US Road Trips!

[Rubycon 0]

Summer is nearly here again, and being in the thick of the visa process has made me wish once again for the long, open road...

So the idea here is to talk about any road trips you have done - I'm thinking more of holiday trips here. What tips do you have? What places make essential visits?

Let me start off by relating a little of mine and my finacee's road trip last summer from Chicago to San Francisco...

We gave ourselves about a week to get from the edge of Chicago to a friend's place in Fremont, CA. Along the way we took in Iowa, Minnesota, South Dakota, Wyoming, Utah, Nevada and California. We went through two cars (!), the first a 96 Olds Ciera (much missed, it died about 100 miles south of Salt Lake City) and a rental Hyudai, which took us the rest of the way with no complaints.

Prequel - an Englishman learning to drive American style!

The distance we were going to travel on our trip of course made it necessary to share the driving. So, in the days leading up to our departure, I needed a little bit of experience on Illinois roads. Here are a few tips/observations on driving in the US from a Brit perspective (not to be taken as lawfully correct, of course!). Any additional tips from natives would be welcome!

Before you drive:

1. First of all, you can drive on a UK driver's license when in the US as a tourist (ie: on a tourist visa/visa waiver), though remember to check, as rules vary from state to state.

2. Make sure you get an International Driving Permit. I never got pulled over, and so was never asked for it, but published information strongly advises getting one.

3. Always check that you are properly insured for the vehicle you'll be driving. We called my fiancee's insurance company to check - I was fine.

4. Always carry your British license with you whilst driving - unlike in Britain, in the US it is illegal to drive without carrying your license. Remember also that you need both your photocard and paper counterpart to form the full British driver's license - so make sure you carry both.

5. Obviously make sure that the vehicle you will be driving is in good working order. Remember oil check, tyre pressure check, coolant check, etc. Do these checks at regular intervals throughout your trip, too.

Some observations on American cars for British drivers:

In general, us British tend to drive relatively small engined manual (stick shift) cars - so for me, getting used to the Olds was no problem as it pretty much drove itself. Note that you can't really use engine breaking as you would in a manual, so until you're a little bit more used to the vehicle, make sure you brake in plenty of time! Also, in a big engined American car its very easy to break the speed limit without much encouragement, so take it easy to begin with.

Some observations on American roads and road users for British drivers:

When driving on multi-lane roads (ie: interstates) it seems common for Americans to change lanes with no warning or signal. Don't be put off by this, just make sure you make your intentions clear! Watch out for debris (blown out tyres, road kill, etc.) - there's a lot of it about, especially on rural roads. Make sure you know how to negotiate a four-way stop sign intersection - get an American to explain how its done! Remember that, as in Britain, a red octagonal stop sign means come to a full stop - don't be temped to just slow to a crawl, as you can be pulled over by the police for this infraction. Know your speed limits - these vary from state to state and in many cases are lower than their UK equivalents. For example, 55 MPH on a US highway versus 60 MPH on a British A road, or 65MPH on a US freeway/expressway versus 70MPH on a British motorway.

Chapter 1, The Midwest

Sioux Falls, South Dakota

The first day we crossed much of the Midwest, in what now seems like a bit of an endurance test! We took the I90 west to Rockford, IL, then continued west on Highway 20 (I didn't want us to take the interstate for the whole trip). We crossed the Illinois/Iowa border at Dubuque, IA, then continued to Waterloo, IA, where we stopped for a late lunch. We then continued west on the 20, and a some point we headed north, and crossed briefly into Minnesota to rejoin the I90 (probably via I35).

The type of rural midwest landscape we were now travelling through could probably be classed as featureless (see signature animation below!), but for an Englishman it really is like nothing he's ever seen before - you really can't drive for more than a few miles in England without coming across some kind of settlement. So I found it quite interesting, really. We saw some strange people driving along with their feet stuck out of their truck windows (if you are someone who drives like this, please tell us how you are controlling your foot pedals...), but for the most part, the first day was pretty quiet.

We were now heading to Sioux Falls, SD for our first night. We'd brought some major chain hotel directories with us (Holiday Inns seemed consistently good wherever we went) so along the way I or my fiancee would call ahead to a few places and see what was on offer for that night. For a double room we usually paid about $80-120 per night. Neither of us are campers, so we were hotelling it for most of the trip (yup, it did turn out expensive). Sioux Falls seemed like a nice place. We'd arrived in the middle of a music festival, so things seemed to be quite lively.

