USA Road Trip

Over the next four weeks, I shall be undertaking a journey across the USA, stopping in various key destinations along the way. I'll start in New York, eventually ending up in San Francisco. The locations I will be visiting are listed chronologically as follows:

1. New York
2. Denver
3. Del Norte
4. Taos
5. Santa Fe
6. El Rancho
7. Monument Valley
8. Grand Canyon
9. Bryce Canyon
10. Apple Valley
11. Las Vegas
12. Mammoth Lakes
13. Yosemite
14. San Francisco

Depending on internet availability and general conditions during my journey, I may post some pictures here. I shall return on the 28th, but until then, I bid you adieu.

 

Cool, but to you have enough time to enjoy all those placed because there is so much to do in placed like New York and Vegas but the driving is gonna take up a large portion of the time.

 

Bryce Canyon is a lot of fun

 

seems like ur missin a lot of other cool stuff bud
like enron said, why go straight to colorado from ny, seems like youd skip a ton

 

They're probably flying to Denver then renting a car to go from place to place. There's an airport in Denver with flights which connect to New York.

 

Awesome stuff I got a 50 state overlanding plan underway, what vehicle are you using?

 

We're spending three days in NYC to do as much as we can within that time frame. It's a similar story for the other places we're going to. Prioritization of the places we want to see more of.

I'm looking forward to it

As for the queries regarding why we're missing everything between NY and CO, SuperDyl got it in one. This is a relatively budget and time constrained holiday, so we had to choose between our current route and a route that focuses on the more Eastern parts of the US. We're utilizing the subway whilst in NYC, then driving the remainder of the journey from Denver.

As I said, this a more budget oriented trip, so we're making do with a Toyota Corolla lol.


I wasn't able to get any pictures of my first night in the US, just because moving around between the airport and accommodation was so stressful. I've never experienced a city like this before - one that moves so fast and so dramatically. We had an incident when one member of our party missed the train that the rest of us got on because of how quick everything moves.

I'm about to go out to see the Brooklyn Flea Market and walk across the Brooklyn Bridge, I might get some photos later.

Thank you all for your comments and advice

 

Take it from someone who's driven from Toronto to Orlando as well as LA to Toronto (and back) several times:

The time you spend on the road past hour 6:
is hell.

Gotta be honest, gas will be a major expense too (several hundred to over a grand, depending on your car (HAVE CASH, NOT ALL PLACES ACCEPT CARDS)), and be prepared for a breakdown. This is long enough a journey that your car will breakdown. Make sure you have a kit for simple repairs and a phone which will get reception across all states.

Good luck. Respect each state's road laws as they do differ.

 

Seems like a fun trip! Be sure to visit the Midwest sometime, we're more than just corn and lakes!

 

Though @J055Y_ must not be the most constrained, I think the point is to skip over most of the middle of the US. Not to insult the middle states but there aren't as many iconic images there (sorry @OneBreadSlice ). The options were to fly straight to the West and look around there, fly to the East and stay there, or pay to fly a SECOND time to visit a bit of both. The trip is spaced out to give large amounts of time at the large cities and National Parks while quickly checking out some other side areas. If more than a couple more places were added the trip would be spent driving almost the entire time (something @J055Y_ 's family may not be so used to). It's planned out to give time to see a fair portion of many of the areas.

If you look over the general travel times you'll notice a pattern. After the visit to New York and the flight to Denver, the trip moves down south. It's 4 hours to Del Norte and after a plane trip, it's probably where they're staying a night. As far as I can tell, it's not filled with interesting places.

Taos and Santa Fe might be on the same day since combined it would be less than 4 hours. El Rancho, New Mexico doesn't appear the most exciting place either so it's probably somewhere to rest before moving up north to see the sandstone deserts of northern Arizona and southern Utah. Monument Valley should be nice and the Grand Canyon will probably be a quick stop up on the way to Bryce. There's probably a stop near Monument Valley (I'm assuming the Arizona side since it would be weird to cross into Utah to then return to the border with Arizona to see the Grand Canyon).

Bryce makes the most sense out of southern Utah parks because it's got the most original structures. The lack of visits to Arches park does appear to back up my intuition that most of the time here is spent quickly with only a couple days for each of the Colorado, New Mexico, and Arizona/Utah sections.

