US roadtrip possible for 19 years old German?

Hey,
I'm a German boy, and I'd like to do a RoadTrip in the USA after finishing school next year.
Me and a friend of mine had the idea to make a road trip, roughly along the whole west coast.

The problem is our age, we will be 19 years old next summer, so we can't do autodriveaway and can't rent a car.

Do You see any possibilities for us to do the road trip?

What about buying a car in the US, can we easily do that?

Or can we ask another person to register the car on his name and sell it without that person?

Or does it work to buy a car in Canada and sell it in the US?

I'm very thankful for Your answers, they would really help me!
For what price can we buy a car that works well?
After the RoadTrip we will fly to South America and go backpacking there for half a year.

I'm looking forward to get some helpful advice!

Jannis

Welcome to the RTA Forum!

I'm sorry to tell you there really are no easy options in you situation. How long do you hope to be on the road in the US and what does your budget look like?

Buying a car, and then getting it licensed, registered, and insured, in the US as a non-resident visitor is a very difficult and time consuming process. Since you're talking west coast, Washington State is one of the easier ones to license a car, but getting insurance will still be very difficult, and even if you did find it, it will be extremely expensive because of your age.

No, you can't buy a car in Canada and sell it in the US.

No, you can't have another person buy/register the car, and then sell it without them. Also, having someone else buy the car does open that person up to a significant amount of risk if you got into a crash, as someone could go after that person for any damages not covered by insurance.

There are some car rental companies that will rent to people age 18-20, but typically with significant fees. It's not a good option, but it's probably still the best one for someone your age. It's just a sad reality that the US is one of the more difficult places in the world to get around if you're a foreign visitor under age 21.

I wish I had better news for you.

Your only option on the west coast for renting a car is Fox Rent A Car. You can rent from a corporate location at 19, there's a $25 to $35 daily underage surcharge. There is also a $10 to $12 additional driver surcharge except in California. There is no additional driver surcharge in California. It must be returned to the same location, and you are restricted to driving it to the following states:

Arizona, California, Colorado, Idaho, Kansas, Nebraska, Nevada, New Mexico, Oklahoma, Oregon, South Dakota, Texas, Utah, Washington and Wyoming.

You may not drive it into Canada unless it was rented in Seattle, and although you can drive it into Mexico if you purchase Mexican insurance, it's strongly NOT recommended.

Unless your driver's license is in English, you will need an international driver's permit, which must be obtained in your home country before you leave. This is simply a translation of your home license into several languages.

Jannis, you are about 50 years too late... sounds like what could have been a great hitchhiking trip ;) These days, given your age car ownership or rental challenges, I might recommend using a combination of train, bus and uber. Maybe even some "tour" excursions if you want to visit national park attractions--in the end probably this combination ends up being much less costly although it limits some of your flexibility.

Youth hostels might open up additional opportunities on trip segments with people you meet.

So, you're going backpacking for six months in South America! Looks like you enjoy hiking and camping.

Back packing and bicycle camping are popular activities in the US as well. You might want to consider it for touring the spectacular Pacific Coast Highway that runs along the west coast.

Hotels are expensive. Just camping would greatly offset the high cost of car rentals.

How many months are you allowing for the US?

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Originally Posted by travelingman

So, you're going backpacking for six months in South America! Looks like you enjoy hiking and camping.

Back packing and bicycle camping are popular activities in the US as well. You might want to consider it for touring the spectacular Pacific Coast Highway that runs along the west coast.

Hotels are expensive. Just camping would greatly offset the high cost of car rentals.

How many months are you allowing for the US?

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Thank you for your answer!
You mean to bike along the west coast? Good idea, that is one possibility. Then it would be very hard to visit things off the path as Yosemite.
Another option is to buy a car in Canada, do a RoadTrip through the US and bring it back to Canada.
I think hitchhiking is not the best in North America, as well as it isn't in Europe.
What does public transportation cost in the USA?

