Driving from New york to San diego

[AZBuck]

Yes, it is possible to make the trip you're contemplating in 11 days. To drive by everything on your list would take a minimum of around 4400 miles, so you'd just have to average 400 miles a day. But the key is that phrase 'drive by'. If you want to actually take even a few hours at each of the marvelous areas you're taking all that time to get to, then you're going to have to cut back just a bit. The one location that is a bit off the most efficient routing is Yosemite. If you eliminate that, then you lower your total miles to more like 3850 miles and you've bought yourself more than a full day's time to explore the others.

Anyway, the most efficient route for what you want is just I-90 west to around Sheridan, WY and then US-14 to Yellowstone, and US-89 down through the Tetons to join I-15 in northern Utah. Continue down I-15 through Utah to the Bryce/Zion area where you hop back on US-89 down to Cameron, AZ. Use US-180 into the Grand Canyon and AZ-64 out to join I-40 at Williams. I-40 and I-15 will then take you into San Diego. While on-line software will help you visualize the individual segments, I strongly recommend that you get a good paper map of the US, or better yet - an atlas, and plot out your route. Be sure to see what else is along the way that you may have missed the last time.

Now for a bit of RoadTrip philosophy. One of the major thrills of being on the road is seeing new stuff. The sense of discovery and adventure is almost palpable. The trips I have been most disappointed in (and they are few and the disappointment minor!) have been those where I tried to recreate a previous trip. Just as there is nothing like your first kiss, there is nothing like your first trip down a road. This is just by way of saying that you might be better served in your quest to recapture that thrill of yesteryear by planning a whole different route. It's a huge country out there and there's a lot more to see. Now, I know that Mark (the Editor) maintains that every trip down a given piece of road is a new adventure and I understand the philosophy behind that sentiment, but here you have a chance to work with a clean slate and have (almost) the entire country at your disposal. It would be a shame, I think, to let that opportunity pass without so much as a thought to doing something new.

AZBuck