4th of July -- for a 5 Year Old!

Hello Jamie,
             
Me, my wife and 4 1/2 year old son are planning a West Coast to Midwest road trip.  We currently have 12 days to travel from our home in Columbus,OH to my in-laws home in Seattle, WA with the possibility of 4 more days if my wife gets them off for vacation. 

Originally we were gonna buy a conversion van here and drive there and back but I ran numbers and thought about it and I bought plane tickets one way to Seattle for less money than gas one way and it would save at least 3 days which could be used on the way back east.  We will need to buy a conversion van once there but in my research I've been able to find more available vehicles geared toward what we want due to it being the Pacific Northwest and I wont have to worry so much about rust and what not due to everywhere in the country being less salt heavy than the rust belt of the Midwest. 

We will be traveling the last week of June to the first/second week of July.  We were thinking about traveling down south from Seattle through to the midway of California and then across to to Ohio so with so many possibilities and the Fourth of July being involved in our schedule I was wondering if you had any suggestions.  We are planning on getting your book along with a few others and will have our camping equipment also.  I will be researching good food places as well because we are interested in experiencing various good eats too.  The only thing I could think in regards to the fourth of July was Disneyland and Las Vegas, any other suggestions would be welcome.  Thanks for your input, every little bit helps.

THANKS!,

Inbetweener

 
>>

Hello Inbetweener -- 

Thanks for writing in to Road Trip USA, and I hope I can help you plan your trip.  I'm afraid I won't be much help with your van-buying issues, but I can say that I have a van conversion myself, and have found it very useful for road trips and for hauling children around to soccer & baseball games, too.  If only gas were still $1 or $2 a gallon, instead of heading towards $5.  

(And I hope you van-buying goes well -- just in case, I'd suggest you make reservations for a rental car...)

The drive from Seattle south into California, and then back home to Ohio, should be fun. For 4th of July, though, I can't really recommend  Disneyland or Las Vegas.  At least not with an under-5 -- save Disneyland for when he's 8 or so (and big enough to ride Space Mountain!)  

And save Vegas for when everyone's over 21... :-)

To me 4th of July is all about small-town parades, fun and games and fireworks.  

I've had some good 4th of July moments on the East Coast (Boston for fireworks, Bristol Rhode Island for the "Nation's Oldest 4th of July parade, followed by a baseball game at Pawtucket!..), but maybe the most fun I've had was in Ouray Colorado, which is sort of on your route, at the foot of the fantastic "Million Dollar Highway", near Telluride.  In an amazing setting, in a 1880s hot springs resort that hasn't really changed in the past 120 years, Ouray celebrates Independence Day with a huge water fight, with fire fighters spraying hoses at each other on Main Street.   

Here's a YouTube video from a couple year's ago: 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VS5nXxhrEpM&feature=related

If I were 5, I'd love it! 

I cover Ouray in my US50 - Loneliest Road road trip, on the website and in the Road Trip USA book, and it's a fantastic drive -- from San Francisco or Lake Tahoe, across the Nevada desert, past Utah's great national parks (Arches, Canyonlands and more), then up into the Rockies for an unforgettable 4th of July.  Another great 4th of July party takes place further east in Colorado, at Royal Gorge, which is another great stop. 

From Colorado you could stay on US50, or hop onto I-70 to get you back to Columbus. 

Hope these suggestions help you have a great trip !  

Happy Trails, 



Jamie Jensen
---
Road Trip USA

Camping? - check out Recreation.Gov

RE: New York to California road trip

Hello Jamie,

Thanks for your awesome website and for sharing your experience and advice with travelers like myself.

My boyfriend and I are planning a coast-to-coast road trip in late May to celebrate his college graduation!  We're both New Yorkers who know the east coast well, so we want to head out west. Though I've always dreamt of seeing giant redwoods, I'm 24 and have never been west of the Mississippi. It's time to make it happen! He's leaving the planning up to me, so I need some help.

1) Places we'd love to see in order of priority are the California coastline, San Francisco, Yellowstone, The Grand Canyon. We can spare about 2 weeks for our trip, give or take. Is all this way too ambitious for 2 weeks? If we leave from New York City, what route would you recommend?

