Cross Country Road Trip San Diego -- Connecticut

[SeanE42]

Hello everyone.

I am trying to plan a road trip for myself and six of my friends. We will be starting in San Diego (where one of my friends goes to college) and finishing back home in Connecticut. We have planned to take 15-20 days in the end of May 2009. Is this enough time? If not what kind of time frame are we looking at?

We are planning on taking an RV but dont plan on spending too many nights sleeping in it. We all love the outdoors and dont mind pitching a tent. Hike-in camp sites are welcome as well as regular group sites. But we are primarily interested in hiking, backpacking and rock climbing.

As far as our budget is concerned we dont really have one. We want to do this right and are willing to pay to do so.

We would like to cook almost all of our meals ourselves and eat out as little as possible. Tips on good foods to bring and equipment are welcome.

As of now the general path that we are thinking of taking is up the coast of California, east through Nevada, Utah, Colorado following US-50. After that north to Wyoming and meet US-20 and follow it through to Connecticut.

As a bunch of college students who have never done this before we are looking for some advice from those who have. Really, we are looking for the "essential" places to stop so that we can start to put in reservations for camp sites.

Thanks!

Sean

[Midwest Michael]

Welcome to the RTA Forum!

Lets start with the basics, I assume this is a one way trip? if that is the case, then 15-20 days will be a nice amount of time. Figure about 5 days is needed just for straight up driving across country, so you'll have quite a bit of time to detour to whatever it is that you are out to see.

It is great that you are "willing to pay to do it right," however, if you are college students I find it a little unlikely that you'd truely have an unlimited budget. I'd be happy to be wrong about this, but I don't know many people who aren't affected by money.

Having said that, I don't think an RV would be a very good choice for your method of transportation. First of all, the rental costs (I'm assuming you'd be looking to rent an RV) would be very high, if not impossible since you are under age 25. You'd also be looking at signficantly higher fuel costs. Again, those are money issues, but even without it, renting an RV when you don't plan to use the feature of an RV seems counter productive. If all of you like to tent camp anyway, I'd look at renting 2 cars. It will be much less expensive, plus it would give you a chance to break things up, where not everyone is packed in with everyone all of the time.

I suspect you are looking at an RV mostly because of the size of your group. If you want to go that route, you're going to really have to research what options you'll really have and if it will make the most sense for your money.

This thread has some great ideas for using a cooler to make your own meals on the road.

The route you've outlined looks good. The key will be making sure everyone in your large group is in agreement about where it is you will stop and how long you will spend there. The roadtrip compatablity quiz is a great idea for all of you, and should help you prepare for the potential issues that could come up anytime you've got several people traveling together for the first time.

[SeanE42]

Thanks for the advice!

Any other suggestions on places to see?

[PNW Judy]

There are literally thousands of things to see on a trip covering this much of the country. How can we come up with a short list? And we all have different interests as well. My must-sees might be things that don't interest you and your friends a bit.

I think it's very helpful to use papermaps when you're still in the beginning planning stages. Go over the maps and look for cities, national parks, state parks, and other landmarks that intrigue you and add them to your list of potential stops. Have all your friends do the same and then start comparing your lists. If all, or most all, of you come up with the same place then, of course, that should go on the list. If only one person wants to see a certain spot, then that probably won't make the list.

You might also get some good ideas from reading through this A-Z list of things to see in each of the states.

And, of course, reading Roadtrip Reports and other posts here.

A big part of the fun is the planning. This is especially important when you need to please numerous people. Enjoy the process and keep asking questions. As you start getting things firmed up, we'll be better able to help you with specifics. Enjoy!