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Planning a Cross Country Road Trip

1. Narrow Down the Location

Let me tell you, planning this was not easy. Fitting your 'once in a lifetime' bucket list trip into 10 days is almost impossible. Now imagine doing this as a college student with no steady income. With that being said, I needed to make a lot of hard decisions about where I wanted to visit to fit in my budget and time.

The first decision I made towards this trip is what I wanted to see- do I want to see all the main cities? Do I want to be in warm places? What do I want to see?

After looking at every option, and I mean literally every other option, I decided on visiting as many national parks that I could. My first plan was to hit Wyoming, Colorado, Montana, Oregon, Utah, and California. I wanted to see all of these places, plus I booked a hotel in Seattle with no means to get there, like what? Needless to say, my plan was as scattered as my brain, and I quickly made some changes.

I first took some places off my list, the first being California. I've always wanted to go to California, especially Yosemite, but I couldn't make the drive from Syracuse, NY to San Francisco, CA and back. Even worse than the drive would be the rental costs for a car. I would either have to drive a car to Syracuse and back in two weeks while paying for a rental and gas or drive the rental car to California and fly back with extra costs for being under 25 and leaving it at a different location. I took the further places off of my list, and chose to take my own car. My planned out trip was to head to Montana and back, while taking my time along the way to enjoy my 10 days, rather than just driving everywhere for 10 days.

​2. Plan the essentials first

There is nothing worse than planning everything and realizing that certain aspects of your trip doesn't work. For me, I booked hotels across the country before looking at pricing of rental cars and national park availability. After refunding much of the trip I had booked and narrowed down the places I wanted to visit, the next part was making sure the places I wanted to go were open.

​Although this first part seems obvious, make sure you know how you are getting there first! Rental cars range from $1,000+ a week, and dropping the car off in a new location is even more expensive. Flying would be around the same price, but it would ruin much of the experience. I landed on using my own car, but cutting down the distance. I say to plan this first because I had booked a hotel in Seattle with no means to get there.

​After finding transportation, I looked at which parks were open. The main national parks I chose were Grand Teton, Yellowstone, and Glacier National Park. Each of these had their own park fee which was more than $30 a day. I settled on getting a National Park Pass which was $80 and available to all US National Parks within the next year. The next problem I had was many of them also had maximum occupancy and didn't allow more than a certain number of people to travel inside of them due to COVID policies. A way around this is to book campgrounds or activities within the park, giving you automatic entrance.

​4. Booking hotels

The next problem I ran into was the price of places to stay. All the campgrounds sold out for national parks and AirBnb was expensive with the taxes and cleaning fees. I found a website called www.hipcamp.com, which is all available camp grounds and lodging in the selected place. I found many places right outside of each national park that were less than $30 a night and had showers and toilets.

​As much as I wanted to sleep in my car or take a van, the safest option is to find a reputable place to book. I mostly used Hip Camp for places around national parks, but I booked a few AirBnbs in big cities I am stopping by like Chicago. I wanted to keep my budget low and I split this with my travel partner. Here is what we spent:

​On the Way Back:​

  • (AirBnb) Found Hotel Chicago River North: $122 for 1 night​​
  • (Hipcamp) Uncle B's Farm in BK Produce Farm, SD: $29 for 1 night
    • An adorable site with farm animals and outdoor movies​ and nice showers
  • (Hipcamp) Custer's Last Chance RVPark & Camp: $37 for 1 night​​
  • (Hipcamp) Base of Grand Teton Range - Idaho: $100 for 2 nights​​
    • A campground right next the the Angies​
  • (Air Bnb) Wander Camp in West Yellowstone: $182 for 1 night
    • We couldn't resist with this one. Although it was way over our budget, we didn't stand a chance for clamping, yurts, pretty lights, and warm showers.​
  • (Air Bnb) The Pines Yurt Tent: $71 for 1 night​
    • 15 minutes from Glacier National Park but not showers.
  • (Air Bnb) Mooseshroom​ Tent Spots: $86 for 1 night
    • This is right next to Glacier, we have to set up our own tents but they have nice showers.​

Total: $627 *around $300 for each of us

On the Way Back:

We didn't plan any hotels for the way back. There's a website called hoteltonight.com which looks at the cheapest available hotels in the area. We will be using that on the way back as we will not be stopping as much.

5. Packing

Below are the basic lists I made for packing. We had a small SUV but a lot of dietary needs, exponentially changing weather, and a little amount of money.

As for groceries, I am a vegan, but produce goes bad fast. Most of the snacks I brought for myself and my non vegan friend included the following:

  • Bread
  • Hard boiled eggs
  • Bagels
  • Peanut butter
  • jelly
  • Bananas
  • Bars
  • Hummus
  • Crackers
  • Avocados
  • Olive oil, salt, pepper and cooking spray
  • Carrots
  • Chips
  • Wraps
  • Lettuce
  • Fruit
  • Chickpeas
  • Hot sauce!!
  • Canned corn, beans, taco mix
  • Pasta salad
  • Salad kits
  • Trash bags
  • Utensils and plates
  • Trail mix
  • Coffee
  • 5 hour energy

As for packing, the weather in the national parks ranges from 80 degrees to snow on the ground. Needless to say, I virtually prepared for every weather condition:

  • Layers
    • Long sleeves, leggings, sweat pants, light jackets, a heavy jacket, tee shirts, shorts​
  • Hiking gear
    • Back pack, first aid gear, camping gear, bear spray, micro spikes, water purifier, water bottles​
  • Nice clothes for the city​​
  • Tooth paste
  • Dry shampoo
  • Soap and shampoo
  • Advil
  • Sunscreen

This is the basic run down of my trip, I have not yet begun it and will leave in 2 weeks. As always DM for any specific questions!