13 steps to plan your ultimate USA road trip

Hands down – the United States are incredibly huge and seeing every bit of it is almost impossible. Even if it sounds frustrating, you gotta restrict yourselves to 2-4 states, or one of the coasts. We were really lucky this year and Tom got 4 weeks off work, so we had a lot of time for our roadtrip. We also thought about travelling the east coast, but as we finally had more time than we hoped for, we decided that an east coast roadtrip could probably also split up into two shorter trips and so we decided to make use of the 4 weeks and do a pretty long roadtrip along the west coast.  Consider the time you’ve got and what is possible in that time - overloading your roadtrip with too many stops or too long distances might ruin it.

When you’ve decided which coast or which states you want to see, the really hard part of your preparation begins… You gotta plan that trip. Get yourself a travel guide, read through some travel blogs, watch some roadtrip videos (there are hundreds and thousands of them on Youtube) and pick out the places you’d love to see. I spent weeks on that part, and everytime I found a spot that had to go into our roadtrip itinerary, I pinned it down on Google maps. Pinning down your stopps on a virtual map might turn out really helpful, as you can see at first glance if the place is within reach of your rough route, and you can easily find out how long it will take you to get there. 

The reason why you should book your flights after you’ve planned your route might sound weird, but is actually pretty simple: it might save you a lot of money. On our route, there were 4 international airports: San Francisco, Los Angeles, Phoenix and Las Vegas. For us it didn’t matter from which of these places we’d start our roadtrip, so we simply compared prices and chose the cheapest connection as our starting (&ending) point. In our case that was San Francisco and we paid about 750€ per person for a return flight from Munich. As always: flexibility saves your budget ;)

Booking your car some weeks or months in advance will not only save you a lot of money, but also the struggle of comparing the prices of the various rental agencies at the airport. On the German website billigermietwagen.de, it is really easy to compare all kinds of vehicles and agencies. You can get any car you’d like, depending on your budget and your preferences. We finally took a mid-size SUV, as an SUV is simply a lot more comfortable when driving thousands of miles. Actually in the USA you can also do your roadtrip in a Mustang – might sound great, but sitting only a few inches above the ground isn’t that nice and remember that you’ll need about three times as much fuel with a muscle car :O It is not always necessary to book your car from your first day on. In our case, we started our trip in San Francisco, and as public parking prizes in SF are crazy and the city isn’t too big, we picked up our car on the third day, right before we left the city JMake sure that you book more than one driver. Distances are long and tiring, and being able to swap seats from time to time is absolutely necessary in our opinion.

Alright, if you’ve done everything right, now you’ve got a starting point and most likely a map full of pins. Now compile a table with 3 columns. 1^stcolumn = date, 2^ndcolumn = the places you want to visit on that day, 3^rdcolumn = distance & expected driving time. This is how ours looked like then:

Again this is quite a lot of work, but when we were on our way, we were mostly really tired in the evening and wouldn’t have had the energy to do the planning for the next day. So we were really glad to just check our schedule and to know what would be on the plan. Of course, plans are made to be disrupted :D so sometimes we skipped things, sometimes we stayed longer, we added things, we were sometimes ahead and sometimes behind our schedule. But AGAIN: it’s simply something that helps you to orientate yourself, which is indeed helpful on such a long trip.

On average we drove about 200 miles/300 km per day, sometimes it were only 20 and the longest distance was about 500 km on one day. Make sure that you do not spend too much time in your car. Although the landscapes are changing all the time and are really breathtaking, sometimes you will drive straight ahead for hours, and the risk of falling asleep is quite high. We did most of the driving in the mornings and in the evenings, during the day we went hiking, swimming, sightseeing and so on. Do not overload your itinerary and take your time to explore all the beautiful places – being in a hurry on a roadtrip ain’t no fun!!

