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@NorthernLass I hear ya. Each time I visit I love it a little less and I definitely wouldn’t consider moving there any more. The far right MAGA crowd are destroying it. But there’s still so many amazing things to see and do that it keeps drawing me back despite the crazy hotel and food prices. Gone are the sub $100 HIXs and $15 meals, it’s now $150 – $250 average a night and $50 for dinner. (I do appreciate there are cheaper places and I try to find them, you can’t beat stuffing your face at a Golden Corral for $20 and watching the average american family do the same with a piled high plate in each grubby hand)
One issue with the long drives is the lane hogging on highways, so I try and avoid those and use the back roads, but falling asleep at the wheel is a big problem when you’re solo and driving into the sun on dead straight roads. It’s happened a couple of times where I’ve done the overly long blink… and scared the shit out of myself.
Once you’ve driven both coasts, most of route 66 twice, the great river road – Mississippi (all in fragments over the years) you start doing even crazier things like this one https://travelnevada.com/road-trips/loneliest-road-in-america/ just because it’s there.
VS from Man gets you into the 2 main gateways, JFK and ATL and then onward to anywere on Delta, so I wouldnt dismiss them too readily. But since I’ll be voucher and points poor in future years (after I’ve spent my balances as no more churning CCs possible) but time rich I see my westbound flights being more Aer Lingus from MAN or DUB, and my returns being Aer Lingus or the Delta points and $6 to AMS etc as a return in the future.
I’ve got a lot of Africa and the East as well a couple of european continent places to visit as well as a south american Argentina/Chile/Urugauy/Paraguay for maybe next year on the planning list. San Marino was my 51st country… which one is next I’m not sure 🙂
I assume you will need a GPS of some sort. What’s the plan for that?
Same as any country – cheap esim and pack the mount from your car.
Possibly imagining it, but I’m sure most fuel places were chip and pin last time I went? 🤔
Most but not all. Rural areas and older (non-chain) filling stations may be behind the curve, and generally I find that sometimes contactless and C+P still don’t work at every retail location, so end up swiping the card and “signing” the digital pad.
Can’t believe you didn’t mention Bryce above in the same breath as Zion. If you’re in the area Bryce is a must, even just for a couple of hours to hike/drive the rim trail. I’m still gutted that the pandemic killed my pre-booked opportunity to hike the Narrows at Zion as I don’t think I’ll get back there again, too much else to see and do in the world.
(Fairly wide experience, All 50 states visited, 19 into my second All-50) with a 14 state 7 week tour coming up next month. 44 of 63 National Parks visited with 8 on this trip, 2 of those a revisit).
On our last trip we used a gas station in a fairly rural town where the guy actually pumped the gas for you. Bit of a throwback to bygone times but had a good chat to him while the car was filling as he gave us a few pointers for what we were doing that day – then just popped into the booth to pay.
As mentioned, there’s still a few places in the States where that’s the norm. And of course common in many other countries too.
On our last trip we used a gas station in a fairly rural town where the guy actually pumped the gas for you. Bit of a throwback to bygone times but had a good chat to him while the car was filling as he gave us a few pointers for what we were doing that day – then just popped into the booth to pay.
It’s still illegal to pump your own gas in New Jersey, it used to be the same in Oregon but they lifted their ban last year.
Ahh Oregon, that would explain it – thanks for the education. We still love touring the US and still have about half the states to explore. I still remember when eating out it was almost impossible to find vegetables served with your meal – at least that’s changed for the better now. They seem to have an obsession though with serving Brussel Sprouts (which suits me)!!!
@Man of Kent, Oregon has to be one of the most interesting states on many levels and one of my favourite states to road trip. From the beauty of the state and national parks, to beer, wine and geology. Add the beaches, the high desert, waterfalls and so many other things. And I forgot Portland!
I’m amazed you’ve seen a sprout 🙂 “Vegetables” in the USA still seem to be just broccoli and asparagus, especially if your dinner is steak or salmon.
I assume you will need a GPS of some sort. What’s the plan for that?
Same as any country – cheap esim and pack the mount from your car.
We use TomTom on iPhone which is only £19.99 per year. It is standalone once downloaded (no data connection required except for traffic info) and you can download additional destination-specific maps for free and delete once the trip is complete.