2)We're considering tent camping in KOA etc campgrounds, with the occasional hotel stay. This would help us to stretch our money, and also to have a different experience than city life allows.  Do you think camping is generally safe? Is it better to plan in our campground/hotel stays in advance or just let things unfold day-to-day?  We are camping novices, so any camping tips you can share would be greatly appreciated!

3)Do you have any general advice on keeping our road trip fun and minimizing stress?  

PS - I recently picked up your Road Trip USA guidebook and it will definitely be coming with us! :-)

Thank you in advance!

Sincerely,

Virginia

===

Dear Virginia -- 

Many thanks for writing to me, and I'm glad you've been enjoying Road Trip USA. 

I'm all in favor of cross-country drives, but for a 2-week trip, you wouldn't have much time to enjoy the West Coast after driving all that way.  Have you thought about hopping a flight, getting a rental car, and touring the west on a sort of "fly drive" vacation?    That way you could really get to see all the great stuff California and Utah and Montana and Wyoming et al have to offer.  

You could definitely plan a nice big loop, starting say at San Francisco, exploring the Mendocino and Big Sur coast, then heading east to Yosemite and Yellowstone before circling back west via the Grand Canyon (and maybe Las Vegas, too, which is a pretty spectacular place, in its own extravagant way. 

(By the way, being a New Yorker you may be interested to hear that the new USPS "Statue of Liberty" stamp features the one at NY NY casino in Las Vegas, not the esteemed original in NY Harbor!)

With gas prices as high as they are, a round trip flight may even end up cheaper than the drive - especially when you factor in two weeks of motels. 

If you do decide the cross-country drive is the thing, I think you'll need more than 2 weeks to get across the country and back -- I usually recommend 10 days in each direction. 

And finally, camping is a great way to see places -- not cities, for sure, but all the amazing open spaces (of which California has an abundance!)  I wouldn't go for KOA, however -- these are basically big parking lots.  There are much nicer, cheaper campgrounds offered by the many US Government divisions -- national parks, national forests, and much more.  Check out this National Parks and Forests website to get a sense of where and what is out there.  

(In case the link breaks, here's a URL:  http://www.recreation.gov/browseMapsRecGov.do?topTabIndex=CampgroundMap

Hope this helps  -- please let me know what you end up doing. 

Happy Trails, 


Jamie Jensen
---
Road Trip USA

Cross-Country (and back!) in a month, with National Parks

Hi Jamie,
 
My name is Michaela. My boyfriend & I are planning a road trip through the US. We are going to be on the road for +-36 days. We wanna start in Maryland and go to the National parks (Yellowstone, Grand Canyon, Yosemite NP, and many more) and do a kind of adventure thing like go hiking, rock climbing, kayaking and rafting. In between I wanna stop in the cities (Seattle, Detroit, Chicago, LA, Las Vegas,...).
 
So my question is if you could give me some suggestions for National Parks because there are a lot and I can't decide where to go. And it feels like that I want to see too many things and at the end of our road trip I'm disappointed. Would you think there will be enough time to go to the west coast and back?
 
Thank you very much.
 
Sincerely,
Michaela

==

Hi Michaela -- 

Thanks for your message, and for sharing your road trip plans. 

I cannot see how, after a trip like you describe, there is any chance of you being disappointed.  Your plan sounds excellent!  Balancing out the big cities ad the great outdoors, and being as active as you describe, sounds ideal.   

You didn't say when you plan to take the trip - I suspect summer, which is good. Other times of year get more complicated, but not impossible.

There are indeed a lot of national parks, but one place I think you should concentrate your time is Utah, where there are endless options for hiking and climbing and rafting and kayaking (and mountain biking, too!).  The town of Moab is a great base, but if you are prepared camp that is perhaps an even better option, because you can wake up in the outdoors, without having to hop into the car (noch einmal!)

Besides the National Parks, there are also many historic sights in beautiful locales, especially in New Mexico, where the region around Santa Fe is full of heritage ranging from native Americans (as at Acoma Pueblo, pictured above) to legendary Route 66.

So you have plenty of time to see everything you want to see, and to do everything you want to do.  I usually suggest 10 days to do the whole cross-country drive, so you have that plus an "extra" 18 days to enjoy yourselves.  Hope you have a great trip!  I also hope you'll get a chance to check out my book, and if you want any more specific advice, please feel free to write again. 

