I’m from the UK and when compared to America we are small geographically. you can go from the tip of Scotland to the tip of Cornwall in 14 hours or so. Now There is a lot to see in Britain and our country is beautiful, but what’s it like going across the entire states? Must be something else.


48 comments

  3. Long. Had to do it twice when I was in the military. East coast to west coast went something like this. Oceans, hills, mountains, hills, corn, corn, corn, corn, corn, corn, wheat, wheat, wheat, desert, desert, mountains, ocean.

  4. Exhausting. Interesting for some parts. Infuriatingly boring for others. Wild to see the change of landscape and different cultures and communities.

    Scary a lot of the times, especially in large metro areas or on particularly lonely desolate road stretches at night (that shit can be eerie).

    Love that cows are a constant. Like maybe not in cities and stuff but I felt like I could never go a few hours outside of major towns without seeing some cow. Love me some cows all the time. I saw them in every state and I wasn’t even looking for them. Moo moo you adorable fuckers.

    It’s a lot of things driving across the United States and you can take different paths so you may feel other ways.

    It really is cool though. To see all the changes. And to be so insanely bored one second and then the next you’re just blown away by an insane landscape. And the variations.

  5. Its exhausting bruh, there’s a reason most Americans haven’t done this and probably never will.

  6. Empty. Once you cross past the Mississippi it’s pretty empty till you cross the Rockies.

    80% of people live in the eastern half, with 2/3 living east of the Mississippi.

  7. DC to San Francisco is about four days’ worth of driving if you do it in a relative hurry. As others have said, much of it is dull and over flat land.

    It’s definitely possible to do a road trip that takes you through varied landscapes with more interesting stuff on the way, but doing a scenic route coast-to-coast will take significantly longer, and you’ll still be going through long, boring stretches.

    I’ve driven from North Carolina to Las Vegas before, then up the coast to Seattle. The scope of a trip like that is nuts, it just takes forever and you end up realizing how huge and diverse this country is.

  8. Long, largely empty, even in the relatively dense parts you can drive for an hour or two looking at nothing but trees or fields.

  9. Unless you count the Gulf Coast to Great Lakes or Great Lakes to East Coast I never done a “coast to coast” drive but I done long road trips.

    I love it, personally. I love how each state has its own personality. I love watching the landscape change. I love hearing the variations in accents.

  12. I just did this from west to east to move for work. If you can’t make a month+ trip out of it and visit as many National Parks as you can, this is not like driving through the countryside of the UK. Most of the US is strip malls for where you will actually rest/sleep unless you camp out and like doing so. The drive can be pretty at times, but not where you might stay overnight.

  13. I’ve driven from California to Texas and back. California to the PNW and back, a few times. I’ve done Tennessee to Miami, a couple circuits around New England and some day trips in the Midwest.

    It’s all interesting, but its a long fucking drive, so be prepared for boredom. Just driving the length of California is a chore I wouldn’t wish on anyone. Driving through west Texas is unending hell. But New Mexico is pretty and worth the effort. Oregon too, if you don’t mind tweaker towns.

    I haven’t driven through the Rockies, I’ve only gone around, but I live two hours from Donner Pass. The mountains are so beautiful you could eat your family.

  14. So much corn, so much grazing land. Like 2/3 of it is absolute numbing boredom. You just sort of settle in and make up landmarks and goals to pass the time. Count the Wall Drug signs, collect license plate sightings, listen to weird radio stations. I’ve done it maybe a dozen times.

  15. It’s a great adventure. I’ve done it on a motorcycle a couple of times. It takes about 5 days. It’s best to get off the interstate highways.

  16. Long, but worth it if you enjoy road-trips, you’ll see some great sights and go through some cool cities.

    Ik to a lot of people the center of the country is bland scenery wise, but I actually don’t mind it too much, it looks nothing like where I grew up in New Hampshire and where I live in Vermont so it’s cool to see the transition from where you get west of New York to where things get flatter and you see a ton of farms, and it feels like once you get West of Chicago, everything seems super open and you can see the horizon as you drive which is cool.

  17. Long and quite boring. Most of the country is just empty farmland, empty desert, forest, and mountains. Some of it is nice to look at, but it’s mostly just boring. There’s not much to do or see unless you’re going out of your way to find them. Given the distances we’re talking about and that it takes days to do the drive, going out of your way adds a lot of time.

  18. Pretty crazy to think that a drive from Key West to Pensacola would be about the same 14 hours or so. Plus you would be entering another time zone. You would still be about 30-45 minutes from the Florida Alabama border.