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Originally Posted by Jannis Lohmann

Thank you for your answer!
You mean to bike along the west coast? Good idea, that is one possibility. Then it would be very hard to visit things off the path as Yosemite.
Another option is to buy a car in Canada, do a RoadTrip through the US and bring it back to Canada.
I think hitchhiking is not the best in North America, as well as it isn't in Europe.
What does public transportation cost in the USA?

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Buses used to travel just about everywhere in the country but I can't say they carry bicycles (although most urban buses do). Amtrak has a decent enough coastal route from British Columbia (Vancouver) to Southern San Diego County (including local California rail and light rail lines). You would need to check Amtrak route rules on bicycle carriage. The Amtrak website isn't always the best but poke around and you will find a lot of information.

Not sure if Amtrak has special offers like Die Bahn but it is worth exploring. You might find some special 30-day fare packages. I love the DB options like lander tickets (our group of 4 uses the Bavaria Ticket a lot).
https://www.amtrak.com/home.html
Amtrak Route Map (3 MB):
https://www.amtrak.com/content/dam/p...m-Map-1018.pdf

Buying a car in Canada, and getting it insured, etc might not be much if any easier than in the US. Have you actually investigated that?

But yes, if you go that route, you'd certainly have to return to Canada to sell it.

How long are you planning on being in the US/Canada? Unless it's at least a couple months, its probably going to be cheaper to rent - even with the underage surcharge - especially when you factor in the time as much as the money.

Have you got an older friend or relative over 25 years of age that you both get along with (or 21 but you would still get young driver fees) that would join you ? They would have to do the driving but at least you could get around.

Dave, it is possible for them to rent from Fox at 19 with a surcharge, refer to post #3. They are not going to have to rely on public transportation if they can afford the rental. I think that's still going to be cheaper than trying to buy, register, insure, repair, and resell a car in Canada.

George. Yes I did take note of that and you are right, it is a solution at a cost. I was actually thinking that taking someone over 25 years of age could save them quite a bit of money, even if they were to subsidise the '3rd party' somewhat. With a 20 day trip it could be $700 in surcharges alone.

That would mean the 25 year old would have to do all the driving, or the underage surcharge will apply to additional drivers, and in states other than California, there are also additional driver (of any age) surcharges.

Thank you all again for your help!
A friend of us living in the USA asked around, and meant that it would be no problem for us as under 21 Germans to buy a car there with buying, insurance and registration. Is that right or may there be problems?
Do you have any recommendations of a car, it should be cheap in cost and gas, have enough space for us to sleep inside and reliable that we wouldn't have to repair it.
What car would you recommend, what do you think will be the costs for a solid car, insurance and registration? When we had a car it could be a one or two months roadtrip, with a rental car we could only afford two weeks.

Thank you for your help!

Jannis

If a 2-week car rental breaks your budget than a vehicle purchase is no way possible. Sorry to break the bad news... you may want to scale back your grand plans to something more within your doable reach. Buses and trains are about your only way to go.

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A friend of us living in the USA asked around, and meant that it would be no problem for us as under 21 Germans to buy a car there with buying, insurance and registration. Is that right or may there be problems?

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I'd be really curious who your friend "asked around" because our information, based on years of similar questions and the experiences of some regular non-resident members of RTA who have really struggled to deal with the paperwork, especially to find insurance. Your age isn't the issue - although that may make it even more difficult to find insurance, and anything you do find will be that much more expensive - it's being a short term visitor with no ties to the US.

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What car would you recommend, what do you think will be the costs for a solid car, insurance and registration? When we had a car it could be a one or two months roadtrip, with a rental car we could only afford two weeks.

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I have to ask, what kind of budget are you thinking? I completely agree with landmariner, if you've only got money to rent a car for 2 weeks, then you don't have nearly enough money to buy a car. You generally have to be on the road for at least 2 months before the costs associated with buying a car start to break even.

