15

Gladly. You crazy.

Mr Penney is right about the RV. You were misinformed. And he's right about the route, and about Miami.

Have you got a US guidebook? A map? There are better ways to decide where to go than on th basis of what you remember from old TV shows.

16

Is is foolish to ask whether you have experience riding a Harley or a similar type motorcycle. For 5+ hours. Through traffic. And the heat - it's almost October and in Baker, CA, it's 89 degrees at 9pm, so you can imagine the daytime heat. And are you willing to not only pay for the bike rental but to get the necessary clothes.

In general, you need to do some more precise planning of your expenses. Take you what you'll need to spend on flights and go from there, carving out rental of the car/RV, lodgings pre car rental, crazy ideas like the bike rental, etc.

17

Hey susie,

I once rented some sort of fancy yamaha dirt bike and took a tour of Eastern Thailand, (the part no one goes to).
Yes experience is necessary. No it is not foolish to ask.

that was one of the greatest torus of my life, and while I know nothing about the desert, I am a definite fan of extended bike trips!!! Once in a lifetime. Don't miss it.

18

deleting duplicate post

• • obviously the above word was intended to be "tours." **

Edited by: LongIslandBob

19

Perhaps so. But since you made a loop, if you plotted your position (three-dimensionally) over time, the result would also topologically be a torus.

Geekily yours,
--M.

20

Look into renting a car through carhire3000.com, they rent from the majors and it will include all insurance needed in the US.

Forget the RV, eats gas, you pay for mileage unlike a car rental, PITA.

Agree with another poster, fly some of your legs.

21

Rethink the RV. You need an affordable rental car, and a tent. Gas is $4 a gallon now in much of the US, and could go higher if saber-rattling on Iran continues. In an economy car, you could be spending $90 a day on gas alone. If you're going to be here for two months, you want a budget that gives you discretionary spending, not one that is so tight that you can't enjoy yourself. Flying and doing smaller portions of the trip in a car could certainly be cheaper. Also, a lot of hostels charge a $6 to $10 camp fee, but if you want to use the kitchen to cook, they may charge full price.

22

Hi,

As the previous poster(s) stated, NYC, Boston and DC are walkable cities and have mass transportation (bus, rails, metros, etc) that makes it easy to get around just about anywhere. If you were to hire an RV, I would do it after the DC trip. For travel between NYC, Boston and DC (even Philadelphia and Baltimore) - I recommend the Bolt Bus (https://www.boltbus.com/) or Megabus (http://us.megabus.com/). You'll spend between $15 US - 50$ one-way depending on the time of day. Typically when I travel from DC to NYC round-trip it's $40. So one way should be cheaper. I think one or both have free wifi, Double Decker and bathroom on bus. As for hotels - I like Embassy Suites (kind of like an apartment) - in most embassy suites breakfast is included as well as free happy hour (if you like to drink). However, there are cheaper hotels and even motels (not a fan) out there.

As for your Itinerary, I suggest:
Option1:
Kentucky (?? Louisville) - Boston (fly)
Boston - NYC (via bus)
NYC - DC (via bus)
DC - Miami (RV, unless you want to fly - the drive is about 17 hours, however there are great stops along the way, Knoxville, TN, Atlanta, GA, etc )
Miami - New Orleans (RV drive - it's about a 13 hour drive)
New Orleans - Texas (Dallas?, Houston?, Austin?, San Antonio? all of the Above) - You'll pass Baton Rouge, LA and Beaumont, TX- Houston is the closet to NOLA then loop and hit Austin and San Antonio, TX. Dallas is about 3-4 hours north of Houston.
Texas - Vegas - (RV drive - from any of these places is about a 19-22 hour drive)
Vegas - LA - (RV drive, 4-5 h hours - I heard this is a very boring drive but it's a short drive so that's great)
LA - San Francisco - (RV from LA to San Francisco - 5 - 7 hours)

**You'd could always make your way to Seattle Washington, or Vancouver, Canada - as you'll be on that side of the coast - or when you're i New York you could check out the Niagara Falls (not sure where it is in relations to NYC) although I heard that it's prettier on the Canadian side - speculation!

**These drives depends on Traffic, and how fast or slow you're driving (be sure to watch out for cops - don't want to get any tickets)

Option 2: Same as above but starting point in NYC, do the bus between NYC, Boston,DC, - then RV out of DC to Kentucky, then Miami (go through my home state of WV - hehehe).

