Driving across the US?

Over the summer me and a friend from Uni are going to head off and do one of these USA Summer Camp things. After 9 weeks of work we get 6 weeks to travel around the US.

One of the things I have always wanted to do is drive from New York to LA (with longboard to skate lots of roads along the way inspired by Original Longboards).

Has anyone here driven across the US? Is it ridiculously expensive for car hire and so on?

Or Ill just use Amtrak and Greyhound.

Its mega if your leaving the car in a different state.

It's not ridiculously expensive for car hire if you're over 25, it's a lot more expensive if you're younger. Cheaper still to buy an old car out there and do it that way, or find some American friends with cars to travel with whilst you're out there.

I've done trips St Louis – New York and back and St Louis – San Francisco and back

First trip done in a rented car (7 seater), splitting costs 7 ways makes it quite cheap. Second trip done in a $400 dollar car

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ebygomm – funnily enough a cheap car had crossed my mind but I was slightly put off by insurance and so on. I take it insurance is not compulsory in the US (you just have to be mega careful)?

We did a car delivery scheme, look for auto movers or auto forwarders in yellow pages. Went from New York state to just outside Chicago, then down to Miami and then took a car to L.A.

Ooo…might be able to get my hands on a Dodge Challenger 😀

Insurance isn't required in some states, however, just think about spending a couple of nights in some small sherriff's jail without Marisa Tomei turning up to save you.

http://www.auto-car-transport.com/car-delivery/index.html

see if they are looking for drivers

Insurance is fairly cheap, and not too difficult to get if you can use your camp address as your residential address. The camp where I first worked, we had to get US drivers licenses to use the vehicles there which makes things easier when buying and getting insurance.

Thanks Pigface, Ill look into that.

Inspirational video 1

Inspirational video 2

Vids for anyone who's interested

Thanks ebygomm, some useful info there. Really appreciate it

I looked into some of the auto drive away companies. I think most you have to be over 23 and there's often quite a lot of restrictions, e.g. they don't give you that much time to get to your destination if you want to stop places and you can't drive at night – normal travelling for us was do stuff in the day, leave afternoon/evening and drive for 4 or 5 hours and get to a campsite at 10 at night ready to do stuff the next day.

http://www.gonomad.com/transports/0012/javins_driveaway.html

this is better for you

I've driven from San Diego to Seattle. I know that's 90 degrees off your journey, but some things apply:
get the state guide to motels for each state you're in, it will have vouchers for cheap stays (30 bucks for 4 people with breakfast thrown in?!) and phone ahead day by day so you can amble in interesting bits and sprint across dull bits.

Eat at mom'n'pops traditional diners whenever you can, proper American food is fattening but fabulous.

You are supposed to tip at bars, but if you're never going back there, save money by being extremely English and forgetting to tip! Half the time they are so fascinated by your accent you can get away with murder (in southern Ca., the mexican workers cannot understand a word you say which can be a good thing!)

Funnily enough bassspine Im just chatting with my friend now and are debating seeing if we can get placed in Cali instead and then driving up to Seattle.

Did you manage to do it quite cheaply? We get about $1500 dollars when we finish the contracts, plus we'll have some of our own cash.

Either way I would love to see LA and San Francisco.

Change of plans. Friend has decided to rope in a friend of theirs who I really cant stand.

So Im going to head for Canada instead 😀

Don't go to LA it's really shit.

http://bridge2bridge.co.uk/index.html

2 girls at work cycled it*, they had motorhome for support
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*allegedly