Very ballpark, to buy a car that's roadworthy for 2 months, pay taxes, get it licensed and registered, and get it insured, I'd say you're looking at at least $5,000. About $1000 of that could be for insurance alone - since you'll probably have to pay at least 6 months of premiums up front and your age and lack of a US driving record mean you're looking at the highest tier for rates.

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Do you have any recommendations of a car, it should be cheap in cost and gas, have enough space for us to sleep inside and reliable that we wouldn't have to repair it.

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Again, you're looking for a unicorn here. A minivan would be one of the only options that would have enough space for 2 people to sleep inside. But ultimately, you get what you pay for. The less you pay for the car, the more likely you will have to budget both time and money for repairs. Case in point, one of our regular members who lives in Australia who was able to successfully buy a van (she has family in the US and a longer term visa, and still struggles to get insurance every time she comes over) spent I believe $8,000 for her van, it took her a long time to find it, it passed inspection before sale, and she still has had to make multiple repairs on the road.

I don't like giving bad news, but It doesn't sound like you're properly prepared for just how much a trip like this would cost. How much money do you realistically have available?

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Originally Posted by landmariner

If a 2-week car rental breaks your budget than a vehicle purchase is no way possible. Sorry to break the bad news... you may want to scale back your grand plans to something more within your doable reach. Buses and trains are about your only way to go.

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The 2 week trip doesn't break my budget, but spending much more than 2 weeks with such high costs per day(rental for 2 weeks is 1700 $) would be too much. After the roadtrip I will travel to South America, which would be shorter when I stay longer in the US with an own car. I hope you understand what I mean.

Jannis, I can only recommend you scale back the ambitions of your USA West Coast trip to match the realities of your time and budget. There will be another day for the "grand trip."

I think we've understood what you're saying, but I think you've missed our point - we're saying two weeks of car rental is going to be far cheaper than buying a car.

Specifically, if $1700 is too much money (and I think you could rent cheaper than that, even with the underage fees), then you don't have nearly enough money to buy, register, and license a roadworthy and reliable car.

It doesn't have to be a huge car. It should be just big enough that we can put down the chairs and tut a mattress on top of them

More than 1700$ doesn't break my budget, but for only 2 weeks it is too much money, because I could travel a lot in South America.

Then what kind of budget are you looking at?

I am getting the distinct impression that your goals and expectation are not really matching up with reality.

There is absolutely no way you can buy, register, insure, and repair a car for anywhere close to $1700 in the United States.

Case in point: I have a 15 year old car, worth $750 blue book. It needs about $750 worth of repairs if I were to sell it today. I am a California resident and I just got my year's registration for this old car, $150. My insurance, and I come under "old lady" insurance (rather than under age 21), is well over $500 for the car for 6 months. So there's over $2000, and frankly, I wouldn't take this car out of state.

To register and insure a vehicle in most states, you need proof of residence (not just a friend who will "loan" you his address) or a good lawyer (add $$$) willing to tread through the nitty-gritty to register the car and try to find an insurer who would even carry you -- you have your age AGAINST you, on top of being a non-resident.

Check with Fox Insurance. That was the advice given to you earlier, and I would definitely heed that advice.


Donna

I didn't recommend Fox Insurance, I recommended Fox Car Rental.

Oops. That's what I meant. Good catch, GLC!


Donna

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Originally Posted by Jannis Lohmann

More than 1700$ doesn't break my budget, but for only 2 weeks it is too much money, because I could travel a lot in South America.

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1/ South America is considerably cheaper (and poorer) than North America. Go hike and camp and have a ball. Fulfill your adventurous yearnings. Then when you have worked for some years, and saved your money, plan a well earned U.S. holiday. Not everything needs to be done before you turn 25. All the sights will still be there.

