Boston-New Orleans, route & budget advice?

[leon_guillot]

Hi,

I am planning a road trip from Boston to New Orleans at the end of May/early June. I will be travelling with my girlfriend, and maybe an extra friend or two. I have a rough idea of the cities we would like to visit, and a basic route, but would love to hear the advice of anyone more familiar with the southeast. The farthest south I have ever been is West Virginia. Just to give you a summary of our interests, I'm interested in the civil war, Jazz/Blues/Early country, the GF is into food, beaches, architecture and art.

The route I have so far is:
boston-dc-charleston-savannah-jacksonville-mobile-new orleans
new orleans-jackson-clarksdale-memphis-nashville-asheville-harrisburg-nyc-boston

We wouldn't be stopping in each of these cities, this is just to give you an idea of a possible route. The cities we are most interested in visiting are Charleston, Savannah, New Orleans, Memphis, Nashville, and Asheville. Would this be possible in 2 weeks? Also, assuming we splurge at least once on a nicer hotel, what would be a good way of budgeting for such a trip?

Any advice from locals for additional places to visit/routes would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks!

[Midwest Michael]

Welcome to the RTA Forum!

The route you've listed would be about 3500 miles round trip, which works out to roughly 7 full days on the road. So doing this trip in 2 weeks is certainly possible, although you will have to keep an eye on your pace, depending upon how many places you want to actually stop and explore, and if you plan to be taking non-interstate routes.

With an average size car, you'll be looking at roughly $750 in fuel costs. A cheap hotel is usually be around $50 a night, but you can easily be looking at more than $100 for a nice place in the heart of a city. You'll also have food costs, which I'd figure at least $20 a day per person if you are mostly eating at restaurants. Then your other main costs are for misc. expenses for things like entertainment, tours, gifts, etc. So that should give you an idea of how to build your budget.

[leon_guillot]

Michael, thanks for your reply! I should have mentioned that we would be renting a car.

Because both of us have traveled extensively in the DC-Boston corridor, I was thinking it might be a good plan to fly to DC, and then drive the loop from there. I calculated this would actually save us about $100 in fuel and car rental costs, even with the added expense of the flight.

[glc]

Good thought. Driving between Boston and DC is a pain in the neck.