So for a while now I've planned out my idea of a year long road trip across the continental US. I grew up in Mississippi/Louisiana/Alabama so skipping those the goal would be 45 states over the course of a year, spending a little more than a week in each state and visiting at least one major city and one national park or national monument in each state. The order of states I took from here: http://www.randalolson.com/2015/03/08/computing-the-optimal-road-trip-across-the-u-s/ and I've been compiling ideas on where I'd want to visit for a while now.
I've also got plans for a secondary road trip where the goal would be to travel across every Canadian province + Alaska over the course of 3 or 4 months.
Problem with the whole thing though, is it'll likely be a while before I feel comfortable financially to take such a trip. Even if I sleep in my car or couchsurf for a fair bit of it I think I would need at least $20,000 to do such a trip.
Has anyone else done something similar? Any tips on how to accomplish such a thing?
North America road trip stories in general?
Dont go to Brownsville
>>1056190
Story?
>>1056191
Theres literally a a drug war right across the river so I hear grenades and machine gun fire couple times a week.
>>1056192
Was Brownsville worth visiting before the drug war?
I kinda wanted to visit it just because it's the farthest South you can get in the US excepting Florida?
The american police experience left an impression.
We used to joke about the likelihood of getting shot by cops. Got pulled over five times for speeding. Its unavoidable when you spend that amount of time on american roads. Only one of those cops actually wanted to give us a ticket, but apparently because we were foreigners we would have to be registered at the station, so he let it go. That might have been what all the others thought as well. Two of the cops gave us directions, one of them actually saved us from going many hours the wrong way.
One time we had parked the van in a sort of barren spot on the side of the road, finding a good place to park and sleep is a nightmare, and we were in the back drinking and getting ready to go out for the night when an officer showed up and asked us to move the car. I signaled that we were all clearly intoxicated by pointing at the beer cans and he just laughed and said go ahead. I was pretty sure I'd go to jail that night, but he just escorted us about 1km down the road to a parking lot and then drove off. Great, laid back cops.
I'm planning on doing all of No. 1 this spring/summer. Coming from the UK so figure I should just book a flight out to San Diego and try and get a flexible flight back from Seattle. Kind of a daunting trip to start to book and plan though.
>>1056210
Where are you from?
Although I don't want to label American cops as racist, many Americans absolutely love Europeans.
BTW, though, I've been driving on American roads for 8 years now and only gotten 2 speeding tickets. I've been pulled over for other things before, but actually getting ticketed is pretty rare.
>>1056211
OP here.
Although I have my route sort of planned out, I don't want to book anything in advance in terms of hotels or travel (I'd be driving the whole way anyway.) The best thing to do with on the road accomodations is either 1. camping. 2. couchsurfing or 3. stop in small towns to find cheap motels. Big cities will always be more expensive.
>>1056226
From Norway, and they mostly seemed moderately annoyed while helpful and polite. Maybe thats their way of showing love.
>>1056188
>Mt. Rushmore
>In Nebraska?
>>1056234
That sounds pretty par for the course.
Glad you at least had a decent experience with American cops.
>>1056226
In my travels across the country, most times I'm pulled over for minor things and the officer talks to me about my travels and sends me off with a warning after telling me a story of their own.
One time in Nebraska, they called the K-9 so they could waste 2 hours of everybody's time.
>>1056188
>Has anyone else done something similar?
Si.
>Any tips on how to accomplish such a thing?
I made it to 49 states, 4 provinces, and 1 territory in 8 separate 3-week trips. I actually did that within 5 trips but spent 3 trips playing catch-up in places I already went doing things I discovered along the way or things weather made impossible.
I'm happy with what I accomplished/saw in each state even though there were some in which I didn't do shit but sleep in or drive through.
The reality is there is a hell of a lot more to see in a state like Utah, California, or Wyoming than there is in Nebraska or Kansas.
I think what I hate most about this image is that almost all the trips are just some mindless really long distance going from one side of the border to the other.
I've done several ~2 week long road trips with my gf and it's manageable to budget and get by. I'm not going tell tales now because I should be studying but w/e. Anyway here goes:
1) Fuel is going to be your #1 expense unless you eat out a ton. I had a semi-efficient sedan and spent about $200/week doing distance driving
2) Get a comfy & nice sleeping bag so you won't feel too bad about sleeping in the car
3) 5 day cooler from Big5(or whatever chain sports store nearest you) so you can get preservable food and keep it fresh in your trunk. You will need to replace ice every 4-6 days depending on air temperature.
