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Fun Diego Family has been on multiple road trips across the United States. This is a wonderful way to see the country. We thought we would share several different routes from trips driving across the United States.

Overview

Of course, living in San Diego we generally start in the West and head East. Usually we go out one route and come back another. In other words, we complete a big circle.
This guide will eventually feature several cross-country trips including:

1) A recent 2019 trip I took with my son.
2) Our 2016 trip where we stopped in multiple National Parks for the celebration of the 100th anniversary of the National Park system

3) Our 2008 trip when our kids were ages 2 and 3
4) Our 2003 trip where we spent a good deal of time driving on secondary roads

The goal of our guide to driving across the United States is to provide inspiration for others to follow. Many people we talk to think the idea of that much driving sounds awful. The reality is that any route you take has plenty of things to see and do.

Travel Guides

Some books (or websites) we suggest for the trip include:

Roadfood
Hamburger America

Hotels

When driving across country it can be hard to plan ahead where exactly to stay. These trips can be fairly spur of the moment and we like to keep our agenda open.
We have found that it a little research can save you a great deal of money on last minute hotel deals. You should definitely register for key hotel programs at the major chains.

These include:

• Choice Hotels (Comfort Inn, Comfort Suites, Quality Inns and more)
• Marriot Rewards Program
• Starwood Preferred Guest
• IHG Rewards Program

Registering with these programs will give you discount rates. However, you can often find better rates by searching Hotwire. Hotwire gives you discounted rates on hotels. The catch is that you don’t know the exact name of the hotel. They do give you the hotel star rating as well as the general location.

Hotwire is a great deal when traveling across country because usually you come in late and are out of a hotel first thing in the morning. We have a complete guide to getting discounts on Hotwire, as well as Priceline. Priceline is similar but we like Hotwire better.

Travel Discounts: Finding Specific Hotels with Better Bidding on Hotwire and Priceline

Over the years we have had great success getting significant travel discounts on hotels using Hotwire and Priceline.  These sites have regular listings for hotels, but the discounts usually come from paying for an unknown hotel.  Because you don’t know the name of the hotel until after you book, you can get a bargain price […]

In our guides to our individual trips, we will talk about hotel deals we got along the way (when I can remember and have records).

Trips

2019 Trip

This trip was one I took with my 27-year old son to move him to Northern, Virginia. This was a one-way trip across the I-40 to the I-81 in Eastern Tennessee. There were several cool adventures we did. This included some major side trips in Arizona/New Mexico to the Grand Canyon and Navajo Nation. There stops in Albquerque, Amarillo, Oklahoma City, Memphis, Nashville and a cool Virginia bike ride down the Creeper Trail.

Day One California to Arizona

Driving Across the United States: Day One London Bridge Arizona

This is part of our series of driving across the United States.  For our 2019 trip our first day started in San Diego and ended in Williams, Arizona.  Along the way we stopped at Joshua Tree and London Bridge in Arizona. For our first day we decided to take some back roads through California.  We […]

Day Two Grand Canyon to New Mexico

Driving Across the United States: Day Two Grand Canyon to New Mexico

Day two of our driving across the United States trip was all about exploring.  In terms of heading across country we made little progress.  However, we got to see some great sites, most notably the Grand Canyon. We started the day in Williams, Arizona.  Williams is a small tourist town that is a prime gateway […]

Day Three New Mexico to Oklahoma

Driving Across the United States New Mexico to Oklahoma: Day Three

On day three of our trip we made up much of the time we lost in our Grand Canyon detour.  We shot all the way across New Mexico, Texas and into the middle of Oklahoma.  This is 11 hours of driving, but we still made time to see plenty of cool sites. We got an […]

Day Four Oklahoma City to Memphis

Driving Across the United States Oklahoma City to Memphis: Day Four

Oklahoma City was a new place for us, so we wanted to take some time to explore.  Day 4 of our drive across the United States was only 7 hours to Memphis so we were not in a rush. Oklahoma gets a bad rap, but we found Oklahoma City to be surprisingly hip.  We wanted […]

Day Five Memphis to Nashville

Driving Across the United States Memphis to Nashville: Day Five

Day five of our drive across the United States was our shortest drive.  We toured Memphis most of the day before driving the short 3-hour trip to Nashville. Memphis has a great deal of sites to see, especially if you are into music.  Driving across the Mississippi on the I-40 we were intrigued by the […]

Day Six Nashville to Virginia

Drive Across the United States: Day Six Nashville to Virginia

Tennessee is by the far the longest state on our drive across the United States.  We started in the far southwestern corner and drove the entire length of the state to the northeast corner at Bristol.  Our day ended right across the Tennessee/Virginia border in Abingdon, VA. I lived in Nashville for two years and […]

Day Seven Virginia to Washington, D.C.

Drive Across the United States: Day Seven Creeper Trail and Virginia

Our last day of driving across the United States was technically only a 5-hour drive.  However, adding in a huge bike ride on the Creeper Trail and a massive traffic jam it turned out to be much longer.  This drive took us up the western edge of Virginia. We spent the night in Abingdon, VA […]

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