My lady friend and I want to do a road trip this summer. Hopefully no more Covid or it's manageable by then. She is from Australia and wanted to see most of the mainland but this fucking Covid struck. We probably have this summer left before we move back out of my son's place.

Here is what we are thinking of doing :

SF to LA.
LA to Phoenix
Phoenix to Albuquerque (Maybe Denver but it's sort of out of the way)
New Mexico to Dallas
Dallas to Houston
Houston to New Orleans
New Orleans to Miami with stops along the way (Tampa?)
Miami to Key West .


I mapped this out on the Triple A website and it's like 50 hours driving. I think that take like a full 5-7 days if we stop off and enjoy the cities. We were thinking of doing Chicago but maybe we can do that separately in May but flying.

What advice do you all have? From what I've calculated, the biggest expense will be car rental.

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"He is a loathsome, offensive brute
--yet I can't look away."

what?

This may be the worst plan I've ever heard. Are you auditioning to be the coach or GM of the Chicago Bears?

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You do not talk to me like that! I work too hard to deal with this stuff! I work too hard! I'm an important member of the CSFMB! I drive a Dodge Stratus!

Why? what's wrong with it? What would you change? Give me some advice.

You are definitely going to need more than a week.

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Be well

GO BEARS!!!

If you do that route in 5 days, you're averaging 10 hours a day in the car. In 7 days, about 7 hours a day in the car.

Between stops for gas and food, that leaves you with very little time to "stop and enjoy the cities," unless you plan on using a fuckton of cocaine and not sleeping much.

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the fact that "Dallas to Houston" is on the same list as "Miami to Key West" when trying to decide vacation plans is kind of funny.

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"He is a loathsome, offensive brute
--yet I can't look away."

Live look in at HawaiiYou's road trip;

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Many of the cities you are referencing aren't on the direct route between SF and Key West. It's at a minimum a 60 hour drive and that doesn't include stopping to eat and use the bathroom and not get blood clots. I would guess your actual travel time in the car would be 70 hours. Now, maybe you can trade off and sleep in the car by doing overnights but that's a pretty terrible qualify of life.

You can do your plan but it's a 3 week trip. Otherwise, you'll get to see how flat and boring most of the United States is and spend a last day in Key West and wish you had just flown there.

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You do not talk to me like that! I work too hard to deal with this stuff! I work too hard! I'm an important member of the CSFMB! I drive a Dodge Stratus!

Well we were going to split up the driving and only drive during the daytime. We were thinking leave early like 6am and drive until 6 or 7pm. Obviously stop of lunch along the way and stop if we see some interesting sites or attractions.

That would leave us with 7-10pm to have dinner and explore the city/area we were at.

Then sleep from 11p-6/7am.

How does that sound?

Ok, good, thanks for the advice.

She's been to LA area and I don't know if there is much to do in Phoenix and NM other than see the natural beauty. Would you suggest we just say fly into Dallas and just do the 2nd half of the trip? Dallas / Houston / NO / Miami / Key West? Those cities sound a lot more interesting but we will miss out on the nature of the SW US.

Here is the link to the AAA roadtrip planner : https://triptik.aaa.com/home/

HY and some chick on a cross-country summer road trip between California and Florida, what could go wrong

Three weeks minimum and that also assumes you are flying home. A one-way rental, gas, food and lodging and the return flight...yikes.

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Mr. Trump is unfit for our nation’s highest office.- JD Vance
When a clown moves into a palace, he doesn't become a king. The palace turns into a circus. - Turkish Proverb

That was my first thought

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"I honestly don't see a good bet on the board here."

Plus who wants to go to places like Phoenix, Dallas, Houston, and New Orleans in the summer? Your lady friend will kill you. Trust me.

And what is there to see and do in Phoenix, Dallas, and Houston? Skip them and do separate trips to New Orleans and Miami/Key West when the weather is right.

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"I honestly don't see a good bet on the board here."

Despite the name, this guy is wise.

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Mr. Trump is unfit for our nation’s highest office.- JD Vance
When a clown moves into a palace, he doesn't become a king. The palace turns into a circus. - Turkish Proverb

We only have mid June before we have to fly back. My renters are going to move out in July. Now if another variant of Covid happens in the summer, then I'll probably not be going back. It all depends.

But I haven't been to that part of the country in like 30 years . That's the only place we see as a region with a lot of cities bunched into one area.