4) Buy a national parks access pass for $80, you get free entrance to all national parks and monuments for a year from the date of purchase. Keep in mind some national parks now charge $30, so visit 3 and the pass has paid for itself.
Good luck and try to enjoy yourself.
>>1056301
Everyone seems stuck on the image, but it has nothing to do with my actual planned route, it's just representative of road trips and I found it online. Although I do want to drive the Pacific Coast Highway at some point.
Yeah, fuel being the biggest expense is what worries me about this. Even with oil prices being low right now it worries me. It'll likely be a couple years before I'm ready to actually do this so I'm hoping gas prices stay low for a while.
I didn't know about the national parks pass. That's a great tip.
>>1056419
>I didn't know about the national parks pass. That's a great tip.
It is a great value, but know that it only covers entrance fees and doesn't include campsite fees.
>>1056210
>>1056226
>>1056234
>>1056263
I'm from Ohio and last year my friends and I drove a route similar to #9 on >>1056188 except for a slight dip south at the end to catch Yosemite before heading up to San Francisco through Santa Cruz.
We split the driving evenly between the four of us and somewhere in the beginning of the trip, I realized that I didn't have my license. I must have lost it at some point before we left. I was approached by police two different times during my shifts (both in the West) and consequently scared shitless as the cop came over. As luck would have it, one was just telling us our hood was slightly open and the other was checking to make sure we were okay while we were pulled over just off some desolate exit in Nevada or Utah.
Two great experiences, but then again we were all white and we were driving a minivan obviously stuffed with backpacking equipment.
OP here.
I was trying to create a rough draft of my route in Google Maps. But they'll only let you do 100 stops on the route, and that's only if it's a saved map on your Google account.
So this is a rough approximation of the route from starting point (New Orleans) to Delaware.
The point is to hit a major city and at least one national park or natural site of some kind in each state. Although in general this is the route I'd take I also plan on spreading out and checking nearby stuff near cities where I stop. Also, in California I'd probably take the Pacific Coast Highway.
Also, sorry it's not in higher resolution, but when editing a custom map Google's menu stays open on the screen the whole time so this was the only size I could get the whole map at.
>>1056763
And this is part 2 of the route going from Delaware back to New Orleans.
>>1056763
>>1056766
I have a secondary road trip planned for every Canadian province as well as Alaska. I want to see the territories as well, but Nunavut's a blank space on the route since the only way to get to the settlements there is boat or plane.
Alaska the route would actually be more complicated than what it's shown here, as there's stuff I want to see that's not on a highway like Kodiak and Sitka.
>>1056814
I haven't given as much thought to the Alaska-Canada trip since it's something that I only plan on doing after the USA one and it's going to be a couple years at least before I get around to doing either.
Honestly I don't know much about Alaska, beyond that I want to see Denali.
I might do the Dalton highway if I make it up there, but it doesn't seem as intriguing to me. If I visit Nunavut in Canada I'll still get to see north of the Arctic Circle.
>>1056820
Denali gets a lot of rain.
The Seward Peninsula is nice as well as the Matanuska Glacier, which are both close to Anchorage. I would love to go back and catch things I was ignorant about, like Wrangell St Elias National Park.
The Brooks Range on the Dalton highway is supposed to be beautiful. Fair warning about the drive up to Alaska: It's sometimes hundreds of miles and hours between towns/services.
>>1056822
Sweet, writing all that in my plan.
I was planning one of these as well. Wanted to ask, how likely am I to get robbed on this trip? Very pumped, it's coming up at the end of the month.
>>1056188
>Driving through Nebraska
>Ever
>Not driving through South Dakota
>>1057999
>>1058002
You might get robbed. But it doesn't matter where you go or what you're doing. It's really just random chance.
I'm in New Orleans all the time and I've never had anything happen to me. Same for Portland, OR, New York, Philadelphia, Seattle, Tampa, etc.
I was almost attacked by a nigger in Memphis, TN, but like I said, it's just that random chance thing.
