Aaron Around The World >> North America >> United States of America >> USA and Canada Road Trip
USA and Canada Road Trip (1 July - 18 October 2015)
For as long as I can remember, I've been fascinated by the USA. I think it started when I first saw Stand By Me at about six years old. Surely you've all seen that movie, but if not, four friends about twice my age at the time set out on a gruesome yet awesome adventure that awakened something in me. That something, in a word, was "travel". Many years later during university, when my then-girlfriend and I were discussing our eventual move to Australia and beyond, we talked about the prospect of doing a USA road trip someday (among many others - I freakin' love road trips!). From mountains to deserts, and concrete jungles to tumbleweeds blowing in the wind, America is large, diverse, and a great road-tripping destination. Never did I think of course that I would end up married to an American and actually living here, but even so I was always determined that such a road trip would happen, sooner or later, one way or another. With Kristina and I leaving New York and relocating to her home state of Texas, this was the perfect opportunity!
Below is our route and itinerary, taking in more than 50 destinations (including several in Canada) over about four months and 15,000 miles.
Click a link below to get into it...
Monument Valley, Utah
Horseshoe Bend, Arizona
Salt Lake City, Utah
Bonneville Salt Flats, Utah
Portland, Oregon
Columbia River Gorge, Oregon
Redwood National Park, California
Chandelier Tree, California
Lake Tahoe, California/Nevada
Death Valley National Park, California
Hoover Dam, Nevada/Arizona
Phew! As I mentioned above, this trip had been in the planning, and very much in the back of my mind, for a very long time. Apart from some wildfire smoke, it all went virtually without a hitch! Even the weather came to the party for the most part; I can count on one hand the number of days it let us down (including pissing rain on the very first day hehe). The obvious question we've been repeatedly asked along the way is "What's your favourite place?". Well, as always, there's no easy answer to that. We saw big cities, small villages, prehistoric settlements, national parks, state parks, mountains, deserts, volcanoes, canyons, valleys, oceans, lakes, rivers, waterfalls, hot springs, movie locations, famous landmarks, famous roads, geological wonders - it's very hard to pick favourites :) And keep in mind we didn't have time to see everything that's out there - the whole southeast US for example had to be skipped, and despite the distance we covered and everything we did manage to include on this trip, I feel like we barely scratched the surface. In terms of cities, we were pretty impressed with Chicago and Toronto, and San Diego and Sedona are worth a mention. In terms of regions, New England, Colorado, the Canadian Rockies, and the Pacific Northwest are all pretty stunning, and the Utah and Arizona landscapes blew us away! In terms of parks, well, pretty much all of them blew us away in some way. In terms of personal highlights, the Stand By Me filming locations were the cherry on top, especially given that movie somewhat inspired this trip. If I had to sum up this land in a word, it would be: diverse. You name it, and there are probably some examples of it around here somewhere, whatever you're looking for. More than half of Americans have never travelled outside of their country, and many have never even travelled outside of their home state. It's a big and fascinating world out there folks, but if staying closer to home is more your thing then there's a big and fascinating country right on your doorstep too, and it's well worth a look!
Here are a few stats from the trip...
We drove 16,741 miles (26,942km) across 110 days, which included stopping in or at least touching 26 of the lower 48 states and four of the ten Canadian provinces. We also entered 17 of the 59 national parks in the US, among many other non-national parks. Our fuel receipts totalled $1,865 from start to finish, and the car did an average of 27.2 miles per gallon (about 8.6 litres per 100km) which isn't bad considering the weight it was lugging around and the varied roads and terrain. Speaking of the car, we got through the whole trip without a single flat tyre or mechanical problem, apart from a random flat battery one morning with no obvious cause. Furthermore, we never got pulled over by the cops, got no parking fines, but did get a $30 fine in the mail for failing to pay a bridge toll in San Francisco (because I was in the wrong lane - oops). To be fair, I credit the radar detector for the lack of attention from the cops. I don't have a particularly heavy foot but the cops know how to fill their quotas, and I'd say the detector paid for itself at least once or twice. The total cost of everything attributable to the trip including fuel, accommodation, food, entrance fees, car maintenance and so forth was $16,500 (not including the cost of the car itself) or $75 per person per day - also not bad. I didn't keep count of the number of people who commented on the car having New York plates and how far we were from home, but it was a lot :) Another question we were often asked is whether we were sick of driving. Well I don't know about Kristina, but I did 90% of the driving and never got sick of it. Some days were longer than others and occasionally I would look forward to getting out of the car, but I always looked forward to getting back in it again the next day.
So, that was that for another adventure, and now we're setting up another new life - this time in Austin, Texas!
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