46 replies to this topic

[Davethepioneer]

Stirling, doing 6 weeks and don't want to have to scrimp on spends

Well fella, your gonna have a great time!

[ANON]

how bizarre is this...just worked out a route from ny to sf and back. outward is sticking south and return is sticking north. non direct going through a couple of places we want to see. out was 4753 miles, return was 3753. i know we wont stick to the exact route but bit odd that the difference is exactly 1000 miles!!

according to googly woogly maps thats about 150ish hours of driving so think we will end up with a lot more time to kill than i thought we would have.

rough fuel costs 9,000 miles @ 25mpg @ $3.20 per gallon should be about £750

[Davethepioneer]

how bizarre is this...just worked out a route from ny to sf and back. outward is sticking south and return is sticking north. non direct going through a couple of places we want to see. out was 4753 miles, return was 3753. i know we wont stick to the exact route but bit odd that the difference is exactly 1000 miles!!

according to googly woogly maps thats about 150ish hours of driving so think we will end up with a lot more time to kill than i thought we would have.

rough fuel costs 9,000 miles @ 25mpg @ $3.20 per gallon should be about £750

Now work out above if you were doing 9000 miles in the Uk lol it would be the price of a house!

[Dan]

25mpg from a Shelby Mustang? Is that imperial gallons? Because US gallons are smaller! I wouldn't bank on more than 18 average if I were you.

Yes you'll have a lot of time anywhere you go. The thing is that everything is more spread out over there so once you start out from a town in the morning, you just keep driving and nothing gets in the way until you get where you're going. The only road trip I've done out there was as a kid with my Dad driving and was pretty tame, LA to San Francisco to Las Vegas and back to LA. The legs of the trip are all about 400 miles but you easily get through them in a day, even with the lower speed limit. Driving in a city or town is just as horrible as it is here from a traffic point of view and you never get anywhere but long drags seem a lot easier there. But if it's just you driving with your boy, don't schedule too much distance and allow time between travel days because you don't want to get too tired. It's dangerous and you won't enjoy it as much. As said above, allow the first day or two for acclimatisation and overcoming jet lag before you plan a long drive. And learn the oddities of driving law, right turn on red and 4 way stop junctions and things. There are roundabouts more or less randomly placed but when you arrive at one you will be the only person there who knows how it works.

[Davethepioneer]

25mpg from a Shelby Mustang? Is that imperial gallons? Because US gallons are smaller! I wouldn't bank on more than 18 average if I were you.

Yes you'll have a lot of time anywhere you go. The thing is that everything is more spread out over there so once you start out from a town in the morning, you just keep driving and nothing gets in the way until you get where you're going. The only road trip I've done out there was as a kid with my Dad driving and was pretty tame, LA to San Francisco to Las Vegas and back to LA. The legs of the trip are all about 400 miles but you easily get through them in a day, even with the lower speed limit. Driving in a city or town is just as horrible as it is here from a traffic point of view and you never get anywhere but long drags seem a lot easier there. But if it's just you driving with your boy, don't schedule too much distance and allow time between travel days because you don't want to get too tired. It's dangerous and you won't enjoy it as much. As said above, allow the first day or two for acclimatisation and overcoming jet lag before you plan a long drive. And learn the oddities of driving law, right turn on red and 4 way stop junctions and things. There are roundabouts more or less randomly placed but when you arrive at one you will be the only person there who knows how it works.

Some really good advice here. Jet lag is a killer so its always good to have a couple of days to chill before you start your trip.

[ANON]

d'oh forgot about us galloons being smaller!!

going to be having a couple of days in new york before we head out so will be recovered. used to be wagon driver so done lots of driving in europe, pain in the bum in anything rhd but lhd stuff is a doddle.

fine with any long stints of driving we need to do, been suffering from insomnia for a while now so used to about 3 hours kip per night and my lad will sit in a car all day long without getting bored, we just natter all day long anyway

will have to get my cica forms in the post tomorrow

thanks again for all the advice so far.

[Davethepioneer]

d'oh forgot about us galloons being smaller!!

going to be having a couple of days in new york before we head out so will be recovered. used to be wagon driver so done lots of driving in europe, pain in the bum in anything rhd but lhd stuff is a doddle.

fine with any long stints of driving we need to do, been suffering from insomnia for a while now so used to about 3 hours kip per night and my lad will sit in a car all day long without getting bored, we just natter all day long anyway

will have to get my cica forms in the post tomorrow

thanks again for all the advice so far.

Your welcome mate. Im actually quite jealous. I love road trips but my lad is only 16 month old so not really fair on him stuck in a car and not being able to apreciate it.

[ANON]

...Im actually quite jealous...

will have to make sure we post loads of pics when we go then, wouldn't want you to feel left out

best hadn't tell you about our plans for when he has a year out before he goes to uni

[Davethepioneer]

...Im actually quite jealous...

will have to make sure we post loads of pics when we go then, wouldn't want you to feel left out

best hadn't tell you about our plans for when he has a year out before he goes to uni

Oh you will definatly get lots of pictures. I spent four weeks over there and took 3500 pictures......Its easily done.

[joakwin]

cheers for pointing out the road trip site.

rough plan so far is couple of days in new york for a bit of shopping and sight seeing, appalachian, loneliest road, route 66, couple of days in texas shooting and blowing things up, up the pacific coast, couple of days in san francisco and then back across either oregon trail or the great northern.

will have plenty of time to stop on the way for a couple of days if we find somewhere we like the look of and know the score about watching where we go in a nice motor.

if you go to san francisco, take a tour of the city, its a few hr tour, its really nice
and take a tour of "the rock"
its gonna be cold out their but its pretty bad a$$
and drive the pacific coat highway, its a nice drive, i done the drive from san diego to seattle on the highway

[Dan]

Personally I wouldn't bother with the city tours, they are expensive and frankly if you can get on a Powell - Hyde cable car that's not too busy, sit at the front and go from one end to the other (Hyde St pier to Market), you will see a lot of the same stuff the tours take you past. And if you get a good one the gripman will know a lot more detail about the city and tell you all about it as you go. You can hop off, take as long as you like looking at Lombard or wherever and get on the next car that passes when you want to move on. Then at market, get onto an F line historic car and ride it both ways, all the way up to Castro and back down along the Embarcadero and again get on and off as you like. This is why you need the Muni passport! Who wants to tour the city in a recently exported London open top coach that's been so badly re-painted you can still read 'London' through the red paint anyway? I've always found wherever I've been that you can see and do a lot more making it up for yourself as you go along rather than sitting in a sweaty tour bus all day.

[ANON]

never really liked the idea of city tours. prefer to just wander off and see what we come across, did that in paris the other year and had a great time.

should have a rough route planned over the weekend so will post that and see if anyone has any more advice on where to go. struggling to find a GT500 to hire though

[buck]

struggling to find a GT500 to hire though

Seems to be my problem as well

[minidream94]

how about trying to hire another classic such as a camero or something or even a hotrod or something along them lines

im defo going to try and do a road trip some time in my life, im liking the thaught of the mongolian rally as well

good luck though mate and yeah take aload of pictures as you go

[Sam]

I really want to do a US road trip, planning to do one in a couple of years time.

You can hire some interesting cars in vegas, for reasonable rates considering:

http://www.dreamcarrentals.com/

http://www.vegasexot...s.com/index.php