Springfield, IL to Cali and back roadtrip

[PavelCZ]

Hello guys,
my name is Pavel, coming from Czech. I am planning on doing a car roadtrip from Springfield, IL to California and back. I came across your website, which is absolutely brilliant, helpful and full of all the possible information that I could need but I still have some concerns. I have never done a trip like that before and I know it is a lot of driving (yeah, I´ve read many statements like this one on this forum). It will be two of us and we will have approximately three weeks for the trip. For a European, the distances seems just incredible. I didnt go into details yet because I am still not sure if it is doable. Right now, i just know that we would definitely love to see Las Vegas, Grand Canyon, SF and LA and maybe go through Dallas and Memphis on the way back. We would like to keep the expences low, of course, so we were thinking on sleeping in a tent/car/hostels. Do you think it is doable in three weeks? We just dont want this trip to be remembered as a one long miserable drive. And what budget per person should we expect? We would also appreciate any ideas on what routes to take and some other must-see places to go.
Thank you very much for you help!

[Southwest Dave]

Hello and welcome to the RTA forums !

The trip itself is doable over a 3 week period in a reasonably comfortable manner, resulting in about 10 full days on the road for driving, leaving you time for some stops. Of course you won't be able to hang around in anyone place for to long, which is fine if you are comfortable with that style of travel.

You can't just sleep in the car in the any place in the US and it isn't a great place for a good nights sleep. Hostels and camping are both good options, even if you buy basic camping gear and donate to a worthy cause at the end of you trip. You can find cheap Motels near to Interstate, probably for less than $50 a night but they will be dearer in City's, I would average it out to $75 a night. You can get an idea of costs for car rental, flights etc in the tool bar above [Air/Car/Hotel] and you will find plenty of info throughout the RTA site, just dig around a little bit.