Anyone done a USA fly-drive? Advice please!

Penny_Dawson

I'm gonna be doing my first fly-drive later this year (from san-fransico to san deigo sticking close to the californian coast) and have just started getting quotes/prices in. Very excited...

Can any of you more frequent road-trippers give me any advice on a couple of questions buzzing around my head?

1) How do people know where to go / eat / what to do in the evenings?
2) Are the directions given to you any good? Will I need to buy a map?
3) Does anyone use sat-nav in the hire car? Would it be useful?
4) Do people manage to get clothes washed and dried during the holiday or do I need to take enough fresh clothes to last the 2 weeks?
5) Do the hotels usually serve/include breakfast?
6) Does anyone find it stressful?

Love to hear any feedback you guys could give me to settle my nerves, plus any other tips that'll save me some bucks!

M4RKM

Hi, and welcome to MSE!

i've not done a fly drive, but can probably answer some of your questions that you have... so here goes..

1) the ones where all the local goes... it sounds stupid, but if the place is full of locals, it must be a good place to go. They're there all the time, they know the food is good... other than that.. chains, boring as they are, but they're a safe bet anywhere in the world. and finally, research, check out restaurants online, opentable.com will let you reserve a table etc...

2/3) i would personally never rely on any directions given by anyone, but that is because I'm a man, and i always know where i'm going .
I have a sat nav, and i would use that. If you already have one, that is a major brand, consider purchasing the maps for the USA, these can be quite reasonable. The cost of hiring a sat nav in hire cars, would probably be more expensive than actually buying a cheap one when out in the states.

4) sorry.. can't help there..

5) most US hotels that i've stayed at are on a room only basis. if you're in a city/town, there are normally deli's, corner cafes, and mcdonalds (old faithful) that you can always grab a breakfast at for under $3. (coffee and bagel!)

6) holidays are not supposed to be stressful. I've never been stressed on any of mine, even when i thought i'd miss flights, because planes have been delayed. I've not got stressed when driving around the freeways, or getting lost in Boston, as i nearly did once... It is an experience, and if you think that you'll get stressed, you probably will. Don't, just enjoy it.. if you take a wrong turn, just say you're taking the scenic route!!!!

hopefully there are a few hints in there that will help! i'm sure more people will be around soon to help you with your holiday plans!

Tigsteroonie

Having done a few fly-drives around Arizona, Cal, Nevada & Utah, I'll try to answer your questions based on our experience:-

Penny_Dawson wrote: »

1) How do people know where to go / eat / what to do in the evenings? Looking on the web before we go; local recommendations from the hotel; spotting things along route. But we tend to tire ourselves out during the day, so we're only looking for food in the evening. And sometimes a shopping mall!

2) Are the directions given to you any good? Will I need to buy a map? You will get a map with the hire car, but probably only of the local area (e.g. south Cal). I would recommend getting a foldup map of the area (equivalent of our OS) before you go, Amazon have a few. I also signed up (under a dummy address) to the AAA website to use their Triptek route mapper, from which you can download PDF versions of routes for printing.

3) Does anyone use sat-nav in the hire car? Would it be useful? Not used it, mainly because we thought it was an expensive extra. But then, we don't use sat-nav in the UK either! Would only be useful (in my opinion) if you take the travel-update option for gridlocks.

4) Do people manage to get clothes washed and dried during the holiday or do I need to take enough fresh clothes to last the 2 weeks? It is possible to carry enough clothes for 2 weeks in the luggage allowance, but it depends on how much you want to dress up for evenings (we don't). Many chain hotels have laundry rooms; we holidayed for 4 weeks last year so I know US hotel laundry rooms intimately!

5) Do the hotels usually serve/include breakfast? Some do, some don't. If they do, it's quality and quantity can vary (anything from a single donut upto a full buffet). If they don't, there's generally a diner located conveniently close. I can recommend a Denny's Grand Slam, though other forum members don't rate these.

6) Does anyone find it stressful? My OH reckons that I make it stressful! I hope he's kidding. No, it's a breeze, he loves driving over there, and there are plenty of rest stops along the Interstates to give the driver a chance to sight-see as well. I think it's only stressful if you plan too long a route/too many hours of driving in a single day, you turn up at the hotel totally shattered.

torbrex

I have never done an organised fly-drive as such in America, I usually just pick up a car at the airport and off I go.
As to you questions
1 - Ask the hotel staff, best if you get there before the dayshift go off duty they are the ones that go out of an evening, otherwise just look for the busiest carparks at the restaurants, the yanks do not walk anywhere.

2 - I use the Rand McNally map book and you can always go to a visitor centre and pick up a free state map, you should also be offered one by the car hire people.

3 - as for sat-nav I dont think it would be worth it unless you know the exact address that you are going to.

4 - I got this tip years ago and it has stood me in good stead, take all your old clothes with you - wear them and throw them away, you then fill your case with new clothes before you come home, if you do need to some motels do have coin operated machines for laundry. My last trip I was getting low on clothes and went to Walmart and picked up packets of 6 each underpants, socks and tshirts totaling less than $14.