For now, Happy Trails, 



Jamie Jensen
--
Road Trip USA

By Motorcycle: Seattle to Sturgis SD to South Florida!

>>

Hey Road Trip USA --

I will be traveling from Seattle to South Florida by motorcycle this summer.  Aside from a few days in Sturgis for the bike rally I have a wide open agenda.  I would like to avoid freeway riding as much as possible and stick to secondary roads.  I have about 20 days to do this.  Any suggestions on things to see and a possible route would be greatly appreciated...
 
Big

>>

Dear Big -- 

Many thanks for writing in to Road Trip USA -- hope I can help find you a good route down to Florida.  Seattle to Sturgis is pretty straightforward -- I'd recommend following old US-2 east over the Cascades as far as Glacier National Park, where you can ride my favorite road in the world, the Going-to-the-Sun Highway.  

I cover this whole route in my US-2 "Great Northern" road trip, in the book and online:  

From Glacier  I think I'd circle back down to Missoula and US-93, which follows a lovely route (with many appealing detours along the way.) Next stop: Yellowstone National Park, and the winding ride over Beartooth Pass (US-212, up to Billings MT).  Maybe run south to the Grand Tetons from Yellowstone, if the weather is cooperating. 

Then you can pay your respects to Gen'l Custer & Co. at Little Big Horn, and / or look for "Close Encounters" at Devils Tower, in Wyoming.  Then make your way to Mt Rushmore and Sturgis.  I'd give myself  5 days for the 1300-mile ride -- allowing some time to see the sights of Yellowstone and Glacier.

From Sturgis to South Florida, you have endless possibilities.  Tell me a little more about what you like to see and do -- history?  nature? BBQ?  music?  and I'll try to come up with some good roads for you to ride. I know many bikers love the region around the Great Smokies National Park -- there are some roads around there that go miles and miles without a straightaway to interrupt the mountain twisties...

:-)

Hope this helps get you started.  Happy Trails, 


Jamie Jensen
--
Road Trip USA

===========

Hey Road Trip --

Thanks for the tips -- I've ordered your book, and am looking forward to the trip.

In the South I'm looking to do some of the Great River Road (for BBQ ribs!), then will make my way across Tennessee to some of those great rides in the Smokies. Tail of the Dragon, here I come...)

BRAZIL to USA, Florida to California

Hello Jamie,
 
I am from Brazil, 32 years old and today is the official day I started planning my road trip through the USA, that I´ve dreaming about since I was 15.
 
I´ve been to Florida twice, worked at Disney for 2 months and that´s where I would like to start: Florida.
 
I would like to travel from coast to coast, Florida, then NY, Chicago and drive our way to California via Grand Canyon (route 66) and go to Oregon as well.
 
I think it will be too much for one trip, but it´s hard to leave places I want to see behind.  How long does it take to travel throughoght the whole country, one month could be enough?
With your experience could you give me any advice ?
 
Loved your books. I think I am going to buy them all ! I've just order a road atlas from Rand McNally, I hope it´s a good one!
 
So excited!!!!!!!!!
 
Thanks in advance....


Janice
==

Hello Janice -- 

Many thanks for your nice message -- I hope I can help you plan your long dreamt-of road trip around the USA.  

After 17 years, you probably have a lot of places you want to see, and you are fortunate to have an entire month to do your big drive.  

A good road atlas will be a huge help, and if you want a good way to keep rack of all your plans and hopes and dreams, I would also recommend using a good piece of route-planning or mapping software, like Streets and Trips by Microsoft.

For Florida to New York -- I'd give myself a week, including a few days in cities like Washington DC and NYC, and time to enjoy the lovely mid-sized towns like Charleston SC and Savannah Georgia (which is one of my favorite places in the whole USA).  And if you like mountains, I'd suggest you head inland to Asheville North Carolina, and take a drive along the Blue Ridge Parkway

You could probably get yourself fairly fast from NYC to Chicago, maybe stopping at musical meccas like Detroit (MoTown!), and Cleveland (for the Rock 'n' Roll Hall of Fame).  But  if race past, you won't regret it, either.  

Another possible stop to add to your list of must-see places: Niagara Falls, just north of the interesting small city of Buffalo NY. 

