You posted up details on this mate? If not can you?
Think we've decided we're going to do some sort of US road trip this summer then fly to a beach somewhere for a week after to recover.
We're in the process of moving house, so that determined the start and end locations.
As for the stops in between, it was a mixture of places we wanted to visit, and friends / family we wanted to see.
Here's the route we took.
Starting point was Redlands, California.
Phoenix, Arizona
(pass through New Mexico)
El Paso, Texas
Austin, Texas
Houston, Texas
New Orleans, Louisiana
(pass through Mississippi)
Memphis, Tennessee
Nashville, Tennessee
Roanoke, Virginia
(pass through West Virginia)
Small town in north eastern Pennsylvania to visit family
(pass through upstate New York, dip in and out of New Jersey)
Finish in Connecticut
When we were in Phoenix, we went to downtown Scottsdale in the evening, which is a cutesy, old-west kind of area with good food, good bars, and a lively atmosphere. Worth a visit if you're ever passing through.
We did nothing in El Paso other than eat at a steakhouse and get stopped by border patrol about 30 miles outside the city. It doesn't look like a particularly nice place, to be honest, although it's interesting as it directly borders Juarez in Mexico, and is part of the country that already has a physical border.
We would've liked to have spent more time in Austin and Houston, as they are both supposed to be great cities, but we were visiting people so didn't really get the chance to explore them.
From the places we got to spend any actual time in, New Orleans was our favorite but it nearly killed us. We will be going back and doing it properly over a week or so at some point... and not hitting Bourbon Street quite as hard next time! The architecture, history, and general vibe of the place is awesome - it's a little bit seedy in places, like most big cities I guess, but it's fascinating.
Memphis was a disappointment. Graceland is just a big house on a fairly industrial road. We didn't pay to do the tour and I don't think we missed much. Beale Street was OK, but it's only a few blocks long and very touristy. The rest of the city seemed fairly run down, although there's a lot of new condos being built and regeneration going on so hopefully it's on the up.
The civil rights museum is brilliant. You could spend all day there. It's at the site of Martin Luther King's assassination, and is simultaneously one of the most interesting and heartbreaking things I've seen.
Nashville was an odd stop for us - we didn't make it downtown, but instead hit up a couple of neighborhood places for dinner and breakfast. We loved it. The city looked big and largely modern, and the places we ate in and the areas around them felt safe and like they had their own local cultures. It's another place we'll be going back to.
Roanoke was just a stop in a hotel so we didn't have to drive a straight 12-hour shift - we didn't leave the hotel.
Small town PA is interesting... a lot of it feels like a properly redneck southern state in places, aside from the horrific snow storm we drove in to. The family we visited live in a small rural town not too far from Scranton (where the US Office is based, so essentially the American Slough) - people like to hunt, fish, shoot things, drive big trucks, shoot things, drink beer, eat bar food, and shoot things.
We saw a little bit of everything, overall - drove from the south west of the country to the north east, left with sun and blue skies and drove into blizzards, started and ended in strongly Democratic states but passed through some of the most highly Republican ones, and found a few places to go back to in the future. It would have been better had we been able to spend 3-4 days in Austin, Houston, New Orleans and Nashville, but they can all be re-visited at a later date.
I'd recommend it to anyone... but it's exhausting, and two-day hangovers won't make your life easier. Get on it.