Question
Where should a college student who has never been out of the coasts travel in the United States for the best perspective?
Answer
I'll share my 6000-mile/3 week cross country road trip itinerary from May 2011. I'd recommend it to anybody, even though my reasons for doing the trip and choice of locations probably do not apply to most. This was east to west and was an overload of a moving trip. As it happens it was another Quora user Dimitry Lukashov who first suggested this rough route. I visited him and camped out at his place in New Orleans for a few days, along the way.
I'll reveal my absolute favorite locations at the end, and my recommendation for a 7-9 day route from coast-coast.
My route:
I did a loop later that year through California, over 3 more weeks. 10 years ago, I did a trip from Ann Arbor to Florida and back, via Kentucky and Georgia, so I have that covered too. Plus I've been to most parts of the country at least briefly through random travels (thanks to conferences in my discipline being held in unusual places like Puerto Rico and Big Sky, Montana).
This leaves out the SE, NW and parts of the dead-center. It's kinda geometrically impossible to include those without having to double back extensively on your own tracks, so I chose a zig-zag but unidirectional path. I prioritized what I did because I've lived in Texas for a year and visited Arizona multiple times, which made that region less of a priority. Also been down the SE coast to North Carolina enough (while I lived in DC) and visited Florida.
The Pacific NW is the one region I feel I haven't explored enough, outside of one weekend trip to Seattle. I'd also like to do New Mexico (never been) and Colorado (only brief visits).
So I've basically covered the entire country and its major cultural regions, except for Alaska (did Hawaii earlier this year).
Top Pick
The entire country is of course ridiculously interesting, but if I had to recommend ONE portion that bicoastal frogs in the well would find mind-expanding, It'd be the Omaha - Deadwood - Cody stretch. Why?
And I haven't even mentioned the routine stuff... Mt. Rushmore (hugely over-rated piece of jingoism) and mammoth fossil caves (yawn).
If you are going to do a 7-9 day drive, I'd head from California to Yellowstone via Reno, Jackson, go through the park to Cody, dawdle through to Omaha as described above, and then do a straight dash from Omaha to Massachusetts.
I'll reveal my absolute favorite locations at the end, and my recommendation for a 7-9 day route from coast-coast.
My route:
- DC-Baltimore (old home)
- Wilmington, DE
- Albany, NY
- Montreal
- Ottawa
- Ann Arbor, MI (nostalgia stop at alma mater)
- Nashville, TN
- New Orleans, LA
- Memphis, TN
- St. Louis, MO
- Omaha, NE
- North Platte, NE (home of Bailey Yard)
- Deadwood, SD (as in the show, Deadwood)
- Cody, WY
- Jackson, WY
- Las Vegas, NV (new home)
I did a loop later that year through California, over 3 more weeks. 10 years ago, I did a trip from Ann Arbor to Florida and back, via Kentucky and Georgia, so I have that covered too. Plus I've been to most parts of the country at least briefly through random travels (thanks to conferences in my discipline being held in unusual places like Puerto Rico and Big Sky, Montana).
This leaves out the SE, NW and parts of the dead-center. It's kinda geometrically impossible to include those without having to double back extensively on your own tracks, so I chose a zig-zag but unidirectional path. I prioritized what I did because I've lived in Texas for a year and visited Arizona multiple times, which made that region less of a priority. Also been down the SE coast to North Carolina enough (while I lived in DC) and visited Florida.
The Pacific NW is the one region I feel I haven't explored enough, outside of one weekend trip to Seattle. I'd also like to do New Mexico (never been) and Colorado (only brief visits).
So I've basically covered the entire country and its major cultural regions, except for Alaska (did Hawaii earlier this year).
Top Pick
The entire country is of course ridiculously interesting, but if I had to recommend ONE portion that bicoastal frogs in the well would find mind-expanding, It'd be the Omaha - Deadwood - Cody stretch. Why?
- The sheer grandeur of the American West hits you in the face, from the prairies to the Bighorn mountains to the SD Badlands (the drive from Jackson to Las Vegas through Utah is a close second).
- Cowboy/Wild West stuff is barely 20 years of American history (between the end of the civil war and the full penetration of the railroads), but yet it shaped the American self-image and character powerfully. Where can you see where this happened? Right in this stretch. Will Bill Hickock is buried in Deadwood. Cody is home to Buffalo Bill Cody.
- North Platte is home to Bailey Yard, the largest railroad yard in the world, where vast floods of container and bulk shipping moving west to east get sorted. Railroads basically built America.
- Somewhere along the way, you can stop and ponder Carhenge.
- You know what underwrote bi-coastal self-absorption during the Cold War? Yup, the nuclear deterrent. You know where that deterrent was? Yup, South Dakota. You can visit a decommissioned minuteman missile launch control facility and silo. Goosebumps and spine-chills guaranteed, as you stare at world-destroying power sitting inside inconspicuous fenced-in lots sitting in the middle of vast pastures/grasslands, with a few cows and horses looking on. I recommend watching Dr. Strangelove on your computer that night.
- You can see the eerie and surreal landscapes created by oil, gas and coal operations in Wyoming. I'd recommend a stop in Gillette, WY.
And I haven't even mentioned the routine stuff... Mt. Rushmore (hugely over-rated piece of jingoism) and mammoth fossil caves (yawn).
If you are going to do a 7-9 day drive, I'd head from California to Yellowstone via Reno, Jackson, go through the park to Cody, dawdle through to Omaha as described above, and then do a straight dash from Omaha to Massachusetts.