THE PLAN

Seven years ago when my daughter, Jessica, was 14 years old we started to plan for a road trip across the United States.  We decided to wait until Jessica was 21 mainly because we wanted to spend a bit of time in Las Vegas (there is no point in going to Vegas unless you are at least 21) and also because I wanted her to share the driving and you cannot drive a hire car until you are 21.  Not much planning was done for the next six years due to the fact that it all seemed a long way off.  I seem to remember shoving a few left over dollars from a previous Florida holiday into a piggy bank and saying "that will do towards our road trip".

                                           Jessica (at age 14) and me at Madam Tussaud's

In the autumn of 2012 we thought we had better start planning so after looking at a few road trip websites we found this great little site where you can map out the starting point, places you would like to visit along the way and your final destination and hey presto it tells you how many miles you will be travelling, the time it will take you to do the trip and it will also give you road directions as well. Obviously over the past year and a bit the route has changed umpteen times and we have added numerous stop-offs along the way. We wanted to do coast to coast so decided to start in New York and finish in San Francisco. The route we are taking will cover almost 5000 miles and go through 16 different States and four time zones. We have three weeks to complete the trip.

We booked flights very early in 2013 because they seem to be cheaper the earlier you book.  We were also told by a friend of Jessica's that it would probably be cheaper to book a return flight in and out of New York and then get a one way flight from San Francisco to New York (rather than a single into New York and a single from San Francisco back to the UK.  This was indeed the case, we saved hundreds of pounds by booking this way.  We booked all the flights with www.britishairways.com although the San Francisco to New York flight is actually an American Airlines flight in partnership with British Airways.

When deciding on accommodation, cost was the main priority.  We could not really afford to spend 23 nights in five star hotels.  Jessica, being a student, is used to staying in Youth Hostels.  Me, being 53 years old, was not so keen.  However, on looking at the Hostel website hostelworld.com I realised that they can be quite luxurious.  We booked the first 7 nights accommodation because our arrival in the US coincides with the Labour Day holiday weekend and we thought hostels in the large cities and tourist destinations like Niagara Falls may get booked up.  After that though we are just going to book one night at a time being as we want some freedom to change our mind where we go (being as it is a road trip and spontaneity rules).