Road Trip -- Route 66, from Portugal

Hello Jamie!

I am starting to plan my first trip to the USA. It will start by flying from Portugal to NYC no the first week of September. After i'd love to know the best and cheapest way to reach the West Coast and do the Pacific Coast all the way to San Francisco.
There's a plan B that would be driving the Ruta 66 all the way to LA. Can you give me some tips, POIS and tell me how long and the minimum amount of money i would need to do this? Also, what is needed to drive a car in the States?

Thanks a lot!

Best,

augusto

==

Hello Augusto --

Thank you for writing in to Road Trip USA -- despite the crazy Euro-world economics, I hope you are still planning to take the trip. As you mainly want to visit NYC and the West Coast, I think it will be best for you to plan to fly across the country -- which will take a day, and cost around $400-600, versus driving, which would take 10 days and cost you quite a bit more.

This goes against my usual suggestion -- and driving across the country is a lot of fun and very interesting - but the USA is such a big place (NY to LA is like driving from Lisbon to Istanbul!). Even Route 66, from Chicago to LA, is about 2000 miles.

If you mainly want to see the NYC and Pacific Coast, I suggest you could rent a car in California and tour around -- you'll need a local driver license (I think one from Portugal or EU would be OK), plus a credit card; you also usually need to be at least 25 years old, otherwise things get complicated.

Hope this helps -- have a great trip,


Jamie