HELP! First time road trip--- New Jersey to Las Vegas

[amandamrk]

Hello all,
I am moving to Las Vegas toward the end of August, It will be my first time road trip and I am driving alone. I would like to take a Southern Route, no rush, I want to see all that I can, but am having trouble of finding a way. Please help! Any and all tips and routes will be greatly appreciated!

Happy travels!
-Amanda

[Midwest Michael]

Welcome to the RTA Forum!

What specifically are you having difficulty with?

If you already know you want to take a southern route, why is that your choice? What things do you want to see by going south? There's no right or wrong answers, but I think those answers will really be the basis for taking the next step and actually figuring out things like road choices and specific stop ideas.

[glc]

Also, how many days can you allow for this trip?

[amandamrk]

well, I don't want to go over 5/6 days

[amandamrk]

I've just always wanted to see the South, and New Mexico, want to experience some southern hospitality, the farthest south I've gone is North Carolina :D

[Southwest Dave]

If you went as far south as Memphis you are still looking at 5 days worth of driving for 9-10 hours each day with the appropriate rest breaks, lunch and to fill with gas etc. If you were thinking of New Orleans, San Antonio etc you would be looking at needing 6 days to accomplish the trip as above, so where as it can be done in 5/6 days quite comfortably as a journey, it will become/feel rushed trying to see "all that you can" as a road trip, real quick.

I would look around the forums and road trip planning pages [the Map centre in the green tool bar above will give you a whole list of attractions along the way] and when you have a couple of 'key points' you want to visit marked on the map, the route will start to develop. Once you have started, we may be able to make further suggestions and help 'tweak' your route to get the best from it, but basically you won't have a whole lot of time for detours. Try and locate places of interest to you between 450-550 miles apart so that you can spend a little time there relaxing each evening, before turning in for the night.

[Midwest Michael]

I have to agree that I'm a bit worried that you're really underestimating how long it takes to get across the country. When you said "no rush" I assumed you had at least 10-14 days available for a one way trip. As Dave mentioned, its possible to do this in the time you're talking about, but even going directly, you'd need a good 5 days for this trip, and to visit the places you are talking about, its a very full 6 days.

That's even more problematic when you say you want to experience southern culture and hospitality, which by its nature takes a little time. Afterall, how much hospitality can anyone show, if you're just making a pit stop before moving onto your next destination?

If this is all the time you've got, have you considered just taking a trip to the southeast, instead of trying to race across the US?