Well, I'm doing a cross-country trip that will take a little over 3 weeks. I've looked at info here saying I shouldn't try to do more than 500 miles a day, and we're sometimes going to just take a day and explore where we are. We don't want this whole thing to be scripted! But where do we stay? We have 3 nights with friends scattered around. It seems that bigger cities obviously have more expensive hotels. Hostels seem good, but in these cities it might be $20-$25 per person, where we can go out of town a few miles and get a hotel for $60.
I have no camping experience, so how do I find a balance? I'd like to camp a few nights, so do I want to stay at a relatively large campsite? We may have some improvising which may not be able to allow us to pinpoint days to make reservations. Any suggestions are great! Thanks!