Running out of Time

[SSJMaestro]

I have been looking forward to making a cross country road trip for a while now. Recently I have sat down and planned out a course to take, after a good amount of research I decided on which stops to make and the direction to take. I had originally planned for the trip to last for 3 weeks. Which I am well aware is not enough time to really see everything. My goal is just to see the major sites.

I am not really worried about cost, and transportation has already been arranged. We will be traveling via a small RV so that should take care of housing expenses and cut down on dining fees as well.

The problem that I recently came into was the other party that is coming along was unable to take 3 weeks off so now we have been reduced down to 2 weeks!

I need some advice on wether this trip is doable and if I will have enough time to make it to atleast the stops listed below.

I will start in California (due to the one week reduction all of the west coast stops have been removed)

THESE ARE THE REMAINING LOCATIONS:
1.Grand Canyon
2.New Mexico
3.Oklahoma (city bombing site)
4.Tennessee (Pigeon Forge, Nashville)
5.Virginia (Marine Corps Museum)
6.Washington DC
7.New York (Statue of Liberty)
8.Niagara Falls
9.Chicago
10.Mt. Rushmore, Crazy Horse Monument
11.Yellow Stone National Park

Now keep in mind there will be 3 drivers, and the trip must last 2 weeks, maybe a couple of days more than that but not more than 2 1/2 weeks.

Please make suggestion as to what could I do to make sure the trip is fullfilling and not just a race!

[Midwest Michael]

Welcome to the RTA Forum!

I'm sorry to tell you that I simply don't see any way that you'll be able to hit all of those stops in 2 weeks without it just being a point to point race.

Since it takes about 5 days of driving just to drive coast to coast, I really don't see any way to do a coast to coast trip on your timeframe and have much time to see things along the way. To be honest, even with 3 weeks the plan you laid out would be pretty rushed.

I really think you're going to have to rethink this trip. If you've only got 2 weeks and driving coast to coast is your primary goal, then you're going to have to cut back signficantly on the things you can see. If the East Coast is your major focus, then you probably should look at saving most of the things west of the Mississippi for another trip. In fact, you might really rethink this plan and change to a fly and drive type trip.

Otherwise, you could also have a pretty amazing trip using your 2 weeks just to focus on the west. A more limited loop, taking in the Grand Canyon, New Mexico, Colorado, Mt. Rushmore, Yellowstone, and the sites on the West Coast that you have taken off your list would allow a lot more time to explore rather than spending most of your trips time behind the wheel.

[SSJMaestro]

I did a rough mileage estimate through mapquest and the total mileage is about 7000 that comes out to about 500 miles per day. to include all of those stops mentioned above. Now if there are multiple drivers (giving everyone a decent amount of sleep).

Do you think that at 500 miles a day, the trip would still be enjoyable?

[Midwest Michael]

If you are driving 500 miles a day, every day for 2 weeks, I would certainly call that a race. 500 miles is a comfortable, but full day on the road - ballpark of 8-9 hours for driving, fuel stops, etc. While you can do a little sightseeing at this rate, it really would be very limited. It certainly wouldn't leave you time to spend even one half day at any of the places you've listed. Don't forget, you're also going to have to spend time at night finding a place to park and connecting the RV to hookups if you plan to use the features that make an RV really a home on wheels.

You've also got the problem that you are dividing your total mileage to get an average, however, much of your trip wouldn't include 500 mile segments. To cover your east coast miles at 500 miles a day, you'd have to cover your stops in Virigina, DC, and NY, plus make some miles towards Niagara Falls, all in one day. I don't think that's particularly possible. If you spend 2-3 days touring this area, its going to bump up the miles on the rest of your trip significantly, and beyond the rate needed for an enjoyable trip.

You also shouldn't forget that traveling 500 miles on the east coast will take more time because of traffic, and thats before the extra challenges of driving a large vehicle like an RV through that traffic.

Multiple drivers also aren't as much help as you might think, and at any rate, shift sleeping really is only condusive to pure speed run type trips. It is the kind of thing that should be considered work, and not something that is done on a trip ment to be enjoyable.

[MrsPete]

Do you think that at 500 miles a day, the trip would still be enjoyable?

No. My family can do 500 miles in one day (and enjoy it even!), but the next day'd better include something really fun for the kids like a water park or at least a great hotel pool. Think about it: that's a minimum of a full work day in the car.

We could manage to do two such days in a row, but we'd all be cranky and it'd take us a couple days to "get over it". The physical/emotional cost of two such days in a row isn't worth the miles we'd cover.