Some O2 sim packages include USA roaming within data allowance, else it is £6 per day if you sign up to O2 travel. Only one of you needs connectivity, or an e-sim, and the other can tether to that phone.
The scenery round Lake Powell and the north rim route towards Vegas is epic but we found Page to be the least desirable place we have seen in the states.
I still find gas stations in the US quite scarily intermittent in terms of whether it’s possible to use them without a US card.
Certainly on a long trip in a sparse place – for example when crossing Arizona – I would stop a long time before I *needed* gas.
Yes, chip and PIN does mostly work, but it doesn’t always. I encountered – last summer – fully automated stations where no cash was accepted and only US cards would work.
There’s also the whole “inserting ones UK card produces a whole tree of menus asking ‘credit/debit?’ then ‘checking/savings/etc’ when trying to pay” thing. I think with all my UK debit cards (curve/Wise/Revolut) that “credit” is always the answer – at which point some gas stations will increase the price. This is worth getting your head around before you are low on gas in the middle of the night at a distant spot.
I felt a bit safer with a $25 US pre-paid card from Wal-Mart in my wallet; this was always accepted and $25 is a lot of gas over there. Other denominations available etc.
Regarding SIMs – I’ve had really good results with the Revolut one recently and if you set it up before you go, it’s a useful backstop in that even if you have no credit/package on it, it will let you load the Revolut app and purchase a package in the absence of wifi or roaming on your main SIM. Airhub was also suggested as a cheaper option for eSIM on a recent thread in the daily section of this forum.
My quite expensive/fancy unlimited-data EE plan has “roam like home” in US/MX/EU which normally works well but was very glitchy (useless) on my last trip.
Regarding Vegas – without a car and on the strip you are going to pay a lot for food whether you eat out or use the retailers (mostly Walgreens/CVS) that are around. I got very annoyed with the fancy hotel my client booked that had no in-room cooking facilities or fridge; the Trump hotel, about 5 minutes walk away, had super-nice rooms for half the price with fridges and cooking facilities in them. Treasure Island still had free parking last summer – lots of interesting characters on the rooftop level at night.
I loved the Pinball Museum. The ladies who run it are somewhat reserved to start with but will melt if you are kind to the cats. It’s right next to the famous Vegas sign (just walk out the entrance and turn left).
I entered the Grand Canyon via the East entrance and stopped at a couple of the Indian-reservation-run observation points to the east of the national park proper. Like many Indian Reservation things they are sad/shabby, worth seeing all the same, and the other visitors were fun to talk to in those slightly out-of-the-way places. I generally think that stopping at ANY interesting-looking out-of-the-way thing while driving in the US is often highly rewarding.
My daughter was at Uni/College in the US, so we have done lots of road trips over the years. If you have time when driving from Vegas to the Grand Canyon take Route 66 from Kingman to Seligman – the Oatman Highway is spectacular but not for the faint hearted, with hairpins and no guard rails in places. We last drove along there two years ago and had another great stay at the Route 66 Motel in Seligman.
We did this road trip in our 20s and often recall the $20 “Bates” motel we stayed in for one night outside Vegas – the swimming pool was empty and the bedroom door fastened with a bit of metal wire but it was all we could afford after splurging on the newly-opened Luxor 😂
“I loved the Pinball Museum. The ladies who run it are somewhat reserved to start with but will melt if you are kind to the cats. It’s right next to the famous Vegas sign (just walk out the entrance and turn left).“
I’ve loved the pinball museum for many years now, having been to both its previous locations along Tropicana. Tim the main guy also has a tough exterior (don’t catch him when he’s struggling to fix a particularly naughty machine) but get through that and he’s great. The new much larger premises are even better – and unless you’re terrible, a roll of quarters can last a long time; so not everything in Vegas is overpriced! It’s pretty much the only thing now I would NEVER miss on a Vegas visit.
I assume you will need a GPS of some sort. What’s the plan for that?
Same as any country – cheap esim and pack the mount from your car.
We use TomTom on iPhone which is only £19.99 per year. It is standalone once downloaded (no data connection required except for traffic info) and you can download additional destination-specific maps for free and delete once the trip is complete.
What’s the benefit of this over all the mature free alternatives? And over just having data while you’re there which you will do anyway?
Re card types when paying, most of the time in every country I’ve been to in the last decade, they can’t tell what card type you’re using so you csn say both credit or debit if you want.