...to be continued!

[Trompe le Monde 1,107]

My main rule of big US road trips is that you need to get off the Interstate and bring lots of good driving music.

I did that same drive you did (but finished at Yellowstone, not SF). We started from Chicago in the evening drove through the night and watched the sun rise in the Badlands. Truly incredible. I wish I had those photos scanned.

Next week a friend arrives from Oz and we are doing LA-Vegas-north rim of the Grand Canyon and then the Grand Circle through AZ and UT. Truly one of the most amazing landscapes.

[isleta521 5]

We live in NM. Last week late I was lucky enough to find a BB close to Santa Fe. We took a few of days off to spend the 3day weekend there. We were going to do the hotel thing but kindoff tired of that since I see them alot during work and it gets old. We took some steaks to BBQ there caus they had a grill and that saved us some $$. Was very nice, quiet, clean and remote, heard coyotes at night and plenty of stars to see - very nice time we had.

[Dan J 277]

I pretty much lived in the Midwest almost all of my life. So I'm used to the openness of the rural areas. For me, it was fascinating to take a train across Java and hardly see any undeveloped area. Every few miles was a town, and in between were rice paddies and sugarcane fields with people working in them. Even going through the mountains there were quite a few towns. Taking the train was good and cheap way to see the countryside of Java. Though its long and not particularly comfortable.

The pictures I took along the way: http://flickr.com/photos/datasage/sets/72157594503628573/

[britbird 4]

Pacific Coast Highway is very nice. Try to avoid august/september though as it fogs over.

We've done the West to East coast trip, but we had reason to go fast so didn't do as much off interstate driving as would have liked. Arizona is one of my favorites. I enjoyed driving around the border parts, Tombstone, Bisbee, very interesting.

And football roadtrips are awesome. Driving from DC to New Orleans was a great trip.

[peejay 327]

This post topic coincides with a planned road trip my wife and I will be going on as soon as my weekly offshore shift ends on June 6. My wife is off of work for the summer as the school she works at is on summer break.

We are traveling from Houston, TX to the Rocky Mountains in southern Colorado to go camping and sightseeing. We will leave as soon as I arrive home from work on the 6th. I already have our stuff packed, loaded, and ready to go in the car we are traveling in. We plan to drive to Amarillo and stop there for the night at a hotel before continuing on into Colorado the following morning. We plan to move our camping to a new location every day as we travel through the mountains to various places.

It will be a fast paced trip because it is such a long distance and I have to be back home in Houston on the 12th to return to work on the morning of the 13th.

[Toledospod 0]

Can't wait for the next part of that story Rubycon! Sounds really interesting

The only road trip I ever did in the US was before I became a permanent resident here and it was about 3 years ago. My wife is originally from Middletown, NJ and so we always flew over there(from London)for vacation. That one time, we decided to drive out to Toledo, OH(where my wife, daughter and I now live)to see my wife's sister and her family, who live here and then make a road trip of it as well. My mother-in-law came with us too(not the greatest experience, but a funny one, you'll see why later).

We hired a car in NJ and drove the 10 or 11 hours from NJ to Toledo, stayed there for a week in a hotel and visited with my wife's sister's family. We drove upto Detroit and across into Windsor, Ontario once as well. This was an experience that my wife tries very hard to forget, as she had a lot of trouble at Canadian immigration on the other side of the Ambassador bridge. Basically, me, my sister-in-law and her husband all happened to have passports with us(I obviously had to as I was only visiting). My wife and mother-in-law only had drivers licenses. The woman at immigration asked if they had other proof of residency as "a US driver's license doesn't prove you are a resident, only that you can drive" My mother-in-law happened to have her voter's registration card with her(no idea why!), but my wife didn't have anything else, not even her passport(she's American for goodness sake!). The immigration officer did some stuff in her little booth, looked at her computer or whatever it was and pretty much made us sit there for about 10-15 mins. Finally, just as we were expecting her to turn us back around and refuse us entry, she allowed us through and gave us back our various bits and pieces, but not before making this wonderful patronizing comment -"You must be aware of Canadian rules in the future, we are not here to educate you" Needless to say my wife was absolutely fuming at this and it took her a good half-hour whilst I was driving around Windsor for her to calm down! We were told by some friends of mine later on that going via the Windsor/Detroit tunnel may have been a more pleasant experience!

