Hi all,
I really want to do a month in the US in August time next year. I’m from the UK. Does anyone know of any good websites or have any pointers as to where I should start/finish? I know I want to go coast to coast but as to what’s in between, I’m not sure. Budget is a complete unknown at the moment – any help would be appreciated.
TIA
23 comments
Coast to Coast isn’t possible in a month. You might be able to do the major cities of the East Coast or the major cities of the South or the major cities of the West Coast. But you can’t do all three in just a month. The US is huge.
For road-trips https://triptik.aaa.com/home/
Coast to Coast is a big ask. For comparison, that is like driving from Lisbon to Moscow. I would recommend picking a few cities and either fly or use Amtrak to get around.
By car?
Hi there, I used to help Brits get settled in/travel around the US professionally. This is an incredibly open-ended question and what you “should” do will depend on a number of factors. It largely depends what you want to do and are interested in. Do you prefer the outdoors? Small towns? City Life? Art? Culture? Sports? Nature? have you been to the US before? Do you want tourist experience or to stay off the beaten path?
For everyone saying you can’t do coast to coast you definitely can. From Cali to ny is 3 straight days of driving that can easily be broken up over the course of a month.
Budget matters a lot. We’re the size of Europe without the robust train system, we don’t really have hostels, and things are very far apart. It’s flat out impossible to get many places without a car or very advanced planning.
What do you like to do?
You cannot see the entire country in a month. General advice is to pick a region, like the northeast, and stay there.
What are you interested in? Big cities, small towns, nature/ national parks?
Note that our public transportation is lacking in most of the country. Outside of a small number of big cities, you’ll want to have a car.
Our intercity rail system is called Amtrak. It works, but the routes and destinations are limited, and it’s slow in most of the country. And, once you get off the train in a new city, you’ll still need a car to get around.
Our interstate highway system (what you’d call Motorways) is an efficient but boring way to drive long distances. If there are some parts of the country that you’ve got no interest in seeing, sure, use the interstate. In the regions you do want to see, use local roads when possible.
August will be hot in almost all of the country, until you get to the west coast, which is comfortable year round. Mitigate the hotness by spending time at northern latitudes and high elevations. ie, go to Yellowstone and Glacier National Parks instead of Death Valley and Joshua Tree.
You gotta pick a region and stick to exploring that. What are things you want to see or do in America?
I’d suggest not going on a trip where you don’t have a budget and don’t know what you want to do.
Going “coast to coast” is no big deal and can be done in like 6-7 hours if you just want to do the flight from JFK to SFO.
Also not to discourage asking questions, but for the most part we’re Americans here and we’ll have different perspectives as residents of our own country. Even as travelers, domestic travelers often have different wants than international travelers.
Hostels are really only available in the biggest of big cities. My city of 1 million, metro area of 2 million, only had ONE hostel and it closed last year. There are probably swiss villages that have less people and more hostels than my city does. But getting a room on AirBNB is kind of a hostel like experience and can easily be done.
r/travel
Use Tripadvisor
Figure basically a week to get across the US. It’s 43 hours of driving from NYC to SF, with no stops of any kind. I’m not sure you want to burn 1/4 of your time here driving from point to point and not seeing anything. I mean, if that is what you want to do, to say you’ve done it, I understand, but realize that’s pretty much going to be the vacation. Pick a route, pick stops along the way, and Bob’s your uncle. Fly in at one end and out at the other and enjoy the trip.
Alternatively, the more conventional approach to US vacations is to pick a region and focus more on that. E.g. the Southeast, see FL and amusement parks, St. Augustine, Miami, beaches, the Everglades, some Old South, etc, etc. Or the ever popular Southwest (loop through as many National parks as you can fit into 30 days).
One consideration – August can be *quite* hot in some parts of the US. Might be a good time to go Northwest or even consider Alaska or Hawai’i.
You can’t do coast to coast in a month unless you were to spend only a day in every state you visit.
While it’s certainly possible to do a grand tour coast to coast by car, I think you should whittle down what you want to see. I know when I visit places I get more out of it when I give each city or national park or whatever a couple days.
But if you did want to go on some coast to coast, I dunno, Boston -> NYC -> Philly -> DC -> Niagara -> Chicago -> Twin Cities -> Rapid City/Mt Rushmore -> Yellowstone -> Arches -> Grand Canyon -> Vegas -> Joshua Tree -> San Diego -> Los Angeles?
