USA road trip summer 2015

My friend and I are planning a 2-3 week road trip across part of the USA and Canada next summer.

The rough plan at this stage is to fly to Boston and rent a car. From there we'll head west (possibly after a day or two of finding things to do in and around Boston, maybe visit New York) to Niagara falls. We'll continue heading west from there (and north to Toronto), visiting at least Chicago and Denver. We'll probably ditch the car in Denver and hop on a plane to San Francisco to spend the remainder of our time there where a friend of ours lives.
We might even skip the trip to Denver and find more things to do in the east before flying to San Francisco.

It's a very rough plan, I know. We don't want to be tied to any specific place at a specific date (for reservations at hotels/hostels/guesthouses/airbnb/whatever). We'd rather have the freedom to decide day to day where we want to go and what we want to see. This means finding a place to stay the night is something we'll have to take care of every day unless we're staying somewhere for a while. That might be a hassle. I don't know.


Anyone here got any suggestions for places to visit and things to do in and around the cities we'll be passing through?
What about accommodations? We don't need anything fancy, just a nice place to sleep (though we might stay a day or two at a hotel with a pool, if we're in the mood). What would be the cheapest option (excluding sleeping in the car (though we might, once or twice)) that's also safe and reasonably comfortable?

In Boston I don't think I would resist a Samual Adams brewery tour.

http://www.samueladams.com/brewery-and-craft/our-brewery

Epic brewery who are pretty much responsible for the craft beer revolution.

Always a motel to check into if stuck. I did a coast to coast a few years ago and we used the (at the time) new hotwire hotel service. Idea was you chose star rating and tough location but you couldn't choose the specific hotel. The result was a very cheap rate. Also, it was often easy to work out which it was as the description was often lifted straight off the hotel's own site. The result was super cheap deals.

Be aware that you car rental will not be cheap if you are not leaving it back where it started. If you have booked a premium or specific car you may have issues when you get to the airport pickup - ie they will be reluctant to give you a nice car.

As for route, that sounds pretty good. I did something similar and we took three weeks (but was not enough time). I would consider nit bothering with car for your new york boston stint and picking it up when you leave the east coast. Its useless for both cities and flights/train between the two is cheap. Both cities -obvs especially NYC warrant more than a day.

Other than that, the play it by ear game is good. Have a rough set if 'checkpoints' in mind, but other than that plan maybe two days in advance and just go with it.

Oh and do make sure you tip.

Finding a place to stay isn't too hard - every city has hostels and motels that are comparatively inexpensive and usually have room.

Boston, New York and Toronto are awesome cities, I'd agree with mrspax though that the car will be next to useless in New York especially. If you're flying into Boston, then going to New York, then Toronto remember that it's a good twelve hours on a train or 8/9 hours driving from NY to Toronto. or vice versa.

Denver is pretty far out of your way, it's almost exactly 1,000 miles away from Chicago, so expect a good amount of driving time.

Car rental is not too bad from my experience - most of the travellers I met had rented cars and airport pick ups arranged, some of them were very nice. As it is though, just make sure you get one that's a decent size. I met five poor bastards who were travelling the country in a car no bigger than a Renault Clio.

Thanks for the tips guys!

I've been checking out Airbnb and the prices and reviews of the places I've been randomly checking out make it look very appealing.

Limiting the road trip to a smaller part of the USA than we'd originally intended sounds like the smart thing to do. I guess we'll keep pretty close to the east coast until our flight to San Francisco.

OldSoulCyborg wrote:Thanks for the tips guys!

I've been checking out Airbnb and the prices and reviews of the places I've been randomly checking out make it look very appealing.

Limiting the road trip to a smaller part of the USA than we'd originally intended sounds like the smart thing to do. I guess we'll keep pretty close to the east coast until our flight to San Francisco.

Denver to SF can be done in a (long) day. Debver is quite good, but I wouldn't do it at the expense of NYC or DC. Id scrap Denver and go to DC instead. You could conceivably ditch the car altogether and save a packet. Don't miss SF tho. It's wonderful.