Western v. Eastern States Road Trip in 2 weeks?

[rinehart.kimberly]

Okay... so here's the delimma... my boyfriend and I want to take road trip- but he kind of wants to go east, and i want to go west. Really, either way is fine with both of us, we are just planning them both and then deciding later which we would like to do more/ which would be better for the two weeks we have available to go. SO I thought I would get everyone's input. One more factor: my parents are giving me their Marriott hotel rewards- meaning they will get us free rooms at any marriott along the way- so we have planned the stops according to where we can get a room (i know its a little extravagant, but it's free and we just graduated college, so we are broke haha). We don't necessaraly want suggestions on where to go (unless you have some great ones), but more of which would be the best use of our 2 weeks/gas money. We want to leave next month (July) so keep that in mind!

I live in Ausitn, TX he lives in Houston, so if we go west, we start from Austin, if we go east, we start from Houston. Here's the city-stops that we would make- let me know which you think is better (and why!!)!

WEST: Go from Austin through Ft Worth, Amarillo, and to Santa Fe, NM. From Santa Fe, go north through Colorado Springs and Denver, CO to Cheyenne, WY. From there, head west through Laramie to Salt Lake City, UT. Up to Twin Falls and Boise, ID and up to Seattle. From there, we will head down to Portland, OR, south to San Francisco, CA. From San Fran we would like to head south on H1 for while, and cut over north of LA to the Grand Canyon, then down through Phoenix and Tuscon, AZ- then back all the way to El Paso, TX and on home to Austin.

EAST: From Houston, we would drive straight to Jacksonville, FL where his family is. From Jacksonville, we would go northeast through Savannah along the coast to Charleston, SC and Myrtle Beach. From there, we want to go north to Fayetville, NC, Rocky Mount, and on to Richmond, VA. From Richmond, we want to head to Washington, DC and around to Delaware, then back down the outer banks there, turn around and go north along the coast to Philly, Atlantic City, and New York City. From NYC we would like to keep north on to Plymoth, Providence, and Boston, MA and then swing back around either to Albany or straight to Pittsburgh, PA. From there we would like to go to Roanoke, VA down to Charlotte, NC then on to Atlanta where my sister lives. From Atlanta we would head back home to Houston- either through Montgomery, AL or Birmingham and Jackson, MS.

What do you think?

[glc]

It all depends on what your particular interests are. Those are both great trips. I personally prefer the scenery in the West.

They are both quite ambitious for only 2 weeks though. You won't have time to do much except sightsee through the windshield.

[PNW Judy]

Welcome to the Roadtrip America forums.

I, too, prefer the scenery and wider open spaces of the west. But I would love to explore the history in the east. But since I also agree with glc that you don't have enough time to do much but drive unless you cut out some of the destinations farthest away, exploration history is moot.

The best trip is really the trip that intrigues you both the most. If you can't decide, then flipping a coin really might be the best way to choose. And then make a deal that the "losing" trip will be the next trip you take.

When planning your destinations, you might consider that we recommend traveling a maximum of 500-550 miles daily. This gives you a bit of time to explore while still burning miles. If you want to explore more, than you'll need to average even less daily miles than that.

After you have decided east or west, come on back here and let us help you plan a route that fits better in your timeframe and interests you.

[Midwest Michael]

I will echo the concerns over the time, and because of that, I would probably look at the eastern option as being more feasable with your timeframe. Going to Seattle will add a good 1000 miles to your roundtrip compared to say Boston.

Considering you're already looking at a schedule that's probably got more than you can actually do, I'd want to keep the miles down. Doing the trip west that you've laid out would require about 11 full days on the highway. That leaves very very little time left to actually do any exploring or taking scenic detours. Your east coast option is very very full too, but it does have the "every little bit helps" factor going for it by traveling fewer total miles.

[rinehart.kimberly]

Thanks everyone- I agree with it being jam packed, maybe we can shorten it some... we just don't know what to cut out- we want it all haha. Especially because this will probably be our last vacation for a few years- he is starting a career and I am going into grad school... meaning we are broke for a long time. Would you have any suggestions as to different routes for either direction that would maybe be more feasable? Like maybe places on our previous ones that we could probably live without seeing?

Thanks so much to everyone who takes the time to reply to this, it's great!

[Midwest Michael]

One thing to keep in mind is that you'll never be able to see everything, no matter what amount of time you have. You're always going to have to make choices, and if you try to fit "everything" into too little time, quite often you can finish your trip and discover that you didn't really get a chance to experience anything other than the inside of your car!

As far as what to cut, that's going to be up to you and your tastes. Obviously the farther you travel away, the less you'll be able to do, but what you really need to do is sit down and figure out what you want this trip to be and what the biggest priorities that you want to do the most are, and then build a trip around those goals that still fits with your other limitations.