Stonekeeper road trip

Hi all

I am planning a road trip from Chicago to Las Vegas via Memphis then back to Chicago.

And will pass through your State.

From my research so far i believe it to be around 5000 miles the whole trip.

Am i optimistic to expect to do it in a fortnight?

Has anyone any views on the best motel chain to stop at each night or do they vary from state to state?

Any advice on places NOT to stay in would be appreciated.

Stonekeeper road trip

I get 536 miles chic to memp and 1590 from mem to lv, nv. so about 4,252 plus whatever side trips and however much town around down driving, 5,000 it could be. I drove from central arkansas to norther california, back via salt lake city in that time. we had plenty of stops around monterey, ca san fran, ca the redwood forest, grand canyon and flagstaff, albuquerque tram and etc. don%26#39;t see why it wouldn%26#39;t be possible. That was 4,132 miles from city to city, not including driving around san fran and etc. it does make for some long days tho. did most of the driving myself since friend was sleepy with pregnancy. there was one or two night when we didn%26#39;t stop til 9pm or so at hotel. otherwise, it was fine.

As for the hotel chains, not sure what criteria you%26#39;re looking for when saying ';best motel chain';. also, depends on what you%26#39;re wanting to spend. the larger the city could mean a higher price, unless their competition keeps pricing down. we actually stayed at a lot of motel 6%26#39;s along the way. this was a good 11 years ago, so I can%26#39;t really give you a lot of current prices. motel 6 is pretty economical. the rooms were basic but clean. the only not so nice motel 6 i ever stayed in was in W. Memphis. Don%26#39;t particularly recommend there unless have updated the rooms. carpets and etc. let us know more about what you%26#39;re looking for hotel wise and maybe someone can chime in with more info. see you%26#39;re from UK, do you need some names of us hotel chains? or, have you been in U.S. for awhile?

Stonekeeper road trip

Hi again

Thanks for all the input from all the states that have so far. Still some notable exceptions (maybe them are the ones to drive through as quickly as possible:~) )

The respondees so far seem to be getting an idea of what we intend. It is obvious that the initial trip may be significantly different than the trip we complete.

At the moment it still seems to be ;

land Chicago (looking for direct flights from Manchester possibly Glasgow)

pick up car and go to a motel reasonably quickly heading for Memphis. (Tet%26#39;s advice on not too much travel after flight noted).

We will then head for Memphis

We have now decided to use the sat nav to head for suggestions made on here E.g Rockies,grand canyon etc. Again Tets recommended trip is also printed out and ready for implementation.

Depending on how far west we have got by day 8 we will head north slightly to change interstate to start heading back to Chicago.

I believe i have to take into consideration the time zones, going west to east in USA will i not lose a couple of hours on the return trip.

If fuel is around $2.50 - $3.00 @ 30 mpg i am looking at $400.

Anyone any suggestions to the best car to hire?

Accomodation basic but clean is what we are looking for on the overnight stops. A bed a shower and somewhere near for breakfast.

Never been to the USA before, we plan to come in September.

yes, going west you will gain an hour just before leaving Texas and another crossing into Nevada. so, you will lose 2 hrs coming back to Chicago.

Looked at a couple of your post answers in other states. some suggested dropping off car and flying back. In arranging my Alaska trip for later this month, I found that some car agencies charge a hefty price for one way drop offs. you can do a search for car prices from several top rental agencies on this site: travelocity.com. i did a quick search for September for a couple of weeks and enterprise was the cheapest by $110.00 per week. Followed by alamo, national and thrifty in ascending price cost. So long as you%26#39;re not interested in a sports car, generally the smaller the car the better the mileage. I%26#39;m travelling with one other person, we decided we would be comfortable with a compact to save on $$$ for car and for better gas mileage. Understandably, everything%26#39;s more expensive up in Alaska. One website you can check for gas prices in different states/cities is: gasbuddy.com. Right now in central Arkansas we are at $2.64 per gallon. It got up to around $3.22 about a month or two ago, and has been decreasing in price since then. Probably won%26#39;t go down much further tho. We could only hope.

not sure what activities you are interested in doing. Our state Motto was changed from the Land of Opportunity to the Natural State quite a few years back. The reason for that is that many of this states acitivites are outdoors. In Arkansas there are a couple of very nice hiking trail areas near Russellville. They are Mt. Nebo and Mt. Magazine.

Our largest city is also the state Capitol - Little Rock. The capitol building is one of just a couple in the country that looks like our nations capitol in D.C. The President Clinton Library is here. Many people seem to like going there. If you stop in Little Rock, a great place to eat is at Izzie%26#39;s. Very good food (awesome tamales and cheese dip, large variety of food on menu), great quick service and very friendly staff.

I believe that hotels differ more depending on what part of a city (especially larger cities) that you are in, than they do going from state to state. Several cities I have been in, I have found that the Industrial section of town is not the best part of town to stay in. Once you firm up your plans a little more, I would suggest that you go to the hotel sections for the cities you are staying in to see what others are saying about the hotels in different areas of that town. Larger cities tend to have a higher crime rate than smaller ones. So i would be especially careful in picking hotels for those nights. One good thing is, after Labor Day Sept. 3, prices will go down at many hotels/motels. Motel 6, Super 8, Ramada Inn, Comfort Inn, Days Inn and Quality Inn%26#39;s will run cheaper than Holiday Inn and Courtyard by Marriott%26#39;s will. La Quinta Inn%26#39;s are somewhere in between. School starts back up in a couple of weeks for most states, so it shouldn%26#39;t be as hard to get hotel rooms. I think you can still get a free booklet in the lobby of most hotels with a listing of state by state hotels with a map for directions to the hotel in each city. It should list the prices and a phone number for the hotel. you might think about picking some of those up at beginning of your trip.

