Cross country road trip in 2 1/2 - 3 months?

[College_Girl]

My friends and I (there will be 4 of us) would like to take a cross country road trip over summer vacation. We would like to see as many of the continental states as possible, but realize we might not have time to see all of them. Do you have any advise on destinations that we cannot miss along the way? And another thing, we would like to drive a VW camper van (either a bay or split window) are these reliable cars? Are there better years more suited for roadtrips? Any help is appreciated.

[Southwest Dave]

Hello and welcome to the RTA forums !

I think at this point in time you will be best off searching the forums and other Roadtrip planning pages with a good map to hand and start making notes of what appeals to you and get some dots on the map. We could suggest a million and one things at the moment but it would really put you back to where you started. The Map centre [in the tool bar above] is a great tool for searching out attractions along different routes and once you have made a start we can help fill in the blanks.

VW campers can go on forever with the right maintenance but away from the romance of them, they are small, would be slow [especially in the mountains] and you will always have a higher risk of problems in an older vehicle. You almost certainly won't be able to rent one for such a trip and if you could it would cost a fortune and to buy a good one I doubt would come cheap. [They fetch a fortune this side of the pond]. A cool, iconic motor but really not suited to this task.

Enjoy the planning !

[Valpo2004]

Sounds like a fun idea! I personally think you first of all need to figure out what kind of stuff you are into.

For example my two favorite things to road trip for is nature (esp. hiking) and history.

So if I was going to do it, I'd look for battlefields or historical buildings along the way as well as go to some national and state parks for hiking.

So I think to get started on that you need to know what kind of stuff you'd all like to see and do. (In general) before you can start putting together a list of specific places along the way and developing an iternary.

If you narrow it down we might be able to help you better. Not only by category of what you might like to do but also perhaps by region. I would guess people would know the most about their own area.

Still we are all limited by our experience and our own personal preferences.

Another thing to do is to try to perhaps outline your route first and then visit the internet tourism sites for each of the states you plan on being in. I would figure most if not all states have a website for tourists to look up things to do. That might be a good place to start as well.

Where may I ask are you planning on starting your journey?

[yishai]

hey, me and 4 other Friends are planing a cross-country road trip from east to west.
we are going to start in new York and head west on the upper states. from Seattle we are going to Head down to California. from California to Texas and end by new Orleans
our plane is to take it easy and try to blend in with the different population, hike and see the real America.
so i guess it all depends on what your looking to do....