5 - Breakfast in motels depends on the chain you stay in, all of them offer coffee and about 75% will offer what they call 'continental' breakfast which consists of a combination of doghnuts, fruit, beagals, flakes, waffles, toast, juice and pastries in varying degrees of supply. The chain 'Motel 8' is reasonably priced and offers the full list whereas 'Motel 6' offers only coffee but is slightly cheaper.
I love going to Denny's for breakfast it is good value for money with reasonable fare.

6 - cant answer this one, I do not know what the word means.

hammy_the_hammer

a good sat nav (i've a tomtom 910 bought with the US , Canada and Europe in mind) takes a load of stress out of the driving .
if you intend just to go from A to B each day and not deviate off route... or of course get lost!! you can get a route from the internet.
the beauty of my sat nav is like all others it gets me accurately from A to B. the real advantage though is the POI (points of information) ....want a cashpoint just use the tom tom ...favourite food chain to eat just hit the button...chain of hotels...local beach /shopping centre etc etc
sudden change of plan
i've done the basic map , the detailed map , the internet planner and of course my own sat nav
i wouldn't be without it

digbydog

Penny_Dawson wrote: »

I'm gonna be doing my first fly-drive later this year (from san-fransico to san deigo sticking close to the californian coast) and have just started getting quotes/prices in. Very excited...

Can any of you more frequent road-trippers give me any advice on a couple of questions buzzing around my head?

1) How do people know where to go / eat / what to do in the evenings?
2) Are the directions given to you any good? Will I need to buy a map?
3) Does anyone use sat-nav in the hire car? Would it be useful?
4) Do people manage to get clothes washed and dried during the holiday or do I need to take enough fresh clothes to last the 2 weeks?
5) Do the hotels usually serve/include breakfast?
6) Does anyone find it stressful?

Love to hear any feedback you guys could give me to settle my nerves, plus any other tips that'll save me some bucks!

I did a New Zealand/Australia road trip fro four weeks last year and am doing California/Arizona/Utah this year.

1) How do people know where to go / eat / what to do in the evenings?

Have a look at an excellent site called https://www.tripadvisor.com. Its got some great advice on what to see, where to say and the like. We never found eating a problem last year except that I got bored with constantly eating out by the end.

2) Are the directions given to you any good? Will I need to buy a map?

If there are two of you in the car then you need one or more maps. An overview for the general area to know where your heading and then a detailed map when your in built up areas. A tip I would recommend is to print off Google maps for places you intend to see. So if you a booking a hotel in advance print the local area and street names off from Google, it saved me a load of hassle.


3) Does anyone use sat-nav in the hire car? Would it be useful?

I use a TomTom910 in the UK and its excellent and as it comes with US maps I'll take it with me this year. Recently I got a SatNav with a hire car and I would have been better off with a compass.

4) Do people manage to get clothes washed and dried during the holiday or do I need to take enough fresh clothes to last the 2 weeks?

5) Do the hotels usually serve/include breakfast?

Varies. There is no shortage of fast food places in the US so I think you can save money by just popping into a Dunking Donuts for breakfast.

6) Does anyone find it stressful?

Its what you make it. I would be careful to not plan to try to do too much in a single day. I think you can get carried away and try to drive to far. In your planning allow time to stop on route so if you see something you can stop and enjoy it and not feel that you have to push on. Some days it is necessary to do the miles but if you have two days in a row of heavy driving then consider if your over doing it.

Final tip is to make sure you have travel insurance and consider getting full insurance for the hire car.



Have fun.

trets77

having only been back about a month from a 2000 miles driving holiday of California i'll offer some advice.

Try to go for the biggest car you can . there is a lot to be said for having lots of room for your luggage and keeping it out of sight when you park up. Personally i will only ever have a 4x4 or SUV when doing a fly drive. they are more common than normal sized cars in some places , so not trouble getting around or feeling out of place . you save money by upgrading when you get there.

we decided to that it would make sense to purchase a sat nav that included USA maps , because Car hire companys charge quite a bit for renting ( about $50 a week ). buying the Garmin Nuvi 270 for around £150 ( has preloaded USA maps ) means we only need 2 more fly drives and it has payed for itself ,and we have a sat nav at hometo boot .
http://www.audio66.com/product.asp?id=5701&cat=0&man=28&main=4&userid=&gclid=CLnbl7erzJMCFRsoEAod1QJ-jg

it also can help you find everything from restarants to car washes , ATM's to petrol. you can also find laundry services with it . we had our entire 2 weeks worth of dirty clothes washed and folded for around $1.25 per pound. it can be slow to load up when you get off the plane though.


but i would not be without it when off driving in USA. be aware that it is against the law to ,mount Sat navs to the windscreen in California though.

as for food , the one thing america is not short of is cheap place to eat.

have fun ....

jeanna_2

if you know where you are going to stop off then you could print off your directions from expedia or mapquest.we put in the start and finish addresses and never got lost.sometimes when you are tired at the end of a drive it's good to know exactly how to get to your hotel as in the usa even the towns you thought were small can be bigger than expected as they can be spread out.
http://www.expedia.co.uk/pub/agent.dll?qscr=over&rfrr=-26161
you can read online recomendations for hotels and restaurants. most hotels are room only but some do continental breakfast.