From Chicago, you have the classic trip west, down historic Route 66.  I'd give myself another week for this segment -- including most of a day, at least, in Chicago and at the Grand Canyon.  So get to Los Angeles just over halfway through your month-long USA tour. 

The drive up the coast of California and Oregon is gorgeous, and worth some time too.  

Which raises my big question to you -- do you need to get all the way back to Florida to end your trip?  If you do have to get back to Florida (for your flight home), you'd have to head back east pretty soon.  But if you can pay a little more for a one-way rental car, and maybe a "domestic" flight between Seattle and Florida? --  I think you'll have a much more pleasant time with only one cross-country drive. 

Hope this helps -- and hope you like my Road Trip USA books.

Happy trails, cursos seguros (?)


Jamie Jensen
---
Road Trip USA

Summer Road Trip - RV, car, or a mix?

HEY JAMIE! 

I was SO excited to find your website! It is amazing!

My boyfriend and I are from western Australia and we are planning a big big USA trip for next summer June/Aug 2012. Both of us love the idea of a cross-country drive and we were playing with the idea of the touristy Route 66 nostalgic trip. BUT after reading the Oregon Trail..... I'm smitten. It covers everything we want to do and I'm thrilled to have come across it. 

I have a few questions though, firstly we were going to hire an RV.
 How long would it take us to do the Oregon trail roughly? Just so we can have an idea about how much the car hire will be costing us. 
Secondly, if we plan to sleep in the RV are there plenty of places we can park safely?

We are also going to drive from San Francisco (my most favorite place in the world) to LA and from LA to Vegas. 

I AM DYING TO GET MY HANDS ON YOUR BOOKS! 

THANK YOU! 

Bec & Gonz

===

Hi Becs -- 

Many thanks for the nice message -- I hope I can help you plan  a great trip!  

As far as timing a cross-country drive, I recommend giving your self at east 10 days to do a trip like the "Oregon Trail" route; longer if you can linger in places like Cape Cod, or Yellowstone National Park. 

About parking overnight, as a general rule it's hard to simply park overnight in an RV, as most towns and cities have laws against sleeping in vehicles.  One exception is that the biggest chain of retail stores, Wal Mart, usually allows RVers to park in their lots overnight. But generally you still have to find and pay for a place to park -- and campgrounds for RVS can cost nearly as much as a cheap motel room.

Maybe you can do some RV-ing, and some "normal" car road tripping?  You have a long trip -- 3 months, June to August? -- and having a RV rental for the whole time could get expensive (about 4 or 5 times as much as a rental car -- RVs can cost $600 a week plus 30 cents a miles, while cars more like $200 a week with no mileage charges.)

An RV could be perfect for the wild national park areas of Utah and Arizona and the Rocky Mountains, and a car would be better for your Oregon Trail drive, and other explorations (especially in the eastern USA, where there not are so many wide open spaces!)

There's a lot to see, all over the USA -- hope you do manage to get a hand on my books, and hope they help you have a great trip! 

Happy Trails, 


Jamie Jensen
---
Road Trip USA

Wisconsin to Wyoming, then Pennsylvania

Hey Road Tripper ! --


My best friend and I are taking a road trip this summer starting in Wisconsin and ending in eastern Pennsylvania. We are leaving from Madison WI, going to a friends in Wausau, WI, then Minnesota.

After this we would like to go through North Dakota and Montana. I was going to take your US-2 drive, or should we take route 94? I would like to go to the Glaciers National Park in Montana, then I would like to take the scenic drive for June which you have on your website as being in Montana, Idaho and Wyoming. I want to take that to Yellowstone, then South Dakota to Mount Rushmore.

We'll come home via Iowa, then Chicago, and a I-80 straight shot to PA from Chicago.

My questions:

Heading west, should we take route 2 or 94?

What is there to stop off and see in North Dakota and Montana?

Should I add on another stop somewhere?


Nikole

===

Hi Nikole --

Thanks for writing in to Road Trip USA. I hope I can help you & your friend have a great trip this summer.

Since you have so many wonderful destinations ahead of you, I think maybe it would be good to get yourself "out west" as quickly as possible, so I-94 seems like a good bet. It's a pretty enough drive, and I might suggest you look into lodgings at Yellowstone on your way west (since you are there before most schools get out, you might miss the summer vacation rush).

