# US travel advice



## shakermaker88 (Jun 16, 2009)

Hi, im thinking of going travelling in the US, maybe for a month or so, its on a proper budget, just hostels and the cheapest possible transport, want to visit a few major cities.

Any advice would be great, 

Cheers


----------



## Gavin Bl (Jun 16, 2009)

my advice is to be more specific. Its a big place.

If you want to see the countryside, hire a car, would be the only piece of really generic advice I could give, tbh.


----------



## mhendo (Jun 16, 2009)

Yeah, you need to be way more specific. 

"Major cities" is way to vague. Which ones? New York, Boston, Philly? Dallas, Houston, Denver? Los Angeles San Francisco, Seattle? Chicago, St. Louis, Detroit? Those four groups are in four different regions of the country, and are very different places.

What sort of things do you like to do? Museums and galleries? Beaches and national parks? Bars and nightclubs?


----------



## shakermaker88 (Jun 17, 2009)

Yeah fair enough, im not sure on what exactly i want to do, im assuming ill have just enough money to get to the cities and stay in hostels, then the other stuff will be small things i can afford, i plan to stay 4-5 days in about 6 cities, then spend some time with my family in New England.

I was thinking that greyhound buses and trains would be good as that would let me see quite a few areas for cheap, theres a train from San Fransisco to Chicago but thats really expensive i think.

I guess it will be cheap places and buses mainly, but i suppose part of the adventure is working it out when i get there, i'd quite like to just book a flight over there and work out the rest on foot - is that really nieve? Would i just cry and come home? 

Cheers for any advice


----------



## Spion (Jun 17, 2009)

shakermaker88 said:


> i'd quite like to just book a flight over there and work out the rest on foot - is that really nieve?


No it's not. There are Greyhounds, trains, planes - and you'll get on them all at short notice AFAIK


----------



## Gavin Bl (Jun 17, 2009)

Don't know if you have travelled much in the area of New England, if you have family there - but I had an excellent trip - NY (with a weekend in Boston), Niagara, Toronto, Montreal, New England (for the leaves changing), and back to NY (picked up a car outside NY - in Tarrytown). Really, really nice trip, each city was different.

I've never travelled by Greyhound, but I don't hear great things. Amtrak is comfortable, but expensive and slow IME.

If you can drive, I would. The best bit about it is, that you can jsut stop or detour to something that takes your fancy - which isn't an option with public transport obviously.

If you were to go out west - there's a classic route, broadly San Fran-LA-Desert-Vegas-Grand Canyon-Death Valley-Yosemite-SF again. Stunning trip, extraodinarily varied - but needs a car.

I did a nice trip Denver-Mt Rushmore-Devils Tower-Yellowstone-Salt Lake city-Red Rock canyon country-and back over the Rockies via places like Leadville. Great trip, you can get a bit washed out by other wordly desert canyons and arches though. Sounds a bit to country-ish from your post though.


----------



## Badgers (Jun 17, 2009)

Fly there


----------



## D (Jun 17, 2009)

I wouldn't especially recommend amtrak except as a splurge - it's pretty expensive, at least in the northeast


----------



## Yuwipi Woman (Jun 17, 2009)

shakermaker88 said:


> I was thinking that greyhound buses and trains would be good as that would let me see quite a few areas for cheap, theres a train from San Fransisco to Chicago but thats really expensive i think.



Avoid Greyhound buses if you can.  The only people who ride them are recently released felons and naive foreigners.  Besides that it takes so long to travel from city to city that it would blow your time table.

I'd pick either east or west coast.  If you pick the east coast you could travel by train (a bit pricey).  If you pick the west coast drive it.  You can rent cars for <$30 per day here.


----------



## mhendo (Jun 17, 2009)

Definitely, as *Yuwipi Woman* suggests, pick a region. Or, at the very least, spend half your time in one region and then fly to the other one. 

You mention the trip from San Francisco to Chicago. If you're making journeys of that distance, do NOT take a train or the bus unless you have a specific love of that sort of travel, because that trip would eat at least two full days out of your schedule, whereas you can fly from SF to Chicago in under 4 hours (or about 6-7 if you have a stopover).