This point is up to you. Some people like it to have their schedule fixed, including all accommodations. We usually do not book our hotels/airbnbs in advance, but as San Francisco and Los Angeles were almost fully booked when we checked the internet 2 months before our trip (!!), we planned the first week from home. After LA, our strategy was to drive until we got tired, then we had dinner at a restaurant with WI-FI and booked the closest motel/hotel. This strategy really worked out quite well, we always found a cheap place to stay – except for Page, Arizona. For this city, you might really want to book something a few days in advance. 

Although we almost never book any activities too far in advance, in the United States, especially during the summer months, permits & tickets quickly sell out. Here is a list of the things that you really need to book in advance if you don’t want to miss them:

• Alcatraz Prison, SF – 1-2 months in advance; only via the official website (the other boats only circle the island, but you cannot enter the island), price 39$ p.p.
• Antelope Canyon, AZ – 2-3 weeks in advance; for example via Ken’s tours , price 50$ p.p.
• The Wave, AZ – 4 months in advance; only 20 people are allowed to visit that place per day. 10 tickets are sold online by the US Bureau of Land Management, another 10 are sold via a walk-in lottery the day before; price 12$ p.p. 
• Half Dome, Yosemite NP – months in advance; 300 hikers are allowed per day, 225 are sold online from March 1-31, the rest is sold via walk-in lottery on the previous day; price 10$ p.p.
• Havasupai Falls, AZ – in FEBRUARY; getting a permit for that place is really crazy, or – almost impossible. You have to create an account in order to be able to apply for a permit. Permit sale for the whole year starts on February 1 and usually sells out within hours. All permits include a minimum stay of 3 nights and cost about 100$ per night and person (for a tent :D). Then you can either hike there (12 miles one way) or pay for a helicopter that flies you in.

Car-rental agencies will tell you that you need a navigation system for your car. On average they’d cost you about 15-20$ per day, but YOU DON’T NEED THEM JOur favourite offline-map is maps.me – it’s absolutely free, and it’s one of our most reliable travel-companions since our first trip.

Listening to the US radio can be fun, but the signal often gets lost and after a few days you might be tired of those top 40 songs :D So bring a lot of music you love! Either on a USB flash drive, or simply on your smartphone. We used one of our phones for music & navigation, and as both easily kill your battery, we bought a small but useful gadget: a USB power plug for the cigarette lighter. You can find it here. However, most cars already have a USB port. 

Every state in the US has its own laws.. Sometimes public drinking is allowed, sometimes smoking weed is allowed. Just make sure to be informed for what you could get arrested ;)

Oh and then there are some driving rules that are new to Europeans:

• 4-way stop signs: smaller intersections usually have stop signs on all 4 streets. It can be really confusing, but usually the rule is: whoever arrived first, goes first!
• you are allowed to turn right on a red signal: you just have to give way to oncoming traffic. A rule that should be introduced to Europe!
• prepare for freeways with up to 8 lanes :O and beware of lane changers!
• prepare to pay for toll roads: you will be charged for some bridges (e.g. Golden Gate Bridge), express lanes and tunnels

A roadtrip in the USA is expensive, no question. However, here are some tips how to save some money on your trip:

• buy the America the Beautiful Annual Pass if you plan to visit more than 3 National Parks. It costs 80$ per vehicle.
•  get membership cards from different supermarkets, sometimes you only pay half of the price with those cards
•  7-Eleven is your place for cheap snacks & cold drinks
• stay at motels: hotels can be really expensive, and the motels are really fine – compare prices on trivago etc.
•  stay away from parking garages! Use street parking instead

When it comes to clothes, shoes, handbags,… the United States are really a shopping paradise <3 Every big city has got a huge outlet where you can really get amazing deals. So make sure that you do not bring too much from home – you can buy EVERYTHING here ;P

Find other blog posts to find out more about your USA road trip

--> HOW MUCH IS A USA ROAD TRIP?

--> 4 WEEK ROADTRIP ITINERARY

WATCH OUR ROADTRIP VIDEO HERE