Travel Planning Know How
Tips for a Successful USA Road Trip
Basically, it is very difficult to give someone a real advice about a road trip through the USA. For us, it's the individuality that's the great thing about it, but everyone is different and has different preferences and interests. Often things that are super great for us are rather uninteresting for others. For this reason, we try to keep our tips here as objective as possible.
Questions that arise before the actual planning
Prior to any road trip we first check our to-do list and choose what we want to see next. For this reason, we would advise everyone to first make a list of the places you are most interested in visiting. It is also useful to make a selection of places that should definitely be on the trip and places that are quite nice but are not a must-see. Especially for those who visit the U.S. for the first time, we advise to limit yourself to one region and not try to squeeze everything into a 3-week road trip.
What is important for me when traveling? - What type of traveler am I?
How long should the trip last?
Viewpoint hopping or hiking?
A different place every night?
Busy places or loneliness?
By car or camper?
Exact planning or spontaneity?
City trip or nature experience?
What is my budget?
Hotel or campground?
Packed days or more relaxed?
Maximum length of a hike?
Do I care about the nightlife?
Am I bound to certain travel times?
Which season for which region?
Interested in culture and history?
Duration of the trip, travel time and budget?
The days that you invest for a road trip, of course, everyone determines for themselves. In our opinion, three weeks are a good basis to experience a lot. Especially if you are on the road for the first time, you should consider that the absorption capacity is often not endless and you have to process the experiences.
For us, spring and fall are ideal for the southwest. From mid-May to about mid-September, it can get very hot. For us, the temperatures then often exceed our hiking comfort temperatures. If we want to hike in the Southwest, we choose April or early May in the spring and mid-September to mid-November in the fall. For cactus blooms in Arizona, April and May are usually quite favorable. For the Northwest, early summer is most ideal for us. In the high altitudes, countless wildflowers are in bloom, and animal sightings are often accompanied by sightings of cubs. The only time we really consider a road trip to the Northeast is in the fall, when the leaves change color beautifully. We also keep an eye out for extreme weather phenomena like tornadoes and hurricanes, which are more common in the U.S., when choosing a time to travel to the Midwest and South. Tornadoes can always occur, of course, but they are most common in the Midwest and can occur in the spring through May. Hurricane season runs from June through the end of November and mostly affects the states around the Gulf of Mexico and the Atlantic Ocean states.
The budget of the trip is not so easy to determine and depends very much on your own requirements. As a rough guideline, we set a budget of 3000€/person for a 3-week round trip. This includes the flight, the rental car incl. fuel, overnight stays in hotels/motels and a mixture of self-catering and restaurants. The budget does not include souvenirs. If one finds a very favorable flight bargain, stays overnight in the tent and self-supplies, instead of dining out, this can of course become a little cheaper. If you plan a city trip, it can also quickly become more expensive, because usually higher accommodation costs, entrance fees and food costs are higher.
Our Our travel routes can perhaps already provide one or the other suggestion for a first rough planning.
Detailed planning after the rough framework is defined
Flight and rental car
Once we have roughly determined the duration of the trip and the travel time, we almost always book the flight first. Of course, the price depends very much on your requirements. Economy, with or without luggage, Premium Economy, Business, First Class.... the price is unlimited. If you are flexible in terms of time, for example, it is possible to find flights in Economy Class to the east coast for between €300 and €400/person. If we fly economy, we try not to pay more than 700€/person for flights to the east coast and 900€/person for flights to the west coast. These prices refer to flights without luggage and seat reservations. If you are willing to invest a little more and are flexible in terms of departure location and time, you can also speculate on bargains in higher classes.
Until 2015, we always booked our flights at a travel agency. Since then, we have been booking online. We first search for a flight using popular comparison websites such as Google Flights, and then we prefer to book directly with the airline. Basically, it can be said that there is a huge selection of flights available. In addition to price, comfort has also become more important to us in recent years. We prefer to fly from our “home airport” in Nuremberg and connect in Europe. This has proven to be the most relaxed combination for us, for which we are sometimes willing to pay a slightly higher price.
After booking the flight, we book the rental car next.
Our experience with the Rental car booking. For rental cars, you can expect to pay around €300–400/week for a midsize SUV. However, prices vary greatly and depend on factors such as the location of the rental and the season. We always choose the rental car based on what we have planned for the tour. Are we going on a real road trip with long distances? Do we plan to leave the paved roads? etc. It is also important to note that you may lose your insurance coverage if you drive on unpaved roads. In this case, it is advisable to read the insurance terms and conditions carefully or to ask the rental company for details. Not all rental companies allow driving on unpaved roads.
More accurate route planning and hotel booking
After the flight and the rental car are booked, the detailed planning begins. At the latest at this point the excitement for the trip begins.
Especially for those planning their first road trip, we would recommend planning from rough to fine. After the region is determined, we pick the locations from our list that we definitely want to see. These then form the basic framework of the trip and are filled in with places and activities that are nearby, or fit into the schedule. After the framework is set, the detailed planning begins. Everyone is different here, as we've seen almost everything from totally exact plans to collections of stuff. Based on the description of Our travel routes you get an impression of what we do in a day. The daily stages can be planned well with Google Maps. The times that are given for the individual stages, however, should only serve as a rough guide. You can easily add 20% - 30% to the times for a more realistic planning, because experience shows that you make more frequent breaks for photos, food or just to look and enjoy the view.
For a few years now, we have been booking the hotels almost all in advance. The biggest advantage for us is that we can see exactly where we are staying beforehand. Often, when booking, we also consider the infrastructure that is in the vicinity of the hotel. This way, we don't have to travel long distances to go shopping or to our favorite restaurant in the evening. Some interesting facts about hotel booking and our experiences with various hotels can be found on our hotel sites..
...and to make the start of planning a little easier, here are our must see locations in the southwest (at least for this week)...