Also, if you plan ahead, air travel for that sort of journey isn't much more expensive than plane travel. I just looked at a couple of one-way flights from SF to Chicago, as well as a Greyhound ticket. The cheapest bus ticket was $88 (going up to about $160 if you purchase close to your travel date), and for that you have to sit on the bus for two days and 3 hours, and buy meals along the way. Or you can fly Southwest for about $160 and get there in half a day. Amtrak is $145, and takes even longer than the bus.

Getting around by Amtrak or Greyhuond over short distances is fine, although Amtrak is, as *D* says, pretty expensive in the northeast corridor between Boston and Washington D.C. That's because demand on this route is high, with lots of business travelers, so Amtrak soaks them for as much money as possible. Amtrak, in the northeast corridor at least, is also more expensive on Fridays and Sundays, as those are the peak days for travel.

Still, if you need to go from New York to a city like Boston or Philly or Washington, i would recommend Amtrak above all other transport. You can, for example, get from NY to Washington for $72 per person. Also, because the train leaves from downtown Manhattan and arrives in downtown DC, you don't have to deal with the major hassle of dragging your ass to an airport all the way out in Queens (La Guardia) or Brooklyn (JFK). The NY-Washington trip takes just under 4 hours on the train, and the plane flight is just over an hour. But by the time you factor in getting to the airport, checking in, security lines, etc., it's cheaper _and_ quicker on most occasions to just use Amtrak.

If you really want to save money and take the bus, there are also alternatives to Greyhound. For travel into and out of New York, check out the so-called Chinatown buses (there's more than one company). I've used then quite a few times to go between New York and Baltimore, and they were always on-time, clean, and without any sketchy characters. The price is also right: it's generally $20 one-way, or $35 return, and only takes about a half-hour longer than the train, as long as you make sure that you don't time your arrival in New York for rush hour.

Overall, if you are comfortable driving on the "wrong" side of the road, and have the money to spring for a rental, i think the advice about driving given by other people is excellent. While train or bus are fine for getting you from one place to another, driving gives you much more flexibility. Also, as *Yuwipi Woman* says, car rental is reasonably cheap, as long as you plan to bring the car back to the same location where you start. One-way rentals are much more expensive. 

Another piece of advice: don't rent from airport locations, as they are often more expensive. And if you own a car in the UK, see if your own car insurance will cover you in a rental, because taking the rental company's insurance can get expensive. If you need to buy full coverage from the rental company, a $30-a-day car can quickly double in price. Also, the rental company's insurance is basically all profit for them, so if you take it, see if you can bargain with them for lower insurance rates. Read this piece for some tips on US car rental.


----------



## 1927 (Jun 17, 2009)

D said:


> I wouldn't especially recommend amtrak except as a splurge - it's pretty expensive, at least in the northeast



Its cheaper for non US citizens. We looked at this a few years ago and there are some wicked roamer tickets available.


----------



## Spion (Jun 19, 2009)

Yuwipi Woman said:


> Avoid Greyhound buses if you can.  The only people who ride them are recently released felons and naive foreigners.


The only time I took one was Madison-Milwaukee-Chicago and back. The other passengers were mostly soldiers on leave and black people, apart from the Veterans for Peace guy I sat next to and had a great chat with for a couple of hours. 

It was a memorable journey. I'd had no contact with 'real' people in two weeks while in Madison before that


----------



## shakermaker88 (Jun 19, 2009)

Cheers for all the advice, i don't drive unfortunately coz that would have been brilliant. Im gonna work for 4-6 months, save as much as possible then as you suggested, stay in one place i.e. the east coast, i'd rather spend my money on hostels than transport, it would be better to have longer in one place than spend everything darting from one side of the country to the other.

To anyone who has done it recently, what's the minimum cost of say around 2 months travel over there? 

Thanks again for all the advice, especially mhendo, ive printed it all off so i can work out how i'll do it, cheers


----------



## D (Jun 21, 2009)

Re transport between NYC and other cities in the Northeast:

www.megabus.com

(yup, Megabus, can you believe it?)

I go to and from Philly/NYC for $1.50. Seriously.

It must be a front for some sort of illegal operation, but the buses are generally prompt and clean.

Rountrip via other Chinatown bus services to Philly from NYC is $20.  Not $20 one way, $20 round trip or $12 one way.  Leaves from Pike Street just off Bowery.


