Best Cross Country Route?

Hello Jamie,

For the first time (and maybe our last chance) we will spend 5 weeks in USA this summer. Looking forward to it!

We are a "Old Europe" family of 5 and want to combine history, culture and adventure in our tour of the "New World". We want to drive from New York (City) to Sacramento.

What are the best routes ?

We don't want to spend more than 10 days travelling across, since we have family on the west coast who we want to visit. Can we make it?

Thanks for any advice

Kristina

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Hello Kristina --

Many thanks for writing in to Road Trip USA -- sorry it took me a while to get back to you, but I hope you are still looking forward to your big USA trip!

I used to live in Sacramento, and have done the drive between there and NYC a few times -- it can be a great trip. It's close to 3000 miles, though, so I hope you can spend the 10 days or so it'll take to enjoy it. So long as you get off the main freeways, from which you really can't see anything of interest, there is an abundance of culture and adventure all the way -- though compared to Europe, our "history" is pretty short.

That said, if you learn to look the history is everywhere -- there are ancient "mound cities" sprinkled amongst the anodyne suburbs of Ohio, remnants of pioneer trails all across the West (including the route of the short-lived Pony Express, a legendary enterprise that enabled letters to be carried cross-country in record time.)

The natural route for you to follow happens to be my favorite cross-country drive, along old US50, which runs from Washington DC (which you will definitely want to see) west to Sacramento. I cover it in Road Trip USA, where I call this route the "Loneliest Road," but it has a little of everything that makes a cross-country road trip so amazing -- nice small towns, important historic sights, natural splendor (especially in Utah, where you can see the red-rock national parks of Canyonlands and Arches and Zion).

Hope these ideas help you start planning a great trip -- and once you're closer to having an itinerary, I'd be happy to help with some more specific recommendations.

With best wishes,


Jamie Jensen
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Road Trip USA