Option 3: Fly into Miami, Fly to NYC, Bus it between NYC, Boston,DC, then RV to Kentucky, then to Texas, Vegas, LA, San Fran...

There are a lot of options - If you don't want the hassle of driving the long distances, you could always take the Amtrak (train) -and rent a car or zip car in between in places like Texas and Kentucky. The Amtrak takes longer to travel with all the stops in between (and the food is blah) but a great way to see the country.

23

$250 a day for two people is not tight whatsoever across country. There are tons of $50-$60 a night motels. If you mean in city centers, maybe up to $100 a night, but usually every city has someplace priced like that, especially if you don't stay downtown, but certainly there are hotels for this price in almost every city mentioned here other than NY, and perhaps Boston (I'm not as clear about Miami). Also, one could easily camp along the way in many spots.

You can self-cater at delis and markets and do cheaper meals like pizza slices, sandwiches, and such, and keep your food budget to a definite minimum.

I've done cross-country several times in my own car and have done this in as little as nine days although obviously not recommended and it's more fun if you spend a month or two. I usually would allocate something like $40 pp for the hotel and $30 or less per day for food (for me, I'm not a big eater and can easily get by on $10 a day without any fuss at all).

The route I took which was closest to yours was SF-Flagstaff-Albuquerque-Taos-Tucumcari, NM-Dallas-New Orleans-Pensacola, FL-Savannah, GA-Washington DC-NYC (with all kinds of stops on the way).

Kentucky's kind of out of the way. Otherwise, it looks fine with me. And sometimes out of the way isn't so bad. Maybe your vision of Kentucky looks more like another, closer State to your itinerary though? If you're looking for "Southern," you will find that in Alabama/Mississippi as well, which is pretty en route.

Good luck and have fun.

24

Thanks again so much for the responses...

I have done quite a bit of research into motel/hotels and me and my friend as we are travellers, and there are only the two of us we would be happy staying in hostels, and I've seen these as cheap as $20 a night even in NYC...I have looked into car rentals based on your advice and have found it will cut the cost of the hire in half nearly, for example, the quote I got from a known rv rental site for the whole two months 1 way way $11,000 which as you can expect is way out of the question and that's just for a standard one, plus I have to cost fuel on top of that too...however I got a quote for a grand jeep Cherokee, so an expensive car in the premium category (eg not even the cheapest model) was $5000 for the whole journey 1 way...so we are definitely going to take that option...we are also thinking of cutting out Miami and Kentucky to make it a more sensible straight shot, as we want to be able to save money to spend on the nicer things in the USA....my question I guess at this point would be a question of fuel costs for a Grand jeep Cherokee to do that entire journey, any ideas?

I guess what is confusing me is that if I were to decide to travel England for two months £10,000 would easily last me, and I know that food, fuel and hotels are all a LOTcheaper in the states than they are over here....finally any ideas on whether it would be cheaper for me to book the car over here or wait until I get to the states?

Thanks again

James

25

First: Jeep Grand Cherokee. "Jeep" is the make, "Grand Cherokee" is the model.
Second: It gets a combined 19 mpg. Take the rough total miles of your trip, divide by 19 mpg, and multiply by the average fuel cost to get the minimum cost. Add on extra to account for detours, traffic, etc.
Third: Just get a cheap sedan. You don't need an SUV, and for someone trying to cut costs, it's simply a waste of money (in rental fees and gas).

It's usually cheaper to book in advance, especially since you can use foreign websites and brokers to cover the mandatory insurance (and possibly the one-way fees).

26

If you are set on renting one car the entire time (as opposed to renting cars as needed and flying between cities), get a small fuel-efficient one. There are only two of you so you don't need much space, you will save a lot of money in gas, and small cars are much easier to park in cities where parking is hard to find.

27

#23--

Knoxville and Atlanta ae not on the direct (17 hour) route between DC and Miami. And I'm not sure I'd all either one of them a great stop. Savannah is on the direct route, and combined with Charleston is a great stop.

#25--

You won't find a hostel in most places in the US. A cheap rental car and cheap motels a the way to travel cheaply in most of the US.

If you cut out Miami and Kentucky, then fly DC-New Orleans (you won't need a car in NO unless you want to rent one for a day trip somewhere) and thn fly again NO-LV. Rent a car in Vegas and make a loop through the west, flying back from Vegas to the east coast. You'll miss Texas, but that's a plus.

28

Skip Kentucky and Texas, and add Charleston and the Grand Canyon. Or Bryce Canyon.

And I vote YES on the HARLEYS!! Woot woot