Tips for something big....(Driving cross-country)

[Eric O]

Originally Posted by KyleGilbert45

I remembered someone doing this and posting about it here on CD. I searched around and found this...

http://www.chiefdelphi.com/forums/sh...=cross+country

It may be able to help you some.

Since I was the one who started the above thread last year, I figured I would chime in on the important parts of our trip cross country. We traveled from Hartford, CT to San Jose, CA. I flew home from there while Tom stayed for a few months to do an internship. (The reason for the drive in the first place)

The stats:
1 Ford Escape
3 Drivers
8 Days, 7 Nights (2 in Vegas, because well, its Vegas)
2 GPS's
2 Laptops
1 CB Radio
1 Verizon Wireless Internet card

Trip accomplishments/Sites:
Line Dancing in Nashville
Walking in Memphis (On union ave in fact)
Oklahoma City Memorial
4 Corners
Monument Valley, AZ
Grand Canyon
Sedona, Arizona
Vegas
Carmel California and the Pacific Ocean

The worst part about the trip was that we drove it so fast. We did it in 8 days because we could only take so many days off from work. We managed to get through the east as fast as possible because we wanted to avoid snow and also because that is the easiest place to get back to. If you want to do the trip in the winter I would suggest going a more southern route, because being stuck in a snow storm would not be fun on a road trip.

We used the choice hotels membership deals along with the choice hotels credit cards which starts you off with a couple free nights. This allowed us to have mostly free hotel stays!

I think that with all the technology that we had the most useful item was the CB radio. The other stuff made the car ride fun and allowed us to keep track of our journey, but the good old CB radio is great for a number of reasons. If you go cross country, I would suggest getting one.

Blogging the trip online also made it fun friends and family back home. We would post nightly when we made it to our hotel, or even on the road when we had internet service. Tom's extra touch with the "Live Tracking" of our location made it even more fun for those board at work/school for the day because they could see where we currently were, and allowed us dorks to have more to look back on. Point being, logging the trip makes it fun for others and for those involved to look back on.

Lastly, I would have to say that you should do it as soon as possible! As every year passes you and the people you want to go with will get more responsibilities and reasons that you can't go, so do it now.
To see more of where we went: www.drivexc.com

-Eric