North Dakota has a couple of good stops -- Bismarck (the state capital) and Medora (near Teddy Roosevelt National Park). But parts of the northern Great Plains, particularly the very nice city of Minot North Dakota, at the junction of US-2 and my US-83 "Road to Nowhere" road trip, has suffered from terrible flooding -- the whole downtown is under water as I write, so maybe this year I-94 will be a better choice.

As far as scenery goes, things definitely get nicer as you approach the Rocky Mountains, in western Montana.

If you veer south onto I-90, via Billings, the Beartooth Highway (US-212) via Red Lodge is a great drive, and further west Missoula makes a nice break (it's a great college town, if you like that sort of thing).

Glacier National Park, along US-2 on the crest of the Rocky Mountains, is also well worth some time -- it's best seen from the Going to the Sun Road, which runs right across the park. Be sure to get out of the car and hike, so you can stretch your legs and see some of the abundant wildlife.

My "Drive of the Month" scenic route you mention, from Yellowstone to Glacier via the Grand Tetons, follows US-20 and US-93 (and a few other roads), and it is a gorgeous drive. Lots of wide open spaces, and some nice towns, too.

(I like Whitefish MT, and Stanley and Boise in Idaho are also very nice places to visit.)

From Glacier National Park and wherever else you go in Idaho, you can circle back via Yellowstone (and Grand Tetons and the town of Jackson -- both of which are well worth adding to your plans. And if you like Wild West history, be sure to stop in the town of Cody Wyoming for the Buffalo Bill Museum, perhaps the best in the world.

Then on your way back east, I-90 will carry you past Mount Rushmore, on to Chicago, then your race home to Pennsylvania. Sounds fun -- hope it works out for you.

Happy Trails,


Jamie Jensen
---
Road Trip USA

Seeking Awesome Wilderness -- Grand Canyon to the Big Apple!

Hi Jamie,

me and a friend of mine are planning a trip through the USA and we were wondering if you can help us. The trip itself will start from Flagstaff, and we want to end up in New York City.

We have around about 17 days, and we want to see as much as we can! We like hiking and awesome views of nature, more than city sightseeing.

thanks in advance

yours sincerely

Max

===

Hi Max -- 

Thanks for your message.

17 Days is a good amount of time for a cross-country adventure, but hiking is at least as time-intensive as road-tripping, so you'll have to make some choices if you want to have some time at the end to "do" New York City.

I assume you'll want do some Grand Canyon hiking, and be able to appreciate its many prospect points and wonderful scenery.  I also recommend Zion National Park, especially the view from "Angel's Landing", and just about in the whole wide "Four Corners" area is a feast for the eyes.  

Mesa Verde National Park is another breathtaking place, with ancient cliff palaces and unforgettable vistas.  You could spend your whole trip in the Four Corners and still not be able to "see it all", but however long you get here will be time well spent, for sure.

Further north, Yellowstone and Glacier are two more amazing national parks, with miles of wonderful hiking -- and for a change of pace I think you might like Craters of the Moon National Park in Idaho; this is a volcanic lava-flow with many underground caves.  
There is also a lot of river rafting in Idaho, especially along the Snake River -- I describe the region in two of my "Road Trip USA" routes, the "Oregon Trail" along US-20, and along US93 - which I call "Border to Border," in the books and online.  

To get across the country, the drive across the Great Plains shows off wide open spaces, and there are some lovely vistas, for example in the Black Hills of South Dakota (around Mt Rushmore), and in the spectacularly scenic "Upper Peninsula" of northern Michigan. I cover this is my US-2 "Great Northern" route.

In the eastern part of the country, I suspect you'll like the drives in what I cover as the "Appalachian Trail", along the Blue Ridge Parkway (nearby is the place where they filmed "Last of the Mohicans").  

Another awesome natural area is in upstate New York, where the Adirondack Mountains form one of the largest wild areas in the US. 

Then of course, at the end you have the wilderness of Manhattan, which requires a very different set of survival skills, not to mention considerably more cash...

:-)

Hope this helps you have a great trip,

Happy Trails, 


Jamie Jensen
--
Road Trip USA