Summer 2011 roadtrip :)

[monkeys1315]

Hi everybody, I'm new here and I wanted to ask a question. Me and 2 of my bestfriends are planning a roadtrip this summer (after we graduate High School) and we live on the coast of NC. We have all summer basiclly so i was thinking going to CA, I haven't been in a while and my friends have never been. We were gonna drive there and take a plane back. I just want advice about fun things for teenages to do along the way, anything interesting. Thanks :) Lisa

[Midwest Michael]

Welcome to the RTA Forum!

While its always a great quasi-romantic idea to take a big cross country trip, there's a whole lot more to it than just getting in the car. There are a lot of serious responsibilities you need to consider.

First of all, while you might have "all summer" available, are you really going to have the money to be out on the road for 2-3 months? There's also the issue that even if you have both the time and money, are you really sure that you want to be gone that long? Being on the road can be fun, but after a while it can get to be a lot like work. There's also the element that being packed together in a car with 2 other people for weeks at a time can put a serious strain on a friendship (and if your response will be "we're best friends so we know that won't be a problem" know most friendships that end on the road start with that statement).

There's also the logistic issue - specifically your plan to fly back from California. That really doesn't sound like a very realistic starting point to me. The biggest question with that plan is simple: what are you planning to do for a car and what would you do with it at the end of your trip? Being under 21, renting one way is not an option, and trying to sell a car at the end of a roadtrip is likely going to cost you thousands since you'll never be able to get what its really worth.

None of this is ment to discourage you, rather its ment to get you focused on the serious real world issues you'll need to think about if you want to go from the "wouldn't a big roadtrip be fun" fanatasy, into a real world experience that you'll be happy to remember for the rest of your life.

[monkeys1315]

Hmmmm.... your right about some of those things when I meant "all summer" i meant we like didn't have jobs or family stuff lined up for the summer yet not actually that we would be staying all summer. The car thing idk I thought you could rent one at 18 haha but I guess I was wrong. could I rent one if my mom co-signed or something?

[Midwest Michael]

Nope, with nearly all companies you can not drive a rental car under the age of 21, and even if you are 21-24 there's an underage driver fee of at least $25 per day. There are a few very rare exceptions where rentals are available for 18 year old drivers, but they will not allow a one way cross country rental in any of those cases, and you would be paying a minimum extra fee of $50 per day for each under age driver.

Not to mention, even if you could rent a car, doing this as a one way trip would most certainly increase your costs by hundreds of dollars - if not well over $1000 - because of one way drop fees and plane tickets.

Until you can figure out a realistic budget of both time and money (that everyone in the group agrees to) and your transportation, its going to be nearly impossible to start building a real plan.