2/ From Seattle to San Diego there are a good many hostels in the coastal holiday regions. It would be quite possible to *hostel-hop* the whole way down the coast. Virtually all hostels have bulletin boards where people advertise to share their vehicle with anyone wanting a ride (sometimes to places you had not even thought of), and others advertise when they want a ride. As well as that, all hostels arrange trips to local attractions such as the National Parks and other major attractions. Who knows who you will meet along the way, and the unplanned adventures you can experience. My first two trips were all hostel-hopping. It involves being flexible, which is great when you are young.

Michael mentioned the member who has successfully bought and registed a vehicle, a 1998 Ford (8 years ago) which I drive each time I go to the U.S. to visit my grandchildren and sightseeing. The initial cost including all inspections, registration, insurance and attorney fees was a little over $12000. Each visit I still struggle to get insurance, and last year I paid $1200 for six months - of which I only used three months. Not a single visit goes by that I do not have significant repair costs. None-the-less, it is a great vehicle which I have driven for more than 100.000 miles across the U.S. and Canada, up to the Arctic Ocean.

Lifey

Thank You for all your critical comments, they very helpful and made me overthink the journey.
Nevertheless, my cousin and me decided to do the road trip together from early September until November.

We have a friend in Denver who helps us finding a car and where we can stay for a week.

I did a calculation, an estimation if that is makable would be great!

4000$ car
200$x3=600$ insurance
700$ fuel
500$ other car costs(registration,…)

Case one: selling the car for 1000$ => 4800$ => 2400$ car expenses per person

Case two: selling the car for 4000$ => 1800$ => 900$ car expenses per person


Do you think there would be other big expenses? We would sleep at free campsites or kindly ask people if we can sleep in our vehicle at their ranch or something like that. We have thought about two rough road trip routes, I calculated with the wider one,
calculating with a Grand caravan; 20 MPG; 15000 miles, 2,3$ per gallon.


Now going on with the total costs:

Each of us has 9000$ for one year of traveling (1 month workaway in British Columbia, 3 Months Roadtrip in the USA, 8 months central/south America)


+9000$ money each of us has
-400$ travel insurance
-400$ vaccinations
-150$ British Columbia transportation
-2400$ car expenses per person(if we sell it for 4000$=>only 900$)
-1600$ all flights(Germany-Vancouver-Denver-South America-Germany)

=>4050$(if we sell the car better=>5550$) left for everything else(food, accommodation, attractions for 11 months)

That is 12$(16,5$) a day.

I know that that isn’t enough.
But there should be some things mentioned:
As I said, especially in the US we would cook on our own instead of going in restaurants.
We would sleep at free campgrounds.
I don’t know if in the city it is possible to park somewhere not to expensive or also sleep inside the car in the city.


What do you think is the minimum food cost per day cooking on our own?
Is it true that we can also park and sleep inside the car on walmart parking lots?
Can we do that on every walmart parking lot?

Because of the budget of 12$ per day for the USA and South America is too less, we could do 4 months of Workaway in south America where we don’t have to pay for food or accommodation.

Then we have 3 months USA and 4 months South America left where we have to pay food (and in South America also for accommodation).

That would be 4050$(5550$) for 215 days, so 18,8$(25,8$) per day.


Do you think that is roughly doable, especially for the Roadtrip part, because of it is a roadtrip forum?


One more question to the car: It should be not too expensive in price and gas, but it should also be reliable and have space for us to sleep inside. Having just enough space to put the seats down, put a mattress on them and put the baggage on the front seats would also be fine, if necessary.

What car would you recommend?
We thought about a Dodge Grand caravan(20 MPG)

Now to our rough routes we thought about. As I said, we will begin in September so I'm not sure how it is with the weather.

big route: Denver-Dallas-Houston-Miami-east cost up-NYC-Toronto-Chicago-San franisco- Los Angeles-Phoenix-Las Vegas-Denver
according to google maps 8500 miles, I calculated with 14000.

Small route would roughly be Denver-Phoenix-Las Vegas-Los Angeles-San Francisco-Jackson-Salt Lake City-Denver.
Google maps: 3500 miles, estimated 6000 miles.

