Help! We want to see as much as we can!

[HilliM01]

Hello

My girlfriend and I are English students living in America for a year in Charlotte, North Carolina and we are leaving for a road trip in the beginning of July. We plan to be traveling for around a month and woud like to make it over to the West Coast and back within this time. We realise there will be a lot of driving involved and want to make stops in LA, Vegas, The Rocky Mountains, Dallas, Memphis, Miami etc etc. If anybody has any good plans for a road trip or can help us decide which way to go accross the states it would be a great help! We will be starting from charlotte and need to end up in Charlotte for our flight home to England on August 9th. Please feel free to e-mail me at mhillier@foodbuy.com if you have any suggestions or comments.

Many thanks for reading!

Martin

[Mark Sedenquist]

We plan to be traveling for around a month and woud like to make it over to the West Coast and back within this time. We realise there will be a lot of driving involved and want to make stops in LA, Vegas, The Rocky Mountains, Dallas, Memphis, Miami etc etc. If anybody has any good plans for a road trip

One of the best routes we have ever found for covering the USA in a short period of time can be found on the Quest-4 site. When this page opens, click on the "Our Journey" link and you will see a map with the route.

Also look at RTA routes page -- plenty of ideas that we have found useful for such quest.

Mark

[UGAphin]

Here is a route that might be possible. You might want closer to 50 days though. Here are just the major stops.

Charlotte, NC
Savannah, GA
Destin, FL
New Orleans, LA
Dallas, TX
Amarillo, TX
Santa Fe, NM
Telluride, CO
Zion NP, UT
Las Vegas, NV
San Francisco, CA
Salt Lake City, UT
Yellowstone NP, WY
Grand Teton NP, WY
Chicago, IL
Cedar Point amusement park, Sandusky, OH
Pittsburg, PA
Charlotte, NC

Miami isn't worth driving an extra 1000 miles for, and you could save alot of miles by leaving out California. But I think that would be a mistake. This trip would be about 7,000 miles.

[PNW Judy]

The Quest-4 itinerary looks like a good one to follow but they did it over about 6 months and drove just over 23,000 miles. 23,000/30 days = way too many miles for me even though I like a good blitz drive once in awhile (767 miles/day). Whew!!!

That said....with two drivers and youth on your side, you may be up to doing a x-country and back again trip if you do more straight shots than they did and don't attempt to go into most every state. Just hit the highlights, in other words. Problem is, it's a big country with lots of cool places to see....I'd have a hard time narrowing down the highlights.

Why don't you make a list of all the major "not to be missed" sights you want to see and then I think we'd all be able to give you better advise.