San Fran to Chicago to Miami to Austin to Phoenix, LA then back home to San Fran

[JoeDuffy]

Hi guys,
I've just started to plan next summers road trip, planning a big one! Across the us from San Fran to Chicago (maybe over to newYork) then down to Miami, then cross the south states and back up the west coast to San Fran.

Im going to add detail to the post as i get the exact route tied down, the towns, intervals between driving etc.

I've taken a few long trips in the past but this will be the longest by far

The trip is intended to take in the majority of on-the-road sights

Any advice along the journey is welcome

Thanks
Joe

[Midwest Michael]

How much time are you planning for this trip and are you planning to stop and do things besides cities?

On a trip of this scope, its difficult to provide much in the way of detailed advice until you've got things narrowed down a bit more, but we certainly encourage you to look around the forum and other areas of the website to help you find some more ideas as you get started on your planning.

[JoeDuffy]

Thanks Michael,
Im going to have the trip fully mapped out by the end of the Christmas break.... so far i have come up with 2 options:
Option 1:
Drive from San Fran to Chicago over the space of 2 weeks and fly back OR
Option 2:
Do the entire drive around the states over a 3 week period. I'm planning for the trip to be approx 8000 miles, so hoping to cover 4-500 miles per day (approx 7 to 8 hours driving per day).
Joe

[JoeDuffy]

Ah... I should have added that option 1 involves breaking the trip into two seperate adventures 1) drive to Chicago and fly back and 2) drive from san Fran to Miami and fly back another time

[Midwest Michael]

Sounds to me like the question really is, do you want to see and do things on this trip, or are you just looking to spend 3 weeks in a car?

2 week from SF to Chicago, one way, would give you a nice amount of time to explore and see a wide variety of things and places.

Doing your entire loop in 3 weeks would, as you point out, require you to be in the car for about 8 hours a day, almost every day. It certainly can be done, but you would really only have time to spend about a day each in the 4 cities you listed, with very little extra time for anything else.