NYC- Wyoming- Texas- Back to NYC

[Chris M]

Hey,
I am planning a roadtrip from nyc to wyoming, colorado and montana to see national parks and visit other places on the way. I am planning to bring 2-3 friends and myself. I have a car that seats 8, but five comfortably, and with five allows trunk space. Is there any advice for how much money, routes, sites to visit? Basic stuff to get me started.

[AZBuck]

Welcome aboard the RoadTrip America Forums!

Very, very roughly you're looking at about 5000 miles of driving over 10 days minimum, about $1000 for gas and $150-200 per day for food and lodging. The first thing to go buy for this trip, like tomorrow, is a good atlas of the United States that shows routes, cities, parks, major attractions, etc. Your planning will start with finding at least two weeks and friends who also have at least that amount of time and the money to help make this possible. Then sit down with the atlas, perhaps an online mapping routine such as ours or others, and a good bottle of wine and start seeing what's between you and 'the west' that you'd like to see, and what in the west you'd like to see and then start connecting those points with lines. That's pretty much how any RoadTrip gets planned, and yours will be no different from, and just as much fun as, any of them. Once you have a crew, a timeframe, and a rough outline of your timeline and itinerary, we can help point out some things that we think might enhance your trip.

AZBuck

[Chris M]

Ok, Thank you. My basic plan is to save $2500-3000 each person (4 ppl total). And going from ny round the great lakes up towards montana, down to colorado, than texas, than up through the east coast. About three weeks in total im hoping. my main goal is the national parks and small worthwhile towns. I grew up in a city and i am uninterested in seeing other big cities.

[Chris M]

Any advice at all, no matter how random would be greatly appreciated.

[Midwest Michael]

I'd say the two best pieces of advice you could get at this point are:

1 - research, research, research. Just spend a ton of time reading up on places you might want to go, things you might want to do, etc. That means going through this forum, looking at the many other articles on this site and others, getting a few books, and most importantly, as Buck previously suggested a good Atlas.

2 - Make sure that the people you are traveling with are doing just as much as you are. There's no better way to torpedo a roadtrip as a group than to have different people with different goals, different expectations, and a different level of commitment. If you do all the planning, then your friends won't have nearly the investment, and that typically leads to conflict.