20th February, 2019

I’ve said it a million times – America was never on our must see list of places to visit when we left Australia for our 12 month adventure around the world.
We definitely wanted to see Canada – but we’d sort of dismissed the USA, deciding to save it for another time.
BUT, when we ended up visiting Hawaii for a secret mission (you can read all about it here…) we decided to make the most of it and we ended up hiring a car in Seattle and driving over 14,000kms from the west to east, dropping our car off at our final stop – New York.

CAR HIRE:
We’d hired a car in Hawaii from Alamo Rentals – so when we arrived in Seattle I looked them up. They were also aligned with Enterprise Car Rentals, a huge rental car chain all over the USA, UK and Europe, and happened to have a branch close to our hotel – so we booked a car and set off on our merry way. Not really sure of an itinerary, but thankfully we had the luxury of working that out as we went.
We’d roughly planned on a 4 week rental, but ended up keeping the car for the best part of 2 months.
Our hire car was a Ford Edge SUV which has now been released in Australia as a Ford Endure.
It was a brilliant vehicle. So easy and comfortable to drive, with great space for the 4 of us and all of our luggage. Road trips are a trap for accumulating STUFF, so it was nice to have a bigger car and spread out.
The total cost of the rental was just over $5,500AUD.

ACCOMMODATION:
We usually had a rule of 8 hours maximum of driving per day. Stopping every 3-4 hours. With this said – there were days that we’d drive for longer if everyone was happy, and some days a little less.
Andrew did most of the driving, whilst I would plan the next route and accommodation. I always booked online using my phone via Hotels.com.
I would generally book the same day – some days we were more organised and I’d book a few days in advance if we knew where we were going to end up.
There was always something available with a clean bed and good shower. A quick pit stop and some breakfast was all we needed before getting back on the road.

We mainly stayed at: Quality Inn, Days Inn or Country Inn.
These would usually have breakfast included and averaged around $130 per night. Your typical Motel style room. Small, clean and cosy and always conveniently located which is ideal when road tripping.

Of course when we were staying anywhere for more than a night – we would book in advance and select somewhere with a little more room and more facilities.
For example: Las Vegas, Nashville, New York

FOOD AND SHOPPING:
Each town usually had a Walmart, so we would stock up on fruit and snacks for the car. Water and drinks.
We ate at Denny’s a LOT, as well as Chipotle. And we’d also order food to the hotel room.

There are always service stations and places to stop to get a quick lunch on the highway. Fill up the petrol, stretch the legs and get some fresh air – then be on our way.

If someone were to tell me we’d end up spending 2 months in the USA during this adventure, I’d have laughed.
Sometimes life takes us on paths we can’t predict and sometimes we just have to roll with it.
Almost 8 weeks, crossing over 20 states and clocking over 14,000kms.
We came, we conquered and we loved every single moment!

The freedom of having our own wheels and being able to go anywhere at any time has left us all with so many memories and our USA Roadtrip ended up as one of the big highlights of the entire year!!

We can’t wait to come back and explore some more someday.

Peace,
Cxx

*This is not a sponsored post. We paid for everything. I am just sharing my recommendations..x