We then decided to drive up to see my wife's Aunt and Uncle in Schenectady, NY(stopping off at Niagara Falls, NY on the way). None of us had ever been to Niagara, so this was a truly amazing experience to see the falls and stuff. I was amazed to see the difference between the American side and the Canadian side(in terms of the facts that the Canadian side had loads of entertainment stuff and bussing nightlife and the American side just had the falls and some historical stuff!). We did the 'Maid of the Mist' boat tour as well, which was brilliant! My mother-in-law decided she didn't want to go with us on the boat, so she took the rental car and went off driving around Niagara Falls. We told her to meet us back the park above the falls in about an hour-and-a-half. So, about an hour later, we're already done and off the boat. I decided to call my mother-in-law and see where she was to get her to come back early. Unfortunately, at the time my mother-in-law was not a big user of the cell phone, so she only ever switched it on to make a call and when she knew she might be getting call, like this situation. I called and couldn't get through, something about the network being busy or something, so I tried again and got voicemail, and again, and again. Gave up after about 4 or 5 times(even though my phone was from the UK, it was a tri-band phone which would receive signals from any network, so I knew that it couldn't be my end that was having a problem). We sat in the park for what must of been 45 mins, and I never got a call from my mother-in-law. I figured that she might have switched her phone off and maybe she would've switched it back on to check her messages, but she didn't. At this point, we were both getting a bit concerned. So, we grabbed the attention of a park ranger(who I guess was also a local cop)and I explained to him that we had 'lost my mother-in-law'(seems so funny now that I look back on it! ). I could describe the vehicle she was driving, so he offered to take me in his car and drive around, in the hopes that we might find her. We drove around for about 10 mins and couldn't find her, then all of a sudden, I get a call from her saying she's back at the park now with my wife. I asked her what happened and she said she had the phone on all the time, but never received any calls. When she tried to make a call her phone wasn't working, so she switched it of and back on again and it started working again(and of course she got my numerous messages, but didn't know how to pick them up!).

After Niagara Falls, we drove onto Schenectady, NY where we stayed for a few days with my wife's Aunt and Uncle. Her uncle is a hunter, so it was really cool seeing all these trophies of Boars' heads, deer antlers, etc on his wall(I've never met a hunter before, being from a city like London). Then, we drove back down to New Jersey. The whole trip was about 2 weeks and we really enjoyed it, despite the experiences we had!

[homesick_american 1]

I got into law school at Ole Miss; I applied on a whim and my roomie and I drove from Texas to Oxford, Mississippi to see the school. After visiting Oxford I decided I couldn't possibly spend three years of my life there. I needed gas to get back to Tupelo where I was staying with a friend. Went to Diamond Shammy, got gas, then went inside to pay (by check). I whipped out my checkbook and DL and the woman at the counter looked at it, leaned over, and said softly, "Do y'all gotta lotta n*ggers in Texas?" :o :o :o

As if that wasn't bad enough, we went to a Pizza Hut because we were both starving and they had a cheap buffet. We were the only people there since it was the winter holidays so all the students were gone. We were there maybe 15 minutes before two mullet-heads in wifebeaters came in. I didn't pay much attention until I went to the buffet line at the same time as one of them. His shirt said "KKK - The Original Boys In The Hood." We threw money down on the table and left. :o :o :o

[Autumnchik 6]

Ahhhhhh road trips .... so fun

For my first job right after graduate school, I had to move from CT to CA. My mom and I packed up a U Haul and drove cross country. Since I had never driven cross country before, we did some sightseeing on the way, stopping at whatever random towns / sites intrigued us. The Grand Canyon was a must! We did get some strange looks since we were the only people in the parking lot there who came in a U Haul

Another memorable road trip was the one my now husband and I took right after we met. He flew into Atlanta, we spent some time there, then headed up the East Coast to visit my family in CT. Again, stopped in whatever towns intrigued us. For him, since he had never been to the East Coast, 2 must see places were DC and NYC. I went to college in DC; had my very first apartment completely on my own (no roommates!) there. So, when we were in Arlington VA, I drove us down the road past my old apartment. My hubby wanted to see the Pentagon, which happened to be just down the street from my old apartment. He still makes fun of me that I dismissively pointed down the road, "Oh its down there" and then proceeded to show him the IMPORTANT sites: the apartment, the grocery store I used to shop at, the diner where we went after drunk late nights out!!! I am such a dork!

