America - Where have you been and what do you think?

i live 130 miles southwest of denver , for those that might not know , colorado is the 5th biggest state
Texas is the 2nd biggest ( i think ) or it might be Calf . but one thing is for sure when you visit the west you better like driving haha
 
grumpyoldman said:
i get tickled when i read about people from Europe that plan to drive and visit New York , New Orleans and Los Angeles in a week . they find out real quick just how big the U.S is !!!
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You're dead right there. The USA is vast, and Europeans don't get it. Same as South America - vast.
I did a little investigation, just out of curiosity. I think SandwichShortOfAPicnic mentioned that she lives in Bristol, in the west of England.
  • Bristol to Seville: 986 miles. Bristol to Palermo, Sicily: 1,200 miles. Bristol to Istanbul: 1,650 miles. Bristol to Moscow: 1,650 miles. Bristol to the North Pole: 2663 miles. (NOT recommended on a motor bike!!)
  • Land's End to John O'Groats (longest distance in the UK) : 836 miles.
  • New York to Chicago: 790 miles. New York to New Orleans: 1,300 miles. New York to Austin, Texas: 1,750 miles. New York to Colorado: 1,840 miles. New York to Los Angeles: 2,800 miles. New York to Seattle: 2, 851 miles.
  • And just for fun, from one end of Venezuela to the other (Maracaibo to Guiria): 1,350 miles.
All I'm saying is: don't just settle for one trip.Make two or three!
 
Only experience in the states is Hawaii and we loved it. 5 day stopover from Vancouver.
I know size is relative so I planned our uk trip.lands end to john o groats over 7 weeks. I'd allow 6 months for the US.

Russ
 
i used to joke with my kids that when they started having kids i was going to move to the Yukon so i wouldn't have to baby sit ...but when i got to Colorado i said .....thats far enough haha

the U.S is a great country to live in but its a bear to drive from side to side or north to south !!
 
karadekoolaid said:
You're dead right there. The USA is vast, and Europeans don't get it. Same as South America - vast.
I did a little investigation, just out of curiosity. I think SandwichShortOfAPicnic mentioned that she lives in Bristol, in the west of England.
  • Bristol to Seville: 986 miles. Bristol to Palermo, Sicily: 1,200 miles. Bristol to Istanbul: 1,650 miles. Bristol to Moscow: 1,650 miles. Bristol to the North Pole: 2663 miles. (NOT recommended on a motor bike!!)
  • Land's End to John O'Groats (longest distance in the UK) : 836 miles.
  • New York to Chicago: 790 miles. New York to New Orleans: 1,300 miles. New York to Austin, Texas: 1,750 miles. New York to Colorado: 1,840 miles. New York to Los Angeles: 2,800 miles. New York to Seattle: 2, 851 miles.
  • And just for fun, from one end of Venezuela to the other (Maracaibo to Guiria): 1,350 miles.
All I'm saying is: don't just settle for one trip.Make two or three!
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This answer isn’t specifically aimed at you, I clicked reply on your post and got quite carried away!

It’s best not to assume the level of experience someone has overlanding.
I have completed some rather long distance trips.

A four thousand plus mile coast to coast plus some zigzagging in America is doable if you have the time, aptitude and desire. Oh and funds, funds is always a biggy.

My bike trip across India and Nepal through the Himalayas into Tibet to Mount Everest was so hard and so long I don’t even know how many miles that was.

I’d love to go to India and spend some time there I literally rode through the mad place eating up as many miles as possible to get to Nepal.

For that particular jolly I had plenty of expedition training from an ex-army officer before I left.
I can find my bearings using topography and no signage or significant landmarks so I assure anyone that’s concerned I don’t get it or know how big America is 🙄 I understand how a scale on map works 🤪

Do I expect to ‘do America’ in one trip? Of course not, that’s absurd. I’m considering leaving the bike to come home and maybe do a bit more riding later but even then I still only expect to see a tiny portion.
There are too many other interesting countries whispering my name to spend forever exploring America.

As for the numpties who think they can see America in a couple of weeks or Europe in 10 days well that’s on them, so long as they had a taste, enjoyed themselves and came home better educated that people are human wherever you are then in my book it’s time well spent.

ps one of my good friends did ride her motorbike to the South Pole, 53 countries and all 7 continents, the first person ever to do so. She gets asked ALL the time how she did it, she gives the same answer everytime, it’s simple just decide to do it and go, don’t listen to anyone who says you can’t.
 
If I had to send someone to one single place in the US, it’d be the Boundary Waters in Minnesota, but it’s a highly-restrictive area and they may not even allow motorcycles there, and the internet isn’t helping me much on that.

Up the Maine coast around Acadia NP would be nice, and riding from the northern side of Lake Champlain (NY/Vermont) down across the Adirondacks would be very nice - mountains, solitude, and little mountain hamlets sort of stuck in time.

Cities are fine, and they have their own beauty, I think - you just have to take the good with the bad. Philadelphia has some really lovely parts to it…but also a good bit you’d want to stay well away from.

You may wish to pick some major points of interest and then maybe folks who live between those areas can help you connect the dots with some attractive backroad routes.
 
