Driving holiday in America from West to East

anthonymcg

Hi all,

Planning a holiday to the States and wanted to see if I could get some advice from boards. Myself and two mates are planning a 3 week driving trip to the States in September. The stops would be roughly:

- fly into Las Vegas (3 nights)
- drive to Los Angeles (1 night)
- San Francisco (2 nights)
- couple of days in Oregon/south Washington state
- Yellowstone National Park (2 days)
- Mount Rushmore (1 day)
- few days doing whatever
- Chicago area (1/2 nights)
- Toronto (2 nights)
- New York (3 nights)

Are we mad to be thinking that we'll cover this distance in 3 weeks? A travel agent has given us a decent price for the hotels in Vegas, LA, San Fran, Toronto and New York. Stops in between will be motels or whatever we can find. If anyone can pass on any tips then I'd appreciate it.

rossie1977

just wondering why you are flying into vegas when aer lingus fly direct to both san francisco and los angeles, if i was you i would fly into san francisco or maybe even new york first and then take it from there. Vegas is a great town but unless you fly direct from London with Virgin you will need to change at least once in america to reach it.

Looking at your itinerary let me offer some advice, some of the distances you are talking about travelling in one day are huge e.g. new york to toronto is a 9-10 hour drive without stopping, Oregon/south Washington state to Yellowstone National Park is around 850-900 miles, those distances are killing if you attempt them in one day.

you are also missing out most of america's best scenery based on that itinerary, you are heading north across the great plains (which is too close to Irish landscape for my liking) when you should be heading south imo or to be more exact east from las vegas. You miss out places like amazing national parks such as Arches, Canyonlands, Bryce, zion, grand canyon, monument valley etc.

if you have a car, southern utah, northern arizona, northern new mexico and parts of colorado deserve to be explored much more than cities like chicago, new york or toronto and most certainly mount rushmore (then again thats only my opinion)

Our man in Havana

You should limit yourself to 300 miles a day max. Also fly to LAX or SFO first. Flying direct to Vegas is madness.

You really need to take out a map and look at the actual distances involved. 900 miles means 12 to 14 hours driving time and thats assuming driving on the interstates where you can cover 70 miles an hour. Factor in refueling, food and toilet breaks you will be on the road 14 hours a day. Madness and down right dangerous imho. I would only attempt to cover 300 miles a day which is around 4-5 hours driving, 400 is ok maybe once in the trip if you need to make a push to a 2 night or more stop. Do not drive the next day if you did 400 the previous day.

I drove from Las Vegas to Salt lake city 410 miles, it took 6 hours and 2 tanks of gas and I was wrecked after it. And it was all interstate driving.

Ponster

As already mentioned, limit yourself to about 300miles per day MAX or else you'll end up kiling yourselves when supposed to be on holiday.

I did a east-west trip a few years back, driving gtom New York for a few days before flying and then driving/flying again. Internal flights in the States are pretty cheap and you have to be honest with yourself in that you will never see everything on your first trip.

ibh

Have you looked into the cost of the car rental??? I know that there is some thing in the states where companies need to have their cars driven from one city to another. You get a car, all you pay for is petrol and you usually have lots of time to take it from say, LA to Chicago.
Might be a good way to keep the cost of the rental down.

youcancallmeal

Check out microsoft maps which is very handy for figuring out distances and travel times between two locations. Just right click and select your origin then to the same for your destination and then hit get directions