USA Road trips

[Fuellady]

We're doing Route 66 next year, 8 states - Illinois, Missouri, Kansas, Oklahoma, Texas, New Mexico, Arizona and California. We're adding side trips to Monument Valley (Utah) and Las Vegas (Nevada), so we will visit 10 states in total.

[smithlane]

It’s on my bucket list to visit all 50 States. We’ve been very fortunate to have visited Vegas, Grand Canyon and Death Valley in February this year and a California road trip in the summer.
Route 66 and New England would be 2 holidays to get multiple States into. These are pegged for once the kids have flown the nest.
Next year we are hoping to fly in and out of Charlotte, North Carolina. From there drive to the Smoky Mountains in Tennessee, then down to Atlanta Georgia for the night, onto the Panhandle of Florida before ending in Hilton Head Island in South Carolina.
Another trip planned is Chicago and Lake Michigan. Starting in Chicago for a few nights before driving up to Wisconsin staying in a lakefront cabin, then driving over to Michigan staying in a place called Bay Harbour then driving through Indiana to fly back from Chicago.
2021 will hopefully be the Rocky Mountains in Colorado before making our way up to Yellowstone NP and the Grand Tetons NP. This could tick off Wyoming, Montana, Idaho too.
You could combine Hawaii with Seattle, Washington and Columbia River Gorge in Oregon or California if not been.
Another trip we would love to do is the Mighty 5 National Parks in Utah as well as New Orleans up to Nashville and across to Memphis.
As you can see I have a lot planned, can’t give up the day job yet 😆
We just love the National Parks so they will always feature in our holidays somehow.
If you haven’t read them before Crispy A’s reports are fab as she’s covered most States through various road trips. Well worth a read

[Pino_Spetzberg]

Originally Posted by smithlane

You could combine Hawaii with Seattle, Washington and Columbia River Gorge in Oregon or California if not been.

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Hawaii is very expensive for flights and accomodation. It's also another flight, which puts us off as we don't like flying.
We have come close to going there a few times, usually after watching Hawaii 5-0.

We might try to combine it with Japanese F1 but it might just be somewhere we never make it to go. We have friends at work that visited Hawaii from Japan and reckon it works out great.

[samx57]

Originally Posted by smithlane

It’s on my bucket list to visit all 50 States. We’ve been very fortunate to have visited Vegas, Grand Canyon and Death Valley in February this year and a California road trip in the summer.
Route 66 and New England would be 2 holidays to get multiple States into. These are pegged for once the kids have flown the nest.
Next year we are hoping to fly in and out of Charlotte, North Carolina. From there drive to the Smoky Mountains in Tennessee, then down to Atlanta Georgia for the night, onto the Panhandle of Florida before ending in Hilton Head Island in South Carolina.
Another trip planned is Chicago and Lake Michigan. Starting in Chicago for a few nights before driving up to Wisconsin staying in a lakefront cabin, then driving over to Michigan staying in a place called Bay Harbour then driving through Indiana to fly back from Chicago.
2021 will hopefully be the Rocky Mountains in Colorado before making our way up to Yellowstone NP and the Grand Tetons NP. This could tick off Wyoming, Montana, Idaho too.
You could combine Hawaii with Seattle, Washington and Columbia River Gorge in Oregon or California if not been.
Another trip we would love to do is the Mighty 5 National Parks in Utah as well as New Orleans up to Nashville and across to Memphis.
As you can see I have a lot planned, can’t give up the day job yet 😆
We just love the National Parks so they will always feature in our holidays somehow.
If you haven’t read them before Crispy A’s reports are fab as she’s covered most States through various road trips. Well worth a read

See more...

Wow thank you so much this is so helpful 😊

I want to plan so much but funds just won't allow for it. I guess I have loads of time to complete this but I just want to do everything.

We absolutely love Zion in Utah so national parks are definately something we want to see in the different states.

[smithlane]

Originally Posted by Pino_Spetzberg

Hawaii is very expensive for flights and accomodation. It's also another flight, which puts us off as we don't like flying.
We have come close to going there a few times, usually after watching Hawaii 5-0.

We might try to combine it with Japanese F1 but it might just be somewhere we never make it to go. We have friends at work that visited Hawaii from Japan and reckon it works out great.

See more...

Yes Hawaii can be very expensive for flights but depending on time of year and if you’re tied to the holidays there are some bargains to be found. We have also found some great Air BnB apartments next to the beach on the North side of Oahu for just over a £100 per night, not sure about hotels though as we prefer to self cater.
I just couldn’t visit every other State and not tick off the last one, the completionist in me wouldn’t allow it 😂
The States I'm struggling to fit into a holiday are the Dakotas, Minnesota, Iowa and Nebraska. Doesn’t appear a whole lot to do there, how did you visit them?

[Pino_Spetzberg]

Originally Posted by smithlane

I just couldn’t visit every other State and not tick off the last one, the completionist in me wouldn’t allow it 😂

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Same here.

[Pino_Spetzberg]

Originally Posted by smithlane

The States I'm struggling to fit into a holiday are the Dakotas, Minnesota, Iowa and Nebraska. Doesn’t appear a whole lot to do there, how did you visit them?

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We were in The Keg at the Embassy Suites overlooking Niagara Falls one time.
It was really quiet, a family from Boston struck up a conversation, they were highly amused we had been to Ohio.
Surprising how many Americans you meet don't bother travelling to the flyover states.

We visited Minnesota, Iowa and Nebraska from Canada, flew into Calgary.
The Dakotas, (and Montana), we flew from Manchester to Chicago with BMI.
Stopped at Sioux Falls, on the way to Deadwood, Spearfish, Wall, Mount Rushmore, Crazy Horse etc, then back home from Chicago.

South Dakota, Black Hills etc is really worth a trip.

[samx57]

Thank you all. This is so helpful. I'm hopefully going to be doing New England States in August/September next year but need to price everything up to see if we can afford it.

[anji]

Originally Posted by samx57

Thank you all. This is so helpful. I'm hopefully going to be doing New England States in August/September next year but need to price everything up to see if we can afford it.

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We did New England in May (see below but not yet finished my reports!).

Flew into Boston, overenight nearish to airport and then headed straight up coast. Overnighted on way to Acadia National Park (amazing!) then over to White Mountains (equally amazing!). From there we went to Stowe (bit underwhelming), down to the Green Mountains, then to Mystic and on to Cape Cod (wonderful). From there we went back to Boston, handed the car back and spent 3 nights there before flying home. Excellent trip with easy driving.

Next year it's Vancouver, Vancouver Island, Olympic National Park, Portland and Seattle

[kateh134]

We did Colorado with a bit of Utah thrown in earlier this year and I did a mini review if you’re interested. We’d love to go back to Utah to do more of the national parks.

We’ve done a few road trips over the years, but this was the best one so far and we had a fabulous time. We’ve got flights booked for New York next year and plan on doing NYC, then Philadelphia and then Washington DC, but that will be by train so difficult to get the state sign photos!