Another option would be to sell the car not in Denver and finish the trip somewhere else.



It would be great to hear about your thoughts about my plans and budget plan! I hope that wasn't too much for you guys!

As I said, knowing what car you would recommend would be great!

Having that said,
thank you very much for your time and help!

Best wishes
Jannis

Free campgrounds in the US don't exist in great amounts. Where they do, they're so far off the beaten track that you take the risk of damaging your vehicle to get to the BLM lands. They're usually in the western portion of the US. Count on a minimum of $10-15 for a national forest campground.

Sleeping inside the car will not give you a good night's sleep. Many WalMarts have stopped allowing this because of liability. You might find some truck stops allowing this but it will not be a quiet sleep. You'll listen to trucks rumble all night. If you pull into a neighborhood thinking you'll all sleep in the car in the street, you will have a big risk of waking to a cop's flashlight in your face and asking you to "move along, please".

You *still* have not solved the major issue of registering and insuring the car at your age. If you have a friend willing to do this for you, you put him in extreme jeopardy if you get into an accident; it's a big liability (financially and otherwise) in the USA.


Donna

I can see you are desperate to make this happen but before you move forward with your plans you will need to do some in depth research and start talking to real people who deal with car registration and insurance etc. I can't imagine any young person getting insured for $200 each never mind 19 year old non residents. Buying and registering a car as a non resident is extremely difficult, expensive and time consuming in the best of circumstance, as has been said already. If you had one major mechanical failure it could take up a large chunk of your remaining money to correct the issue, which you have correctly said is already not enough, it's nowhere close ! You won't be able to camp for $12 per day never mind eat. I'm sorry it's not what you want to hear but it's stuff you really have to sort out properly before even considering which car and routes etc. Good luck with it all I hope you can work something out.

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Each of us has 9000$ for one year of traveling

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Do you think that is roughly doable, especially for the Roadtrip part, because of it is a roadtrip forum?

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I'm sorry, but I think your budget is comically small. $9000 simply is not enough money to live on for a year, especially not when more than half of your budget will likely be taken up just with the car.

For comparison sake, working a full time minimum wage job in the US (which is not at all a living wage, it's absolutely considered being in Poverty) you'd end up with $16k, which is almost twice what you've got available.

And it's not like it's even $9k that you'd be living on, by the time you take out just your transportation expenses, you've got less than half of that.

The numbers you laid out for the cost of the car aren't too far out of line, but you've still left out a good number of expenses.
You've got $0 budgeted for car repairs. At the very least, you're going to need money for basic maintenance, but you'd be incredible lucky to take a $4k car on the trip you're talking about and not need any repairs.

Your idea that you don't need any money for rooms or camping is not at all realistic. Even if you could always find free campgrounds (they exist, but that's nearly as easy as you probably think), even if you could find walmart parking lots (no, not all of them allow overnight parking and if you do park overnight, you certainly can't be cooking there like it is a campground), and even if you could find a safe and free spot to park your car and sleep in it inside a city (generally illegal or just a really bad idea), you'd still have plenty of expenses that would otherwise be covered by camping or motel fees. For example, are you going to go 3 months without a shower? If you're not paying to camp or for a room, you'll have to pay for them somewhere. What about things as simple as drinking water or toilets - if you're sleeping in a car, you don't exactly have facilities on board like an RV.

Just your food alone, even if you never going to a restaurant, is tough to get by on $10/day/person. You're talking about a steady diet of beans and rice at that price point.

And that doesn't even get into the other difficulties of carrying out your plan - particularly getting insurance, as others have mentioned. You also need to look into the restrictions of traveling to the US without a visa (visa waiver program), as generally you're expected to be able to prove you are leaving North America within 3 months of arrival - potentially a problem if you're planning to just head to Canada at the end of those 3 months.

I doubt any of those things are things you want to hear, but it's better to think about them now than just hoping that somehow they won't be an issue.