Not sure where to start...

[AdamB]

Hi Everyone,

I'll quickly introduce myself, my names Adam and i currently live in Oxford, England.

I've always wanted to do a roadtrip in America and right now the time seems about right (or close to now anyway).

I've been to California, New York and Florida before but only on fly over holidays for about 2 weeks at a time and loved it i love the people, the atmosphere, how everything is i can't explain it but i just love it.

I split up with my long term girlfriend a few weeks ago and while i'm still youngish (23) wanted to do some travelling now i'm free and thought why not live out my dream of driving an american car across america visiting as many sites as possible and driving some legendary roads.

I absolutely love driving and old american cars just do it for me for some reason i mentioned this dream to my brother and he seemed keen on the idea as well so we talked about it a little bit and we both have about £6000 to put in so £12000 or about $16,800 thanks to Mr Brown!

Anyway our plan is to buy a cheap car not too bothered what it is but must be american and oldish (couldn't afford a newer one anyway) and to use it to travel all over america stopping at as many sites as we can find and driving as many roads as we can before we run out of money.

We're thinking it will probably be a few months were over in total.

The trouble is we have so many questions and not really sure where to get the answers and i found this site and thought hopefully someone could give us a bit of a kickstart.

Questions are things like...

Where would be a good place to start?
Where would we get a car?
How would we go about insuring said car? (legally you have to have insurance in the uk is this the same?)
Can we stay in the US for a few months or do we need to apply to stay for months?
What are the must to places/roads to do?
Is our budget enough?
A million other questions but anything else you can think of would be really appriciated.

Thanks everyone
Adam

[Midwest Michael]

Welcome to the RTA Forum!

There are a couple challenges with your plan.

First, an "old american car" sounds like you are talking about a classic, ad while that might seem like a nice dream, but there are some significant downsides. They are going to be hard to find, ones in good condition are going to be expensive, and even in their prime, these cars often needed a fair amount of repairs and now those parts can start being hard to find.

There are also some major legal hurdles. Buying a car as a non-resident traveling without a visa is extremely difficult, if not impossible. Generally speaking, you need to be able to prove that you live at an American address to get the car licensed and registered and to get insurance (which is required).

As far as the other legalities, I believe you can travel in the US as a UK citizen under the Visa Waiver Program for up to 90 days. Anything more than that and you'd need a full tourist visa.

Certainly with the amount of money you have, you're in a position to have a very nice trip. However, you've got some work ahead of you, and its quite possible you'll have to really think hard about how you are going to get the transportation to make your trip work.

[glc]

Why not just rent a convertible? That's going to be the least hassles, and still a lot of fun. It will be a new car, reliable, and you will have the rental company standing behind you if you do have a problem.