SandwichShortOfAPicnic said:
A four thousand plus mile coast to coast plus some zigzagging in America is doable if you have the time, aptitude and desire.
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Yep - my brother (the notorious Lee) has done more than one 2,500-mile-round-trip jaunt on one of his bikes. Even now at 67 and some health issues, he wouldn’t think twice about a thousand miles there and back on a bike - he rides a Morphous scooter down from Michigan to see family, and that’s over 300 miles each way. That’s just a short trip for him. :laugh:
 
SandwichShortOfAPicnic said:
This answer isn’t specifically aimed at you, I clicked reply on your post and got quite carried away
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Not at all! That's great that you've done some really long distance motoring. Wish I had!
I might have "assumed" you'd only travelled in Europe, so that was the reason for my post.
 
So yep looks like Cuba’s literally off the table 😂

IMG_1475.jpeg

Ordering a Perspex sheet to go on top so I can go to town with my dry wipe markers 😁
Thinking about getting some little figures on motorbikes and one of those stick things military people use to push toy soldiers around on maps 😂
 
SandwichShortOfAPicnic is there a time limit? Budget? And mostly, is there a specific goal in mind? Say, historical, scenic, etc.
One of the reasons DH & I moved away from Hawaii to the Continental United States was to be able to travel by car and not fly when possible.
I wish there was a way that I could show you a map of all the places we've been (that's going to be a goal for me!) over the course of our marriage. I've kept a journal up until a few years ago, but I have other means of tracking our journeys.
And I like your idea of leaving the bike and coming back for a part 2, 3, 4 ...
 
about all i will add is this :IF you have the time , and IF you have the money and IF your healthy enough and IF you have a lot of street savy......come on U.S is a great place to visit and we welcome you
 
kaneohegirlinaz said:
SandwichShortOfAPicnic is there a time limit? Budget? And mostly, is there a specific goal in mind? Say, historical, scenic, etc.
One of the reasons DH & I moved away from Hawaii to the Continental United States was to be able to travel by car and not fly when possible.
I wish there was a way that I could show you a map of all the places we've been (that's going to be a goal for me!) over the course of our marriage. I've kept a journal up until a few years ago, but I have other means of tracking our journeys.
And I like your idea of leaving the bike and coming back for a part 2, 3, 4 ...
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I wish you could show me a map of where you‘ve been too!

The initial visit will likely be two months, although how long we can be away for is never guaranteed and it is possible Mr SSOAP will fly back at some point and I’ll be solo for some of it but I enjoy that sort of thing so all good.
Perhaps two months a break and another two months, then see but it’s flexible, dependant on how the visa system works (which I’m not familiar with) and of course how things are back home.

Mr SSOAP has always had a desire to do route 66, blame the Rolling Stones cover version and all the Americana we devoured growing up while Blighty was still churning out dull educational children’s programmes using marionettes, papier-mache and double sided sticky tape 😂

So a bit of Route 66 is definitely in the mix and theres a list of names that Mr SSOAP has bandied about that seem to mostly come from films that were influential when we were kids (eg superman and the Hoover Dam 😆) but none of that is set in stone, at this point I don‘t even know where most of the places are - cue the huge map 😂
Personally I like historic and scenic.

Usually when I visit a country I prefer to cross it top to bottom or side to side deviating to see things that I find interesting. I often use the coasts or a land borders as a start and stop point.
I suspect if I’m going to accommodate the things Mr SSOAP would like to see then it will involve zigzagging all over the shop!

The budget is not yet set, that will become clearer as a picture emerges of the distances between the places we would like to visit and the time involved in travelling to them.

I looked up the National Park Pass, brilliant, thank-you for that, we will be getting one, that is definitely on the list!
 
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SandwichShortOfAPicnic as I have no idea what your ages are, us, well, let's just say we collect Social Security :D we have all the time in the world to just meander.

As the World has changed so much and violence is running rampant, in particular in the large Cities, as I made mention earlier, DH & I stay away from the majority of them, with a few exceptions.

We've done not only the parts of the original Route 66, but also the "new" aka I-40.
FUN FUN FUN!!!

As I recall, there's a travel guide of Road Side Oddities that I would encourage you to research as well.
I would suggest that you "follow the 70 degree weather" especially on bikes.

Do you plan on any "wild camping"? You can use your NPS pass for some of that as well.
Us, we aren't campers (I would have liked to have gotten an RV way back when, but...) we try to stick with one, maybe 2 hotel chains and earn reward points for free nights.
Our personal favorites are Best Western Motor Court type hotels and then Hampton.
BW (not the plus or premier) for the nice, firmer mattresses-no frills kinda place and also we can back right up to our motel room door, unload and reload with ease (ask for a first floor room).
Next is Hampton by Marriott. These are bit of a step up, nice room, great lobby area to hang out in, but for us, the mattresses are a bit too soft and we have a soar back the next morning. Yea, but the free hot breakfast is usually better at the Hamptons :okay::laugh:.

As you say, going from North to South along a coast and then East to West and back again across a country is what we've done, numerous times.
The USA has some very interesting history and gorgeous scenic byways, just depends on what you want to do. One of our most memorable road trips was our "Great Western Adventure" and "Florida Here We Come" both trips were over 6000 miles round trip, taking us about 30 days-give or take. Oh, did I say that we name our trips now to remember, "Oh yea, that's when we ..."

Can I also say, I (we) just LOVE to plan our road trips!
I wish I could sit down with you guys and point at this and that, no don't bother with that, this place has some of the best seafood, go to this diner over there, etc.
To me, that's part of the trip too.
 
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