[w¡n9Nµ7 §£@¥€r 123]

Do the overseas highway (rt 1) on the Florida Keys.

[Hilarious Clinton 452]

My 7 week 10,000 mile lone motorcycle trip.

I drove from Massachusetts to West Palm Beach, FL to San Diego, CA to LA to San Jose to Seattle, WA and back to Mass.

No breakdowns or accidents and I only stayed in hotels or camped for 7 days. I stayed with friends the rest of the time.

1987 BMW K100RS

[gabby4ever 1]

we're planning a trip from louisiana to tennessee...its a 12 hour drive, we'll see how it goes with a baby and a cat we're gonna stay 5 days there and then 12 hours drive back home ...

[Saddle Bronc 124]

As passenger:

• Minot (ND) to Port Huron? (MI) late June/early July 1972 as US portion of a Calgary-Montreal road trip
  
• Princeton (NJ) to Orlando (FL) to Fortuna?? (ND--whichever town is across from Estevan, SK)
  

As driver, quite a few including:

• Project-related moves from:
  • Atlanta to Memphis (June 1996)
    
  • Memphis to Dallas (Jan 1997)
    
  • Dallas to Atlanta (Jun 1997)
    
  • Atlanta to DC (Jan 2001)
    
  • DC to Memphis (Jan 2004)
    
  • Memphis to Balto (Jun 2004)
    

  Retreat roadtrips from:

  • Atlanta to Sebring, OH (Augusts of 1998, 1999, 2000); I actually ran the limit on fuel of my car in 1999, and had to fill up inoptimally (as I was down on fumes by this time) at Charleston, WV
    
  • Memphis to Vassar, MI (Nov 1996)
    
  • Atlanta to Brighton, MI (Nov 1997, Apr 1998, Nov 1998)
    
  • DC-Sebring, OH (Augusts, every year since 2001)
    
  • DC to Vassar, MI (Novs, every year since 2001)
    

Edited June 2, 2007 by CherryXS

[Reba 2]

James and I have done quite a few road-trips since we've met. He hates to fly, so he figures anywhere his truck will get to, we're gonna drive there He's trying to figure out how to get to Hawaii in this manner, but I don't think there's a ferry.

Our first raod-trip was from North Carolina to Vermont, after I had just done a bus trip from Toronto to Tennessee! I took the bus down, and a couple days later we drove up to Vermont to meet up with friends to go camping for the May long weekend. We stopped to visit with friends in West Virginia for a bite to eat, then stayed in a motel along the highway somewhere in Maryland. We woke up to find it was right next to a huge cemetery! I'd wondered why it was so quiet!

Our next road trip was the following May long weekend we went from Toronto to South Dakota and back. In 4 days. I wouldn't recommend it! Especially with a van load of people and only two of them lisensed to drive (me and James). We had a friend from Toronto, one from Cleveland, OH, one from England and one from Australia with us. The Brit was astonished that we could drive for 27 hours straight and still be in the same country. Well, 6 hours of that was Toronto to Cleveland, but 19 hours was straight across the US. The plains are soooooo boring to drive across! Oh look! There's a tree! Only about every 20 miles or so Until you hit the border of South Dakota, and then there's the billboard signs "Where the heck is Walldrug?" or "Come to Walldrug!". By the time you get there, you really have no choice but to turn in to find out just what the heck is Wall Drug! Its a trap is what it is! That was an exhausting trip. Especially the drive back to Toronto after having partied til 4am the night before I nearly killed us in Indiana somewhere when I nearly fell asleep at the wheel

Another trip we did from North Carolina up to Virginia Beach and down the coast to the Outer Banks and then down to South Carolina and back up again. We had July 4th celebrations with friends in Virginia Beach, and the following day headed south toward the Outer Banks. Not far out of Virginia Beach (about an hour or so) however the transmission blew up in the truck, so we were stuck there overnight. Luckily the B&B owner in Hatteras Village didn't charge us for our missed night. Lovely place that was, called Seaside Inn B&B. Our suite had a jacuzzi tub built for 2 Of course the shoreline of the Outer Banks changes so much that its not actually on the sea anymore, but its a quick walk to the beach. There's a great Italian restaurant right next to it, and we've eaten there a couple of times on road trips thru the Outer Banks.