@Cin3 Dedicated sat nav/apps have one important function over google maps in that even if you have the map downloaded for offline use, google has trouble rerouting if you get lost or miss a junction and there’s no cell signal. It also struggles with walking directions with no cell signal. There’s a lot of places in the US where that applies.
Card types – The one notable retailer that I know of that makes a distinction is Costco. You won’t get anywhere with a Mastercard Credit but you will get some joy with a debit. And you can forget Amex there. https://customerservice.costco.com/app/answers/answer_view/a_id/719/~/what-payment-methods-are-accepted-at-costco%3F
Offline maps is a good point and it is certainly worth remembering to download them before you head out in to the middle of nowhere.
But… you can do this in Google Maps: https://support.google.com/maps/answer/6291838?hl=en&sjid=967946824364874793-EU
@Travel Strong, sorry, not sure what your point is (I can’t see a specific answer on that link) that’s what I meant by offline maps but it comfirms what I said “Tip: Transit, bicycling, or walking directions are unavailable offline. In your offline driving directions, you can’t get traffic info or alternate routes.”
In my experience re-routing fails offline as well.
Physical TT/Garmin etc or phone based versions can still have their place and you’ve got me wondering now whether I should lug the TT along on my next trip 🙂
Like I said there’s well-established free options that do it better and Google Maps offline reroutes car directions fine. TT has been a dying company for over a decade, I don’t see any need to give them charity.
We bought a Garmin from Best Buy a few years ago which has served us very well. It doesn’t have traffic updates but we just update the map software before each trip. It’s showing its age though now as it runs off the 12v socket which took me ages to find in our last rental.
Google Maps offline reroutes car directions fine.
In my experience it really doesn’t. Don’t get me wrong, I love google maps and use it almost exclusively but it’s got me into trouble on more than one occasion when using it offline. There’s plenty of places where you can’t get a GPS lock either and not all of them are due to jamming near military bases.
Thanks for all the ongoing destination advice.
With regards to Sat Nav, I have downloaded the relevant maps on Google Maps as a back-up but I am hopeful that the Nissan Maxima (or similar) Large Premium Sedan (Group G) I’ve booked should come with in-built Sat Nav as standard. But just in case I’ve also downloaded Sygic for my Android phone.
Thanks for all the ongoing destination advice.
With regards to Sat Nav, I have downloaded the relevant maps on Google Maps as a back-up but I am hopeful that the Nissan Maxima (or similar) Large Premium Sedan (Group G) I’ve booked should come with in-built Sat Nav as standard. But just in case I’ve also downloaded Sygic for my Android phone.
The built in features such as satnav will almost certainly be disabled unless you pay for the rental company’s sat nav option which will probably be a portable unit.
I had a car last year (Nissan I think) where they hadn’t even enabled the cruise control, was an optional extra from the manufacturer. There were buttons, but it said – option not enabled when you tried to use it. I was gobsmacked, CC is essential in the USA
For me, if you are nervous (for which I was) bring more than one option. I’m happy to ‘waste’ some money for my own piece of mind. Mine was worth the £100 I paid for the US Garmin map (already had the sat nav), on top of my US esim, T mobile physical sim (separate phone company to max coverage) and google offline map.
On our last US road trip in December ’22, we found the car sat nav to be uselessly slow so gave up on it and just used our phone data via Airalo – the mapping app was much better and faster, despite the posh British accent sounding deeply incongruous in south Florida!
It’s useful to keep a cable in the car with you in case you want to connect your phone to the display which is generally bigger than a phone screen!
In Australia last year when I asked nicely if I could have a car with Sat Nav built in, the lovely staff at Perth couldn’t do it but loaned me (free) a hilariously antiquated Garmin unit to stick to the dash. It was a very clunky interface and crude pictures but worked fine. The user experience was like being in a flashback to 2004!
Very odd, whenever I rent cars through Hertz in Europe they have almost always had Sat Nav, Cruise Control and the annoying lane assist enabled.
Very odd, whenever I rent cars through Hertz in Europe they have almost always had Sat Nav, Cruise Control and the annoying lane assist enabled.
Indeed, can’t guarantee it but have had it happen before. Even had activated Sirius at my disposal before.
Hi @Supergers49 – if you’ve been and come back, I’d appreciate any feedback or thoughts. We’re going to do a very similar itinerary to yours in January.
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