----------



## DMark (Jul 7, 2009)

It doesn't always work, but sometimes if you go to a university they will have a bulletin board looking for people to share rides.  Usually, this is during the beginnings and endings of school breaks, but occasionally people are looking at other times as well. Worth a shot. You might also try craigslist - but that might be iffy with the crazies who sometimes post there.
Oh, and some (certainly not all) universities and colleges rent dorm rooms during the summer months or school breaks to students from foreign countries. Cheap, meet other people traveling and the rooms are generally better than the average hostel.

Greyhound is sort of kinda maybe OK for short jaunts - if there is nothing else to choose from, but I agree the average rider is not exactly your average person - can be fun, but can also be scary and very long, boring, smelly travel.

I would look into cheap flights - and if you book early enough, you can find them.


----------



## Lea (Jul 7, 2009)

shakermaker88 said:


> To anyone who has done it recently, what's the minimum cost of say around 2 months travel over there?



I read in the Lonely Planet that the cheapest budget you could do is about $100 per day to include accommodation, food, travel and sightseeing. Not sure if this is accurate. I've looked at hostel prices in a couple of cities and they can be anything from $15 to $25 per day for a dorm room.


----------



## phildwyer (Jul 7, 2009)

Lea said:


> I read in the Lonely Planet that the cheapest budget you could do is about $100 per day to include accommodation, food, travel and sightseeing. Not sure if this is accurate. I've looked at hostel prices in a couple of cities and they can be anything from $15 to $25 per day for a dorm room.



Be careful with hostels in the USA.  They're not all Euro-style youth hostels, lots of them are basically homeless shelters.


----------



## D (Jul 7, 2009)

phildwyer said:


> Be careful with hostels in the USA.  They're not all Euro-style youth hostels, lots of them are basically homeless shelters.



that's not my experience at all - it's ptretty clear from any website/listing/description/rec whether a place is a homeless shelter or a backpackers hostel

***

if actual shelters were that easy to get into...perhaps there'd be fewer people on the streets


----------



## Lea (Jul 7, 2009)

phildwyer said:


> Be careful with hostels in the USA.  They're not all Euro-style youth hostels, lots of them are basically homeless shelters.



Yes, I read somewhere that hostels often have "permanent" residents.


----------



## D (Jul 7, 2009)

Lea said:


> Yes, I read somewhere that hostels often have "permanent" residents.


----------



## Yuwipi Woman (Jul 7, 2009)

Lea said:


> I read in the Lonely Planet that the cheapest budget you could do is about $100 per day to include accommodation, food, travel and sightseeing. Not sure if this is accurate. I've looked at hostel prices in a couple of cities and they can be anything from $15 to $25 per day for a dorm room.



Often you can actually stay in University dorm rooms, but you have to contact each university's housing division separately.  It's a cheap way to have a room for the night.  There is often more of this available in the summer than during the school term.


----------



## phildwyer (Jul 9, 2009)

D said:


> that's not my experience at all - it's ptretty clear from any website/listing/description/rec whether a place is a homeless shelter or a backpackers hostel



Not always.  American youths don't really go backpacking like Europeans or Aussies, and lots of Americans live permanently in hostels. The line is frequently blurred, and it is advisable to check a place out before staying there.


----------



## A. Spies (Jul 11, 2009)

Greyhound busses are fine, very slightly run down busses but otherwise fine, never had any problems on them in 2 months. Hostels didnt seem as nice or as much choice as in europe but still also ok - didnt come across any permenant residents either in most. Though there was an interesting HI one in white river vervmont if ur going through new england called hotel coolidge. Its in an old railway hotel in a small town there with barely any other guests just students further down and its near a touristy area but the town itself isnt touristy.


----------



## Gavin Bl (Jul 12, 2009)

phildwyer said:


> Not always.  American youths don't really go backpacking like Europeans or Aussies, and lots of Americans live permanently in hostels. The line is frequently blurred, and it is advisable to check a place out before staying there.



Yeah, I had this experience in Denver - the place wasn't threatening, but it was full of confused old men, who had clearly overdone it on the sauce in years gone by - rather than full of backpackers.


----------

