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John Cletheroe's
USA and Canada Holiday Hints |
Since we can only speak from our own holiday experiences our preferences (or prejudices?) somewhat limit the amount of advice that we can offer if your ideal holiday takes a different form to ours.
Please bear in mind as you read these notes that we can only comment as honestly as possible on things as we personally perceive them and that if your holiday lifestyle is different to ours then not all the advice in these notes will apply to you.
A fly/drive trip does involve a fair bit of preliminary planning in order to secure the best deal and also in planning your route so as get the most out of the holiday, and the car rental arrangements can sometimes be a bit of a pain, but despite this we feel that the fly/drive style of holiday provides by far the best way of seeing the real America and Canada. A fly/drive style of holiday also has the advantage of being very considerably less expensive than most other options.
Outside the big cities you will find that driving on the excellent American and Canadian main roads is very easy, with hardly any traffic and almost no stress or fatigue. In small and medium sized towns the grid layout of the roads and excellent signposting make it easy to find your way, and parking is always extremely easy since except within the immediate downtown area each shop, motel, restaurant or other business has its own separate large outdoor car park adjacent to it. It is very difficult to describe to someone who has never been just how incredibly easy driving is in the USA and Canada compared to Europe. It is usually possible to maintain a very steady speed without delays.
Distances in the USA and Canada are huge, and we typically drive 5000 to 6000 miles in three weeks. However, elsewhere in this site you'll find some descriptions of areas that would be appropriate to explore if you do not wish to drive so far, namely southwestern Colorado (the Durango and Cortez) area), southwestern Utah (the St George and Zion National Park area) and the Blue Ridge and Smoky Mountains in Virginia, North Carolina and Tennessee.
A coach tour will relieve you of the route planning and hassle associated with car rental, but it will also greatly reduce your freedom of choice and your opportunities for exploring places that interest you and meeting the real people in the USA and Canada. Since distances within US and Canadian towns are usually large and public transport rare, it is difficult if not impossible to explore on your own without a car, which will prevent access to the shops, restaurants and attractions of your choice. However, a coach trip might be a good introduction to the USA and/or Canada for those wary of venturing there on their own. Most coach trips only visit the most well-known places of interest and make extensive use of the Interstates rather than more scenic routes.
Public transport such as railways and the long-distance bus lines (such as Greyhound) have the considerable disadvantages of only serving routes between major cities and in the case of the buses, usually only on Interstates. To be dropped in the centre of a city or large town with no transport available isn't my idea of fun; budget motels and restaurants are usually located several miles from town centres. Public transport doesn't seem viable to me if you want to visit the National Parks.
If you are prepared to cope with the complexity of organising several different car rentals then it would be worth investigating the possibility of using internal flights within the USA. It would be worth checking whether such flights would be less expensive if purchased as part of the transatlantic flight and car package or separately in the USA. Also check whether any stopover deals are possible which could greatly reduce the cost.
To me, there seems little point in visiting the USA or Canada and staying in the same place for entire period, except perhaps for a short holiday in the Orlando (Florida) area if its various attractions appeal to you.
Coast to Coast
While the romantic notion of driving from coast to coast at first seems very attractive, do bear in mind the potentially very high drop-off charges involved if you don't return a rental car to the same place as you picked it up.
It would also be very important on such a trip to stop off along the way and not just use the Interstates. However, through some of the relatively less interesting areas of the mid-west the Interstates would prove useful.
It might be worth mentioning a couple of facts about US66, Route 66. Firstly Route 66 never ran from coast to coast, but only from Chicago, Illinois to Los Angeles, California - leaving out the eastern third of the continent. Secondly, Route 66 has now been replaced over its entire length (or very nearly so) by Interstates.
There are numerous possible coast to coast routes within the USA. The Trans-Canada Highway offers an alternative possibility for a coast to coast experience.
Most recently modified 30-Nov-03