Roadtrip Countdown

Day by day I find myself getting more excited at the prospect of travelling America, with 3 of my best friends might I add.

 

All this started off about 2 years ago when my friend asked if we wanted to roadtrip America with her, back then it seemed like just some thought up dream that would never come true, with me being the only one to take her up on her offer. Although her thinking I was just humouring her until January this year when I sent her a text casually asking if this was still going ahead. 2 months later, one of my other friends who had originally been completely against the idea decided she was coming and 2 weeks after that my other friends mum got in contact with us all asking for realistic costs.. Within hours she had agreed to give my friend this trip as a graduation present, although she couldn’t keep it a secret and within 2 weeks she also knew.

 

Well, that’s when the fun and games really began. 

 

Fast forward 9 months later, and well this is where we are now.

• Flights are booked.
• Motels are booked.
• Broadway tickets are booked.

Next month we get to book our car and more of our excursions. It’s finally starting to kick in.. This is happening. We’re going to America. I’m spending one whole month travelling across America with my 3 best friends. What more could I really want?

 

If I’m being honest though, I’m ridiculously scared about the whole thing. Why? I hear you ask, well here we are less than 6 months until we go and I have not one penny saved. Oh god I’m so nervous.

 

It’ll all be fine though, because hey.. I’m going to America for a month. That’s all I really care about.

I’ll make sure to keep you all updated on future plans, and I’ll definitely make sure I make time on my trip for a blog post or two!

Flights to America

It’s official now.
Our flights to America are booked for next year, I can’t quite believe it. It’s all feeling so real now. 

• 30th May 2016 we fly from Glasgow to Amsterdam/Amsterdam to Boston.
• 29th June 2016 we fly from San Fransisco to Amsterdam/Amsterdam to Glasgow. 

Got such a great deal on our flights, £555pp with STA Travel, almost £200pp cheaper than what we had originally found online. Now that the flights are booked it’s really sunk in to us all that this is happening, we are going on our road trip across America. I really can’t wait for this experience with my best friends, it’s going to be unreal.

Coast to Coast: USA road trip

It’s official. My friends and I have finalised our plans for our American road trip and I am ecstatic of our plans!
Basically this is a basic itinerary of how we’ll be spending our time.

• Day 1. Boston: we arrive, sort out our rental car and then head to the motel. Head out for some dinner and drinks and then get an early night for the next day.
• Day 2. Boston: our full day in Boston, we’re looking at doing some walking tours and taking in some of the history and maybe seeing some of the nightlife that night.
• Day 3. Salem/NYC: up early for some breakfast then drive up to Salem and get a feel for its witchcraft history, we’ll spend some time here before heading to NYC. We’re actually planning on staying in North Bergen, NJ. So it will be easier as we’ll just use public transport to get into New York City itself.
• Days 4-6. New York City: we plan on doing quite a few things here, a helicopter tour, matinee Broadway show, in addition to many of the other typical tourist things to do. We aren’t big shoppers so we won’t be spending much of our time in and out of shops. We’ll definitely be looking to party it up in NYC so suggestions of bars/clubs to go to would be fab.
• Day 7. NYC/Philadelphia/Washington DC: we will most likely be leaving NYC relatively early as we’re planning on stopping at Philadelphia on our way to DC as one of us has family there so we will pop in and say ‘Hi’. I believe we’re actually staying in Virginia but just a short subway ride from the capital. We’ll most likely just get some dinner and have a walk about at some of the tourist spots.
• Day 8. Washington DC: for us this will mostly be about seeing the sights. War memorials and the Lincoln statue etc. maybe visit a wee museum. If anyone has any ones they think we definitely shouldn’t miss out on??
• Day 9. Washington DC/Abingdon: we’ve just added Abingdon in as originally we had a 10 hour drive from Washington DC to Nashville but thought we would split it in half. Any ideas of what to do/see in Abingdon would be appreciated?
• Day 10. Abingdon/Nashville: we’ll most likely just have some dinner and get an early night here so we can see what Nashville has to offer the following day.
• Day 11. Nashville: here all we have is The Grande Ole Oprey. My friend is a guitar player and we all love music so if there’s any great recommendations of venues to see some live music that would be great.
• Day 12. Nashville/New Orleans: we plan on heading out early again here stopping for something to eat in Alabama and again in Mississippi. Then as soon as we arrive, we’ll most likely drop our things and head straight to the French Quarter!
• Day 13-14. New Orleans: here we’re interested in soaking up the architecture and sights. And drinking.. We’ll probably do a fair bit of drinking here, we are 4 Glaswegians after all.
• Day 15. New Orleans/Ennis: again Ennis has just recently been added. So we’ll probably just leave New Orleans and have a chilled drive to Ennis and a chilled night here.
• Day 16. Ennis/Amarillo: once we arrive in Amarillo we’ll be heading to Cadillac Ranch to get our spray paint on. Then we’ll definitely be checking out Palo Duro Canyon. We’ll be planning on getting stuck right into the Big Texan Steak Ranch for dinner. We reckon we could smash the challenge!
• Day 17. Amarillo/Farmington: we’ll probably head out early and grab breakfast at the Midpoint Cafe, as we’ve been recommended to. It will be another chilled night here for us.
• Day 18. Famington/Four Corners/Monument Valley/Grand Canyon: we will be up super early to head to the Four Corners Monument, probably explore a bit before it opens at 8am, then off to Monument Valley. From there we’ll be heading to Yavapai Lodges. We’ll be eating/sleeping when we arrive so we are up early for the next full day.
• Day 19. Grand Canyon/Las Vegas: our morning will be spent visiting the Grand Canyon. We’ll probably spend quite a lot of time here as our night in Vegas will just be eating/drinking/maybe visit a casino.
• Day 20-21. Las Vegas: our time will be spent, drinking, gambling and hopefully catch a show. This is the only place we’ll be staying anywhere fancy (The Bellagio) as it’s a birthday gift. We were planning on going to a shooting range here but have been advised to go to one in Texas instead?
• Day 22. Las Vegas/Los Angeles: we’ll be up early and heading to LA, get to our motel, grab some food and probably enjoy the nightlife.
• Day 23-25. Los Angeles: in LA we’re looking forward to the beaches, the nightlife and universal studios. We’re not massive theme park fans but Universal has something we’re all interested in.
• Day 26. Los Angeles/San Simeon: we were told we had to add in a day between LA and San Fran somewhere so we’ve chosen San Simeon.
• Day 27. San Simeon/San Francisco: like most of our travelling days it will probably just be rather chilled especially as it’s coming towards the end of our trip.
• Day 28-30. San Francisco: the only thing we have planned for San Fran is Alcatraz. Maybe rent some bikes and cycle about, go on a tram etc.
• Day 31. San Francisco/Glasgow: well this will be the day we either all dread or can’t wait for, the day we head home.

As you can all see, this is the outline of our trip and it’s one I cannot wait for.

Money isn’t an issue for us, so advice on must do/see things in each place is welcome. All our places are set in stone, along with the time scale. But please guys, we welcome any feedback or suggestions. They would be much appreciated.

Bring on 2016!!!!