Best. Trip. Ever. Cross Country Road Trip - 08/08

Jan: If you can add Utah to your itinerary, do it. Make sure you stop at Yellowstone. Since you have 4-6 weeks, you can do a lot. We did all this in 15 days. Go to Mt. Rushmore and Deadwood, SD.

Nan: If you can, follow our route, unless you want to stay on I-90 East and hit Niagara Falls and on into Canada. It depends which states you want to visit.

My son and I are leaving MA in mid-August bound for Colorado. Any suggestions? We can easily get to PA and then across.

My husband (retired high school principal) and I (middle school teacher) want to take 4-6 wks. next summer and head to the northwest. We are located in Tennessee and have not traveled much. We want to enjoy as much as possible but also not be in a big rush each day to reach a certain point. At our age we don't enjoy (or tolerate) long periods of time in the car. 8-10 hrs is maximum for us. I definitely want to visit Wyoming, North and South Dakota, Montana, and anywhere in between. We need help in planning our trip. Do you have any pointers in getting us started? Thanks so much for your help.

David, I would spend more time in Utah, South Dakota, and Northern California. Those were the highlights for us.

This sounds like a dream trip, something that I have gone old with. For someone whose knowledge is confined to DC and NY city, any trip across the US by road would be wonderful: the country is so vast, varied and beautiful I would love to do it one day without too much planning! Congratulations.

You would make a very good guide, I plan on 6 months across the US and will start with your trip first. If you were to stay longer anywhere any place with all the time in the world what would you do. I would use your trip in the summer and go further south in the winter.

Great trip....you combined about 4 different vacations I have taken over the years. Congrats on the engagement!!

It cost us about $4,000. About 1/4 of that was the rental of the SUV, another 1/4 in hotels, 1/4 for gas, and another 1/4 for food, gifts, etc. Remember, when we took this trip in 2008, gas was close to $4.00 a gallon, so if you take your own car, you'll save a lot. And if you don't mind staying in mid-priced hotel chains like Econo Lodge, Comfort Inn, Days Inn, etc., that helped us save a lot.

You got to love it!.....leaving for my trip from Michigan to Califorina soon...the trip is unplanned. You have given me some ideas. journaling is one.