First Road Trip - FL to CA

[2brotrip]

Hi everyone and I appreciate you reading this.

My brother and I are going on a road trip from end of December to beginning of February from Florida to California. Everything happening in between is an adventure and nothing decided with a date except New Orleans for new years.

We are looking at spending a lot of time in Colorado, Utah, Arizona, Nevada and California mostly but open for any other suggestions.

Please let us know about any beginner mistakes with traveling at that time of year through those states and what to expect and so forth.

Any information will be helpful!

Appreciate your time,

ps. if you want to follow our adventure, see 2brotrip on Instagram and follow us there.

[Midwest Michael]

Welcome to the RTA Forum!

For suggestions on starting out with your planning, I'd really suggest you start by heading to the "how to use this site" tab at the top of the page, where you'll find lots of articles and stories for ideas on getting going.

A few common rookie mistakes - doing your planning exclusively on electronic devices. Paper maps are essential both when planning and when on the road. Of special note based on where and when you are going, you should never blindly follow a GPS, as they have been known to direct people across remote mountain roads that are closed in winter - sometimes with fatal results.

People also tend to overestimate how far they can get/underestimate how much time they actually need on the road. Even with multiple drivers, you shouldn't plan to go more than about 600 miles in a day - which works out to about 10-12 hours on the road. Disregard travel time estimates by online mapping programs that assume you'll never need to stop or slowdown over the course of the day.

[2brotrip]

Midwest Michael,

Thanks for great suggestions and advice !

A Atlas Map of USA has now been purchased.

[Lifemagician]

Here's a paragraph which will no doubt help with your planning.

Start with maps. Not GPS, not software, not Google, but real honest-to-god paper maps that show you your entire route, that you can mark up (and erase), that you can stick pins in, and that show something about the land you'll be driving through. Those are your essential tool in any RoadTrip planning process. Start by marking all the places you know you want to visit. Then connect the dots. Then look for more places of interest and scenic routes along the lines connecting the dots. Repeat until you've got as many sites and roads as you think you want.

Lifey

[noFanofCB]

You'll want to pre-research any attractions you might want to visit as a great many places are closed during the month of January because winter attendance won't pay the bills.

Be sure and bring warm clothes and car survival stuff as even in Texas January can be very cold. Up into Colorado it can hit below zero temperatures some nights.