From there we went down to Ocracoke, my most favourite place on earth I think. We spent the night there at Blackbeard's Lodge, it has a lovely wrap around porch, and we sat out drinking our beer and watching the storm roll in. As I had never experienced a storm on the Outer Banks as yet, I was afraid we were going to be washed away, the parking lot and street was flooding, but we woke up to a bright sunshiny day and most of the water was gone. We walked from there up to a local coffee shop that has wonderful pastries and very very good coffee! Also an outdoor lawn patio to enjoy it all on. The lifestyle on Ocracoke is so relaxing, I'd really like to live there some day. Maybe get a retirement/vacation home er summat.

After that we headed back to the mainland and went to South Carolina, did some shopping, stayed the night and this is where I had my first experience with Krispy Kreme donuts. They wouldn't let me use my travel mug for coffee because it didn't have the KK logo on it. I argues until the manager relented. We got a dozen donuts and headed back out on the road toward Asheville NC where we were meeting another friend for a few days stay there. Then back to James' apartment and then I flew back home. That was a long week and a bit! But fun.

We've also done from NC up to Wisconsin, and NC to Chicago, both of those trips with the dogs! They don't travel well, but they like staying in hotels, and Bruno enjoys scaring toll-booth operators by sticking his head out the window just as we drive up

We've also taken the dogs out to the coast and the Outer Banks for a week of camping. They don't enjoy tenting, since it collapsed on us one night during a storm on Ocracoke. I dunno what it is, but it seems Ocracoke gets a lot of storms! That's what we get for travelling during hurricane season I guess!

This summer we're driving down to Atlanta, sans dogs for the Labour Day long weekend for Dragon Con. The dogs will be staying at their favourite doggy resort near Mooresville

[Rubycon 0]

Thanks so much for sharing your experiences so far, they've made great reads. Here now is...

Chapter 2, The Touristy Bits

Porter Sculpture Park, Montrose, South Dakota

Most of the next couple of days was spent visiting various tourist sites in South Dakota and Wyoming. Shortly after leaving Sioux Falls we pulled off the I90 to check out the Porter Sculpture Park. We met the artist, who was very welcoming and was hugely excited to meet an English guy! An interesting place to wander around (apart from the birds nesting in a sculpture who didn't want to be disturbed), the centerpiece is a 60 foot high sculpture of an Egyptian Longhorn bull made from iron. Well worth a visit.

By this time the weather was very hot and sunny, and later that day the temperature hit 110. Thats very hot if you're from England. We pulled off the I90 at Presho for gas and to eat our sandwiches. We were slightly concerned to have pressurised gas fumes rush out of the gas tank when we took off the filler cap, but apparently this is common in those sort of temperatures. I was impressed to find that my sandwich was going stale while I was eating it because of the heat drying it out!

We then pressed on, arriving later that day at the Badlands National Park. An amazing place, the rolling prarie land cracks away into the most incredible, jagged landscape. It really was an awesome sight and an essential visit if you're in this part of the country. We took route 240 off the I90, which becomes the Badlands Loop and takes you right through the park. Every turn brought amazing views, with plenty of viewing spots alongside the road. My SO was especially delighted to see a wild goat (the same girl who wanted to get out of the car in the Yorkshire dales and pet a sheep that was stood in the middle of the road...).

Mount Rushmore National Memorial, South Dakota

After a night at Rapid City, SD, we took in Mount Rushmore National Memorial and the Crazy Horse Memorial, both south west of Rapid City in the heart of the beautiful landscape of the Black Hills. Visitors are not allowed to approach the Crazy Horse Memorial on foot, due to random stone blasting, instead you have to take a bus tour, which I recall was pretty expensive. Good visitor center, though. Again we pressed on, back to the I90 and headed into Wyoming, heading towards the awe inspiring Devils Tower National Monument. The Wyoming landscape was really beautiful to drive through, and as we reached the summit of one of the hills heading north on highway 14, there it was... can you see it in the distance?

Devils Tower National Monument, Wyoming

We took a lovely walk on one of the routes around the base of the tower, then after a while we headed back to Sundance, WY for a nice late lunch. After that we began heading south towards the Utah border and drove well into the evening on route 59. This was probably one of the most isolated 100 mile drives of the whole trip, with the road running parallel to the railroad for much of the time. I have an enduring memory of seeing massive long goods trains lined up and stretching off into the distance. We also saw our first small herd of Buffalo on this road!