    I was chatting with some college age students who were from west Texas and they decided to drive to Orlando thinking they would see so much. But they were telling me how boring a lot of the drive was. And it took them so much longer to even get out of Texas.

  20. If you have the time and the money to do it, it’s amazing. Every major city has something unique to it and hitting the National parks, amusement parks, and various roadside attractions along the way makes for a great time.

  22. I driven from the Gulf Coast to almost the Great Lakes coast several times.  It was a thousand mile drive.  One time I made it in 14 hours.  It was okay, kind of boring as you might imagine.

  23. I have driven from Houston to El Paso before and it took 10 hours. Thats all within the state of Texas.

  24. Most of the trips I took across the country were on I-10. You drive all day from Georgia to Texas, spend the next day driving across Texas, and then drive from New Mexico to the Pacific on the third day. That’s if you only stop for gas and short breaks.

  25. Super fun. There are so many different climates and landscapes. Deserts and rainforests, swamps and so much grassland. So much beauty. So much weirdness. Driving in the plains is wild. You can watch thunderstorms from 100 km away. Driving from the plains into the Rockies is even wilder. It’s like driving toward a gigantic curtain of mountains that you drive behind with how sudden the transition is. Utah is like a moonscape. If you sit down in NOLA, you might have moss start to grow up your leg.

    And it takes awhile. 2 days of nonstop driving one way (minimum), so you probably want to spend a fortnight or so if you want to see anything along the way. So make sure you have a really good buddy along with you.

  27. I live on the coast on the Atlantic side. I think like half of the route I would take to the Pacific would just be Texas

  28. not east-west, but south-north: one time I drove from the gulf coast to Wisconsin (1000 miles, 14 hours) in March. I went from a 80°F (26°C) morning to a 20°F (-6°C) night with snowfall in one day. the climate diversity in the US is wild.

  30. Long and most of the trip is boring when you’re going through super rural areas. Last trip I went on I drove over an hour before seeing even a small town

  31. I drove from Ohio to Washington state. It took me three days, but there was a lot of sightseeing along the way. I could have made it a two day trip if I hustled. The big problem with driving across the country is that you really want to stop and see the sights. We really do have a gorgeous country.

  32. Did it. It takes a really long fucking time. Like it’s almost incomprehensible how long it takes if you haven’t done it before.

  33. I’ve driven both to and from Alaska to the east coast.. Both gorgeous drives. The east coast is very forested, the Midwest is flat and boring, the plains are flatter but somehow prettier, the west is flat desert but gorgeous.

  34. Seems most these people are underselling this drive. Sure the great plains are boring. But going from nothing but green mountains and greenery everywhere, to desolate landscapes and deserts and complete open sky’s is quite the site to see. Driving through winding canyons, the nation’s longest tunnel, seeing red soil and snow capped mountains was something I’ll always remember. The “east coast” is all I’ve ever known, lived, and seen. So going from that to the stark contrast of the west is incredible. Don’t let these people fool you, yes it’s long and flat for alot of it. But everything else is truly beautiful to see, and it’s amazing to see the landscape change drastically as you drive. I highly recommend driving coast to coast.

  35. To a large degree it depends on the route you take as there are some significant variations between the most northern, most southern, and more central routes.

    As others have noted, the center of the country 800-1000 miles, is terribly flat and boring – but the rest ranges from interesting to beautiful to stunning to mesmerizing.

    From east to west you begin with rolling hills and eroded mountains with very dense forest along the eastern third or so of the country. As you got to the Appalachian mountains that run north to south you have some stunning vistas – and through that third of the country, especially toward to north, there’s a ton of history from the 1700s on with the original towns and settlements.

    You then get to the Midwest which is still generally beautiful and forested before heading to the very flat plains and a long 800+ very boring miles.

    The lost southern route going through Texas is the least exciting and longest stretch of this nothingness. The northern most has some interesting topography but it’s when you get past Denver in the middle of the country where it begins to get amazing – the Rockies from Denver north are just stunning. And you then get into the red rock mountains and desserts of Utah.

    The last bunch of hours as you get into California have varied and interesting terrain – if you go through the sierra nevadas you have more amazing mountain scenery as well.

  36. It’s looooooooooooooong! I wouldn’t want to do it in less than a week, and that’s if I wasn’t trying to have any fun along the way. If you want to stop and do shit, I’d give it 10 to 14 days. When I was young, my family did a vacation from the Carolinas to California and back. We took 2 weeks getting out west, 2 weeks going north to south in California, and 2 weeks taking a different route back adn you simply ***can not imagine*** how much shit we passed over because there wasn’t enough time.