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we thought about the NE but don't want to go there in the summer as it'll be too overcrowded and too expensive.

Remember Chevy Chase's Vacation line, "Look at the blight kids". Familiarize yourself with each city you visit.

If you're looking to do it as low cost as possible, I think you need to return a rental car to the same location you rented from, or pay a substantial one-way rental fee?


I'd pick one of the quadrants, NE, SE, NW, SW and pick a starting city and map out a loop from there. e.g.,
start in NOLA, drive up through Dallas, visit Ogie in Arkansas on your way to Memphis/Nashville/Dollywood/Chattanooga/Asheville and then back through Atlanta/Bham/Jackson to New Orleans.

You've already checked SF off the list, the only other must-see cities in the states are New York and New Orleans and maybe Chicago/DC.

If you're from Hawaii and she's Aussie, Florida's more of the same, only not as nice and it's located in Florida. Best summer road trip for sightseeing would be to leave SF through Reno, SLC and then up to Jackson, WY and the national parks there. Then back down through Denver and/or double-back a bit and hit Vegas possibly before returning to SF.

IF she wants to experience driving through the American southwest, have her get on google maps street view and click-click her way along I-10 or I-40. I-20 between west Texas and Dallas is an especially nut-crunchingly dull stretch of landscape--at least you can drive 110 most of the way along 20, weeeee!

Or drop her off at the nearest truck stop and she can hitch a ride with a long-haul trucker to wherever she likes.

A trip through the south has plenty.

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Mr. Trump is unfit for our nation’s highest office.- JD Vance
When a clown moves into a palace, he doesn't become a king. The palace turns into a circus. - Turkish Proverb

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Mr. Trump is unfit for our nation’s highest office.- JD Vance
When a clown moves into a palace, he doesn't become a king. The palace turns into a circus. - Turkish Proverb

As Hussra said, a round trip encompassing parts of Utah, Colorado, Wyoming, Montana, Idaho and Oregon could be fantastic and easier to execute that the one you contemplate in your initial post.

Alternately, have you considered a loop through the Mexican interior and Gulf Coast, including the Yucatan? That could be absolutely amazing and pretty reasonably priced since you can eat well for little money in Mexico and also find very inexpensive accommodations, even in the touristy areas. I know this from experience since I I first started driving through large swathes of the country when I was a destitute grad student in my mid 20s and have returned several times. For your trip, you could visit a cool variety of ancient Mayan ruins, old Spanish colonial towns densely populated with interesting historical sites, and contemporary urban environments--in addition to snorkeling in the ocean as well as in the Yucatan's remarkable constellation of pristine freshwater cenotes/caverns. Also, the ubiquity of tasty roadside eating through much of the country makes car trips a fun way to experience Mexico. You'll often find great meals for a few bucks in anonymous, ramshackle huts and open-air stands along your route; and you will almost certainly meet some friendly, interesting people who are often eager to interact with Americans. It's been a few years since I last visited the country, but I plan on taking my kids in a couple years when they are a little older and easier to manage. Please keep in mind that this kind of trip isn't for people who insist on American standards of comfort--at least if you are planning on hitting the least expensive places to eat and sleep.

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I think doing more than 400 miles a day every day for weeks, especially trying to actually do a significant amount of sightseeing... is suicidal, especially for an old man who hasn't done that kind of driving for a while.

400 miles is essentially 7 hours of actual rural Interstate driving. You each drive half of it. Stop every 100-150 miles to either check out a place, eat something, or just stretch and take a shit someplace (for your friend I'd recommend Starbucks and spend $2 to buy something). That is 7am-5pm each driving day, with evening time for dinner or fucking, and some slack for bad weather or traffic.

Redo your plan with a 400 mile/day guide and an absolute limit of 2000 miles a week, and see what fits.

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"When people want their version of the truth, they go find it, no matter how baseless their beliefs." -- Ken Rosenthal

This sounds awful

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Flew too close to the sun on wings of pastrami

thanks for the advice but we decided against any foreign countries like Mexico. Sorry if that sounds ignorant but we don't feel safe if we drove thru Mexico. But doing one of those Mexico vacation packages we did consider as you stay in a safe bubble supposedly. But we sort of want to drive and not fly.

The states you mentioned, we are only interested in Colorado. I heard it's a great state to visit and a lot of different things to do there. So maybe we can do the Vegas to Phoenix to Denver and all of Colorado thing? I'll have to plan it on AAA.