That’s like 80 hrs of driving or something. Plus, there’s some pretty massive mountains in that, and you’d need to be comfortable with driving that kind of thing. I know when I was in Yellowstone in August it snowed as well. You also missed a lot eg there’s a ton of stuff to see in the south. And there’s other National Parks along the way to hit etc. But if it’s a month, I don’t think you’d want to drive to a place just to spend the night. And you may not even want to have a car in like NYC if you included that (I wouldn’t drive there, maybe rent the car once you’re headed west out of DC). You’d want to make sure you could experience more things. If you look up american road trips most are about the journey itself (the scenery you see while driving) which, while it can be great, I think it would be better if you were actually out at places doing stuff other than driving. If you really want to do a cross country road trip, the idea of driving from one end of america to the other, it is certainly doable. You could also skip a lot in between and just focus on the two ends of your journey.
The us is massive. Where are you gonna be? What do you wanna do?
Hiking? Cities? Hunting? Shoot guns (I’m assuming that’d be new to you)
> I know I want to go coast to coast but as to what’s in between, I’m not sure.
Between the Mississippi river and the Rockies? A whole lot of nothing with maybe one or two exceptions.
Wikivoyage is a good start. It’s a travel guide in the same style as Wikipedia (and run by the same organization). [Here is their page on America](https://en.wikivoyage.org/wiki/United_States_of_America), follow the links to specific regions and then eventually specific cities.
Keep in mind that August is generally the warmest month for most of the US. It’s not uncommon for the heat index to be above 100 F (~40 C) or even the regular temperature to be that high without even considering the humidity. Even in the north! New York City is slightly south of Barcelona. Wear sunblock and drink lots of water.
1. The shortest driving distance coast to coast in the US is 2350m or 3782km, one way.
2. August, in my humble opinion, is the worst month to visit the US. It will be hot. Most places will be dry and brown. Average daily high temp in Texas during August is 93f or 34c. Crowds are at their biggest, prices are at their seasonal highest.
Not really a big help on the “what to see” part, but still some things to consider.
Depends on what you want to see. My wife and I once rented an RV in Las Vegas, Drove to the grand canyon, spent the night, then drove to salt lake city, spent the night then drove to Yellowstone and spent 3 nights there and we barely saw half the park. Then drove to Zion for 2 nights then back to Vegas. The whole trip took like 11 days.
I would say visit some eastern cities like NYC, Boston and DC. Then fly west and visit some of the big national parks and attractions in Colorado and/or Utah. Then hit up LA and San Francisco. That’s doable in a month.
Look up the national parks and travel from park to park.
The great American Road Trip can be a great experience, but you will really need to budget it. If you rent an RV, you would probably want to do this with some friends, you can see a lot of the countryside and just sort of wander around.
There are parts of the country that are highly seasonal and you do not want to spend any time there during August. Non-coastal California, Nevada, Arizona, Utah, New Mexico, Texas, and many other states can be an absolute furnace during the month of August. A lot of Europeans want to come out to California and see The Grand Canyon, Las Vegas, Joshua Tree and Palm Springs in August. Do not do this. This is out of season times for these places and they will all be absurdly hot. A cross country road trip in August involves traveling long distances through some extremely hot places. Fine if you are flying or taking a train, but if you do not know what you are doing, do not drive through it.
I would recommend some alternatives in august. One, a trip from San Diego to Seattle. While accommodations will be expensive since the beach season is in full effect in August (this trip would be much better from Mid September-Mid October), you get to see the California coast in its glory. San Diego, Orange County (Newport Beach, Laguna Beach), Los Angeles. You could just do this and have a great trip for a month. Don’t go too far inland and the heat will not be that extreme. But then you can go up the central coast via Highway 1, which is incredibly scenic but takes longer than I5 (which sucks in August) and spend 3-4 days gradually going up until you hit the California Bay Area. Spend a few days in San Francisco and then go further north. The Northern California coast is quite scenic. Then you can go see the Pacific Northwest, this is probably going to be better hiking in the summer months if that is your thing. See the cool towns in Oregon, hang out in Portland for a few days, and then onwards up to Seattle.
Other alternative. East Coast. New England Area for a week or two, NYC, Boston, Philadelphia, Washington DC. Then if you want to go east and experience the midwest you can plan a trip to the Great Lakes and then to Chicago.
If you want to do a coast to coast trip, you will want to plan it according to season. For the summer months, you should consider taking a northern route, and the winter months taking a southern route. Visiting the South during August sounds very hot and humid to me, but in November sounds like its probably quite nice.
If you will not have a car, your options become much more limited. Something you can do is look up the Amtrak routes, and then design a trip based around these train routes. Where you visit a stop along the route each day or two.
If you like hiking/nature I’d recommend the US southwest. Pick 5 or 6 national parks out there and spend several days at each. Arches, Zion, Grand Teton, Yellowstone, Bryce Canyon, maybe Yosemite. Amazing nature you can’t find anywhere else on the planet.