  37. A few years back I did a road trip from Florida to Maine. Went mostly along the coast. Lots of really pretty areas and cool places to visit along the way. Saw a bunch of lighthouses and it was interesting to see the changes in building styles along the way. Some New England states are pretty small, you could sneeze and completely miss a state. My wife still doesn’t quite remember New Hampshire

  38. Drove from Oregon to North Carolina, then did the reverse five years later. Northern route the first time, southern the second.

    It’s long and stretches are really boring (days of corn), but it’s an incredible way to see the country. We were moving for work, so didn’t get to stop as much as we’d like. We both would have liked to take a more circuitous route and explore, but we needed to get to the end with some haste.

    And it goes without saying, but Texas is huge. I didn’t appreciate its largeness until driving across it (I think it can fit nearly three UKs).

  39. The so-called “fly-over” states don’t have the big cities and major tourist attractions. However, if you find interest in seeing small towns, meeting people where they live and seeking out the small charms, it’s pretty fun. Practically every little village has some point of pride, and it’s fun to discover them.

    If you’re in a hurry, you’ll hate that drive. If you have time to stop a lot and explore the caves, browse a regional museum, or spend the day at the county ‘tater (corn, oyster, rattlesnake, garlic, onion, watermelon, etc.) festival, you’ll have the trip of a lifetime.

  40. Its seriously cool. I did it with my father about 20 years ago, we made a month long trip out of it and did not take the most direct route. Our trip from California to New England took weeks, but we went from the east coast back home to California much faster as the cold fronts were coming in.

    Its something people should do, but take more time than you think you need and see stuff along the way.

  41. My parents made the trip NJ-CA in their mid 60s convertible Cadillacs, once for their honeymoon, and then for their 5th anniversary.

    It took a month – 2 weeks out (northerly route 80) and 2 weeks back (a more Southern route). They took movies and had some incredible stories both times.

    This is a dream of mine, but economically, it’ll probably never happen. No way will gas be 50¢ a gallon or hotels $9 a night ever again.

  42. Not sure never done it and never want to. Michigan is about the same size as the UK, just to put it in perspective……

  44. “The US,” it says, “is big. Really big. You just won’t believe how vastly, hugely, mindbogglingly big it is. I mean, you may think it’s a long way down the road to the chemist, but that’s just peanuts to the US.”

    … with apologies to Douglas Adams.

  46. I drove from Virginia to LA fall of 2016

    I’d do it again tomorrow!!

    I planned each nights stay, driving either 8 hours or 500 miles. Plotted the route pretty meticulously.

    I made space in the trip for a fun stop every day. The Cadillac Ranch in TX was awesome!! I brought a plastic stencil and painted a “FF” on a car. It’s covered by someone else not 5 minutes later!!

    Anyway, the drive was beautiful and peaceful. I did it by myself and loved every minute of it
    Edit OP—my husband and I drove from Edinburgh to Inverness, south to Bournemouth then took a train back to Edinburgh!! We did it (slowly) over the course of about 9-10 days.

    Beautiful and the people we met were great!!

  47. It’s FUN. As someone who has done it twice and grew up in a small, southern town, it opens your eyes. Atlanta is different than Memphis is different than Little Rock, which is different from Oklahoma City, which is different than Phoenix, which is different than Los Angeles. All of these places are culturally and the landscape and geography is different.

    I did it once on and didn’t stop unless to get fuel. I had someone that switched off with me driving and we went Atlantic to Pacific Ocean in 3.5 days. It was HARD but we did it. I did it a second time and stopped for hotels each night and it took 8 days. I would like to do it once more enjoying the scenery fully, maybe taking 30 days.

    I’ve also driven Seattle to Atlanta and that took 10 days, we stopped at hot spots and then drove sometimes 15-16 hours a day through “dead space.” It was extremely fun, interesting, and we learned a lot.

  48. Years ago while driving from Arizona to Alabama, we got to the Texas part of the trip. The AAA Guide Book began Texas with this little ditty:

    *The* *sun* *has* *riz*

    *The* *sun* *has* *set*

    *And* *here* *we* *is*

    *In* *Texas* *yet*

    It took us two days to drive across Texas and it is suuuper boring. Flat. Reallly flat. Like, stand on a can of beans and see into 6 other states flat.

Leave a Reply
You May Also Like