So I thought I would just start a thread about our trip that we are about to start.
We are from the UK and have been planning this trip for the last few months. I'm 23 and my brother 21 and have had a lot of experience of Florida, due to a family holiday home, but not much more of the rest of the states. My brother worked in Nashville for 9 months last summer so he has plenty of contacts around that area. The guy he lived with has now moved to West Orange NJ so we are flying into Newark next Tuesday.
Initially we had planned to have his friend buy us a car in his name and him to register it for us but after much research on this site and others we didn't see this to be viable. After reading some posts on this site we finally managed to get a reasonable car hire quote. So for three months we have a Chevy Uplander.
We could have hired something more iconic like a mustang or charger for less money but realistically the space is worth more to us. One of the other reasons for hiring a car is that we can get a more reliable, newer car for the money that is hopefully going to give us less problems.
We are planning a mixture of camping, hostels and motels as well as get in touch with some people who have done similar routes.
Our initial plans are to drive from NYC to Nashville where we will stay for about a week. In Nashville we are picking up a friend who will be coming with is to San Antonio TX where we will going via Mephis, New Orleans and Houston. Once in San Antonio we will be staying for about a week or so we our friend. We hope that by this time we will be able to assess whether our planning is accurate in terms of time scales of the driving etc. We will then head over to the west coast.
I will try to keep this thread as updated as much as possible as well as the blog that I will post.
I have one question that I need advice about. We are planning on taking a laptop to keep in contact with home as well as having the internet. In the UK we have USB sticks that allow an internet connection. Is this something that I will be able to buy once we get to the States? The other option is to take the Iphone 4 and tether the internet. In the States are you able to buy a SIM card without buying a phone like we can in the UK?
Thanks in advance
Chris & Nick