Las Vegas is misnumbered in the list, possibly since most of its allures are more casino based so the trip could just have a quick drive through the area (just like with the Grand Canyon). Apple Valley is a smaller city so I assume just like with Del Norte and El Rancho that it acts as a stop for the night on the way to the California coast. It works best to rest near Bryce and pass through Las Vegas (a six hour drive) instead of visiting Bryce then stopping in Las Vegas since a rest at Monument Valley would make the trip to Las Vegas about 8 hours (longer than any other drive), but if there's a rest somewhere in Utah before visiting Bryce it's still possible to stop at Las Vegas after a drive of 6 hours or less.

Each of the destinations are 2-6 hours apart making it most likely for @J055Y_ to follow directly up to Mammoth Lakes, rest, go through Yosemite National Park to do sight seeing, and rest again before going down to San Francisco.

As far as I can tell, the trip is spaced out to be pretty quick between destinations giving the first four states after New York about 6-8 days, Nevada a day, and California before San Francisco about 4-6 days. That gives time to be largely distributed between the two large cities of San Francisco and New York of almost two weeks. Perhaps a week at New York, half at San Francisco, and some extra time to check out Bryce, Mammoth Lakes, and Yosemite?

I'd say this schedule is decently well planned out. Of course plans also depend on how much driving at a time the group wants to go. If you're like my family, you've taken a trip or two with 10-15 hour drive times for multiple days, but some groups may only want to drive up to 3 or 4 hours at a time.

 

As @Marshy_88 said, your vehicle will most likely break down. Hopefully it doesn't, but be prepared for that. Especially through the states like Arizona and Utah, it can get so hot there and the heat will put extra pressure on your vehicle, plus it's difficult when your car breaks down in 100F degree weather with 45 miles until the next town.

When my friend and I traveled through Utah and Arizona we had two tires simultaneously blow out. We replaced one with our spare and had to walk 13 miles to town to buy another tire at an unreasonably high price, and trekked back. Since the weather was over 100F we actually decided to walk at night, which brought it's own problems like coyotes and snakes but it was worth it imo. All 4 tires were brand new before we started, it was just so hot and driving 6 hours a day can really strain the car.

Since towns in the Southwest can be so sparse, I highly recommend keeping at least 5 gallons of water for emergency reasons, having flashlights, and as Marshy said, having basic maintenance items.

Also its important to remember that whatever happens is part of the journey. When our vehicle broke down at first we were devastated. But both of us knew how important it was to have high morale, so we put on some music on our backpack speakers, loaded up overnight supplies, and made the most fun out of our situation. It ended up being two of the best nights of my life because we were so hopelessly optimistic about not dying in the desert lol.

Good luck!

 

Well.. Let me do a quick update here..

I said in my post that I would post photos later on when I had Wi-Fi... That ain't happening. My old Chinese phone corrupted and I lost all 8000 (approx) photos I had accumulated since 2016. Additionally, I then lost another 2000 about a week later when the same incident occurred again. I have resolved that I need a new cellphone although there's not much I can do about that now.

As for travel flow and why it has taken me this long to post an update, that is partially due to a lack of decent internet access in the areas I've been travelling, but mostly attributed to a storm about two weeks ago that messed up our travel arrangements royally. I'll elaborate further when I'm back home in a few days, but for now here's an article on it.

Talk later

--- Double Post Merged, Aug 27, 2018, Original Post Date: Aug 26, 2018 ---

So... Looks like I'm gonna be stuck here for a while longer.

While I was eating in a Denny's, someone smashed the window of my car in and stole two bags containing expensive cameras and more importantly, passports. Due to this, I am unable to make the flight that was scheduled to leave this evening.

I'm going to visit the consulate and see what we can do. The police also came and they helped to formulate a solution for us.

But right now, I need sleep.

--- Double Post Merged, Aug 29, 2018 ---

Long story short, I'm home now.

• Went to consulate.
• did passport procedure
• got new passports
• barely made it to the flight
• The rest is history

I'll go into more depth about what I did, saw, etc in a later post. This is just a brief update to my previous post.