Solo Canadian traversing the USA with her dog mid-February
Hi fellow road trippers: As the title says, I'm hoping to drive solo (+ pup) across the ol' US of A in roughly 3 months time. I'm still in the tentative planning phase so I'm looking for as much feedback as you can give - suggestions, warnings, anecdotes.. anything and everything!
I will be wrapping up my current job early in February and starting a new, much more intense position in March. My new employer has made it clear that I am not permitted to take holidays until November of 2018 at the earliest. This leaves me with roughly 3 weeks to do something exciting before I'm tied down for the next while.
I started thinking this past weekend about how I'd like to use this time and it dawned on me to do a road trip! I'm happiest when out adventuring with my (~60lb) vizsla so I am hoping to bring him along for the journey. I'd love to incorporate some volunteering along the way but have yet to research the feasibility of doing this and imagine that it could be quite challenging given that my copilot is a dog and my overall shortish timeline (I would love to hear others' experiences on this!).
My trip outline in its infancy is as follows:
Drive from Ontario, Canada to Buffalo, NY, leave my car and rent a vehicle there. From Buffalo, I'd like to head to Boston (stay with friends) and head down the east coast. I've always wanted to go to New Orleans and maybe if I time it right, I could be there in time for Mardi Gras (not critical though). The plan from there is to take Interstate 40 to Los Angeles. I have a friend living in LA who has been begging me to visit and I think it would be awesome to see the city with a local tour guide and stay with him for a few days.
Now... from here I hope to hop a one way flight back to Buffalo with the dog (yes I know) and then drive home from there. Suffice it to say this is not a super duper budget trip.. but obviously I would like to be mindful of the expenses so things don't get way out of hand. I plan to buy groceries and prep/cook most of my own food. I haven't put a ton of thought into accommodation but I'm not adverse to sleeping in the vehicle and/or camping (however I need to keep gear to a minimum because I'm flying home... or I could possibly ship gear back?). I will tap into the Airbnb network when and if necessary as well. Of course there are a million and one variables, but based on what I've outlined, would a total budget of $3000 be way off the mark? I've priced out and reserved a rental SUV for 14 days for $750CAD (this includes the drop off fee and all expenses, insurance, etc), flight at ~300CAD, gas expense ~ $450CAD, $500 for food, $600 for accommodations, and $400 for experiences and contingencies
Ideally, I would like to drive exclusively in daylight hours (and early mornings) and keep each day to 8 hours of driving or less.
All feedback and tips welcome!!!
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