Octang Frye

Google "Blue Highways". Also a good book by William Least Heat Moon.

Swing by Denver and visit us at the Mercury Cafe.
Amtrak is great, too.

mcdavis

In Chicago recommend the architecture tours, especially the skyscrapers from the river

Smyth

thank everyone i've been thinking about it and now i think i am going spilt it up in to 2 or 3 trips the first one down the west coast.

lj2

Drive. Drive, drive drive drive drive! When's the last time you had an adventure at an airport? Me neither - on my road trips however... Wow!

Sir Denis Eaton-Hogg

Can heartily recommend the following West Coast Route, I recommend the anti clockwise route up the interior and down the coast .

This is only meant as a rough general direction guide, you fill in the 'must do's and work your trip around them. Plus it is really suited to fair weather seasons only, many of this routes are impassable or closed during snowfall. I have no idea what tiem of year you are thinking of.

Start LA, drive out to Las Vegas Vegas.
(If you have lots of time detour down to San Diego and around through Phoenix and Flagstaff and take in the Grand Canyon first before you hit Vegas)
Take 95 Out of Vegas to Death Valley, head out twoard Scotty's Junction, Mammoth, Mono Lake etc. Head For Yosemite, then head north for Tahoe, lots of fun little places and ghost towns on the way.
After Tahoe/Reno turn left and head for Sacramento
Then San Francisco and Bay Area.
Take Highway 1 Down the coast back to LA, great stops on the way include: Santa Cruz, Monterey, Big Sur, San Simeon, Santa Barbara, Malibu with a lot in between. Arrive back in LA.

That should give you a great taste of the West Coast and can be easily done in 2/3 weeks in a rental car at a fairly leisurely pace driving for half days and spending 1 or 2 days in some of the major locations. use cheaper motels for regular night stops between places, saving your cash for more experiential stays in more 'must see locations on the way.

If you have more time extend the route further up the coast into the amazing northern CA area, and down the coast at the other end into Arizona. the most important thing is jump in tew car and drive, drive, drive... discover your own hidden gems and have an adventure!

NB: Highway 1 is a fun 'must do' experience drive but is cliffside -twisty driving for much of it, with few passing spaces (if you are stuck behind an RV you will be stuck for a while). Not for the faint hearted or sufferers of vertigo and takes far longer than I5, but is much much prettier.

Enjoy

Sir D

Bill_S

Stuff all the natural wonders nonsense, travel like a real American.

Spend a couple of weeks at Mall of America.

DeanUK2US

Why not go into a local travel agents and take a few brochures? They will have some good ideas on routes to take within a sensible time frame. Your initial plans had me wondering if you really knew what you were in for!

meauxna

<sigh>
Yes, that's why we have such a small National Parks & Forests department here that never gets used.

The National Park System comprises 391 areas covering more than 84 million acres

I'll let you look up the National Forests data.

zargof

I think it's great, there's no other buggers there when I am.

lj2

In seriousnessm I suspect we all know and agree that the National Parks system is one of the best things in America. It is a country of great beauty and well managed beauty at that.

Still gonna mock the Americans for being lazy and consumerist though - it's how we roll...

Patrick Hasler

If you want time to actually see anything you will need about 3 months and huge amounts of cash

tamms_1965

Chicago: Art Institute of Chicago, Navy Pier, Heaven on Seven & Blackies restaurants, Wrigley Field for a Cubs game, and there is so much more.

Washington DC area: all of the free national museums, Mt. Vernon, the Capitol, the White House, Lincoln Memorial, Washington Monument, Vietnam Vet Memorial, Arlington Cemetary, and there is so much more.

Nashville: Grand Ole Opry, Music Row, etc., etc.

It would take me 10 years of vacations to see everything I wanted with the list you posted.

tamms_1965

The national (and state) parks are starting to be "overvisited" if there is such a thing. This is because it is a cheap vacation. Some parks have resorted to limiting the number of cars to pass through each day. I know that in the past there wasn't enough money available for proper upkeep and employee wages...many were getting run down. I think Bush #2 may have set some money aside for it, if not maybe Obama has/will.

Hiro11

Yep. NYC is just like LA which is just like Seattle, Boston, Miami and New Orleans, which is just like San Francisco and Santa Fe.

kins

I did a Green Tortoise trip across the country a long time ago now, it took us two weeks to go from NY to SF via Florida, Big Bend in Texas, various canyons in Arizona/Utah, Las Vegas, and a really cool hot spring somewhere in the Mojave desert.

We did do a lot of driving at night, so if you did it yourself it would probably take twice as long.

There are lots of itineraries that they offer on their website here http://www.greentortoise.com/budget....re.travel.html. It's a good way to get a taste of what you might see in a certain amount of time.

I wouldn't travel with them again - you sleep on the bus and there's no privacy - but it was a great way to see the country when I was 21.