Grand Canyon is very awesome. Zion natnl park, bryce canyon and arches national park are on your way back to chicago. they look pretty cool on travel shows i%26#39;ve seen. There is a tram in Albuquerque, NM that we took. Very fun and great views of city from top.

hope this helps some. any more ?%26#39;s feel free to let me know. will see if I can help.

Happy Trails

forgot to mention that the car rental prices i looked up are from O%26#39;hare airport location in Chicago. One tip I got over in Alaska forum was not to rent a car at an airport because it will cost more due to airport tax and recoupment charge. However, I got a rental with alamo for Alaska that was cheaper even with extra charges than the downtown locations. So I found out, it%26#39;s not always cheaper. And it%26#39;s much more convenient to pick up car at airport than having to wait around for later hours that the downtown location opens up at.

Stonekeeper, I answered you on the Chicago forum but as I recently returned from a similiar trip I%26#39;ve continued to read your posts and the replies. You have mentioned using GPS to help you along the way. When we made our trip to California I carried a Garmin Street Pilot. I only used it twice. Once to find our hotel in Glendale, CA and the other to get out of Tulsa on the return. If you arm yourself with good road maps and also a book on Route 66 you won%26#39;t need the GPS. The states on your route will have welcome centers close to their borders. You can obtain good maps and advice at these places.

a fortnight is 2 weeks...you%26#39;ll have a sore butt from all that driving. and maybe not a lot of time to see much. but...as far as your leg through arkansas, take hiway 64 from west memphis to north little rock, and then back on 64 from conway on to fort smith for the scenic route. this parallels interstate 40 and is much more scenic and interesting..although not as quick. you%26#39;ll likely get from memphis through arkansas in less than a day, so won%26#39;t be staying the night here, that is if you plan on staying in memphis.

Hi again

The flight, car and first night motel are now booked .

the first day is obviously taken up with the flight to Chcago and getting to the first motel.

second day will be to get just outside of Memphis,ready for a day there on the third before heading off to Tupelo.

The rest of the trip is still open and will depend on what we see and what holds our interest on the journey.

I have managed to purchase sat nav maps for my pda for all of North America (my thanks to terry on ebay in canada for the quickest transatlantic package i have ever known) and the best price on the web. (I now have all europe and all North usa including Canada street maps in one machine amazing technology)

See ya%26#39;ll in September

Stonekeeper

Well, we are now back.

Trip Data:

Airline American Airlines

Car hire Alamo

Hotels see itinery.

Mileage covered: Odometer start 19091 finish 23529

Vehicle Chevrolet Malibu.

Average MPG according to computer in car 37.5 mpg.

Day 1 Manchester - Chicago, drive , Best western university, Traders circle Normal Illinois.

Day 2 Drove to memphis stopping at King Tuts for lunch, i would tell you where it was but for technical reasons that i will explain later i cannot.If you can find it i would well recommend. Hotel Scottish Inns near Graceland on Elvis Presley Boulevard.

Day 3 Stayed all day in the Graceland area and went to Beale Street in the evening. Absolute must for fans, too emotional for words. Ate at the Piccadilly on EPB. Stayed at Scottish Inns 2nd night.

Day 4 Headed West got as far as El Reno after many stops at Indian Trading posts hotel Mobil 8 again i did keep a record of all the eating and stopping places but more on that later.

Day 5 Drove as far as Grants i think NM.

Day 6 Grand Canyon by afternoon, South rim, awesome. Williams Hotel Best western Grants.

Day 7 Hoover dam after being wished a nice day by a policeman on the way up. Stayed Sahara Casino Hotel. After all the peace we have experienced so far Vegas is a bit busy.

Day 8 Green River Utah, Comfort inn The scenery is now indescribable.

Day 9 Fort Morgan stayed Days inn.

Day 10 Avoca Iowa Stayed Mobil 6

Between days 8 and 10 we visited Buffalo Bill memorial and John Wayne%26#39;s birthplace.

Day 11 Schiller Park Near Airport Mobil 6

Day 12 This was unexpected we decided to head to Lake Michigan stayed Kenosha on the lake in a Best Western (used to be Holiday inn.It was whilst at Kenosha on a trip out to Gurnee mills that my PDA/sat nav had a mystery illness it froze just before dark whilst i was inputting the days events into the diary.tried a soft reset,no response Unfortunately a reboot was required and guess who never backs anything up. Not only did the diary get obliterated on it%26#39;s reset to Jan 2005 but the sat nav programme was in the RAM.only the maps on the card. Luckily i was at Gurnee mills but because of my reliance on the machine i did not know where Gurnee Mills was in relation to the hotel,it was now dark and after a visit to the car park to see if i could get any form of bearings for a guess where i live drive, we nipped back in and bought a Tom Tom.Home in Half an hour.

Day 13 2nd night Kenosha, are you sure thats not the Ocean.

Day 14 Back to O%26#39;Hare for hte flight home.I had hoped to give details of every shop and eatery. We met some wonderful people, ate some very hard vegetables and had an absolute beano with camera 924 pictures now burned to cd and backed up twice.

I told you it would not be what everone considers a holiday. But it was brilliant.The driving was easy the truckers an inspiration and the views, mostly, spectacular.

Regards

Stonekeeper

Thanks for the trip report. Road trips can be so much fun sometimes and I%26#39;m glad you enjoyed your visit.