USA without a car

jackieblack

koalakoala wrote: »

Jackie quite a lot of roads in USA are actually like this !

Some are. Depends where you are and which roads you choose.

I have personally driven well over ten thousand miles in 26 different states (so far... still 24 more to go!) and, in my experience, the overwhelming majority of those roads have been nothing like that!

I have only encountered really truly horrendous traffic in LA (the northern part of I405 IIRC), Atlanta and New Jersey. Driving through a terrible storm (which turned out to be the outer edge of a tornado) in Pennsylvania wasn’t much fun and I do recall a stressful drive during torrential rain one night on the I4 in Florida, but everywhere else has honestly been fine. (And I’m not a particularly adventurous driver - I’ll take a longer route to avoid driving on the M25, for instance.)

There have been many trips where I’ve driven for hours and only occasionally seen any other cars at all - parts of Arizona, Nevada, South Dakota, Wyoming, Washington, Oregon and Maine are the first few that spring to mind...

John259

Nearly all roads between cities in the USA and Canada have very low traffic levels.

Some freeways in some big cities have a lot of lanes, a lot of exits and entrances, and a lot of traffic.

There's a large number of videos on YouTube which show what driving in the USA is really like.

If you can drive in Britain, you can drive in the USA and most of time it will be far less stressful. Roads are wider, there are hardly any vehicles parked on roads, and there are far fewer roundabouts.

Driving is effectively the only way to visit most of the wonderful national parks in the USA. Having a car also allows you to stay in smaller towns, most of which have motels.

For public transport to Yosemite National Park, it might be worth considering the YARTS bus service. https://yarts.com

For transport options between any two places on Earth, it's worth seeing what this web site suggests: http://www.rome2rio.com

Hope this helps a bit.

AubreyMac

Thanks all.


I'm not the best driver here in the uk anyway over the years my driving anxiety has gotten worse (at times I feel like giving up all together but also determined not to). I'm not good with unfamiliar roads and have never tried driving on the opposite side before (to me that seems confusing).


I do understand uk roads are bad though as they are old and squiggly. whereas roads in usa are really straight and parallel.


So for now I want to stick to cities and places that have public transport. New Orleans sounds really good.

[Deleted User]

We did a 2.5 week holiday in USA in September. We didn't want to bother with car hire as we find it more relaxing if we don't have to drive.

We flew into Washington, spent 4 days there then took the Amtrak to Philadelphia, then to New York then to Boston. In Boston we took a ferry to Provincetown in Cape Cod then flew home from Boston.

We didn't even use a single taxi the whole time we were there. We did book a transfer for when we arrived in Washington as it was the early hours of the morning and we had flown into Baltimore as it was cheaper. Other than that we used the subway or walked. We had a 72 hour Hop on Hop off ticket in Washington which got us most places we wanted to go and we walked over 150 miles during the holiday!

All our hotels were near enough to the Amtrak stations/ferry that we could walk to and from them (we travelled light luggage-wise). We found the Amtrak excellent - really straightforward to use, on time, comfortable etc (I had booked our tickets in advance online).


It was an amazing holiday.

tocsin

AubreyMac wrote: »

...
So for now I want to stick to cities and places that have public transport. New Orleans sounds really good.

Mrs T and I are going to New Orlins (I'm told that's how they pronounce it!) at the end of January. I'll try to update this thread on how we got on. We've hired cars in Arizona and New York state, but deliberately chose not to for this trip.

Happy travels!

koalakoala

tocsin wrote: »

Mrs T and I are going to New Orlins (I'm told that's how they pronounce it!) at the end of January. I'll try to update this thread on how we got on. We've hired cars in Arizona and New York state, but deliberately chose not to for this trip.

Happy travels!

You'll get on fine without a car in NOLA,it isn't at all necessary there

Flamed

As other have mentioned:

Washington DC & Chicago are two cities that have a decent transit system.

Believe it or not LA (although still not great for the size of the city it is) is not that bad. Seattle has spent a lot of money on its light rail system and bus network too.

A lot of cities are starting to invest in their transit systems now, so it is getting better and they are starting to catch up with the likes of NYC.

starrybee

I was in LA last year and thought the metro system was very good (and very cheap!), the only touristy place it doesn't go to at the moment is the Beverley Hills area but there are buses you can get instead.

Some of the stations are a little less desirable, the busier ones towards Hollywood are okay but there were dodgy folks hanging around the stations you have to change at on the blue/green line. They're okay for getting around in the day but don't know if I would use them at night unless in a group. I was staying on the outskirts but if you stayed in a hotel near the red line you could probably avoid them altogether unless you wanted to go to Long Beach in the evening.

sarah69696pink

Vegas and Miami both fine with without cars too.