East Coast Road Trip - 1st time travelllers!

[19ninety]

Hi,
And what a great forums, some really great info here that I've been unable to find trauling google.

So, me and my girlfriend are flying into Washington Dulles June 2nd. At the minute, we'd like to see Niagara, Toronto - CN Tower, NY & the WTC Memorial & the city, Philladephia to see family, into DC sightseeing then back to Dulles to fly out on June 16th
We have 14days from arrival, and would be grateful for any advice you have for first time travellers, and any ideas/suggestions on places to see, stay and things to do and a time scale we should look at planning traveling to as I've got zero experience driving in the states.

Below is a guestimation of the money breakdown I worked out...

rental car: $770

motels & food $1300 inc. (guide lines for economey rooms at $50, what i can see is a average of $80 for two budget, marriot/raddison is about $150 for 2.) - probably less as can pick up extra budget along the way (maybe?)

fuel is about/average $3.00 per US gallon and say a chrysler 300 will do 20-30 MPG - so it'll be approx $55 to drive to niagara alone.
so say 2000 miles total traveling (absolute worst ... i cant see us going over 1200-1500), 2000 / 20 x $3.10 = $310.00 - at worst, realistic $200

+ spending money

so we need to raise a total of around $2500 to cover everything including all food & rest, car & fuel and fun money for doing stuff.

however, if we dont spend all our money ... we can make it back into £'s =)


I suppose I'm just looking for some positive input and ideas as we're completely new to this and nows the time to start getting some concrete plans in place - and any help is good help.

Thanks