trip where I have the time to roam freely and see where I end up, but for now.......

If you do make reservations, make sure you know what the cancellation policies are. Some may allow a no penalty cancellation up till 3 pm or so on the same day, others may require up to 72 hours notice.