6,000 miles solo?

February 21, 2006 9:46 PM

Crosscountry trip: how do I do it alone?

I'll try to keep this brief:

I've always wanted to take a long crosscountry trip and am considering taking a month off to finally do it early this summer. American Southwest, Grand Canyon, Yosemite, visiting friends and family...the whole nine. The only problem is that I can't convince anyone else to quit work ;-) Which means weeks of driving alone (which isn't necessarily a deal breaker) and no real hiking or time spent out in nature (which would be dangerous, alone).

So:
- do I just table this and trust that the occasion will eventually arise where I can do it with a friend or gf.
- do I look for some sort of touring company, such as Trek America, and do it with strangers. (Does anyone know about this company? Or other, less expensive, companies like it? Have you ever done one?)
- do I just visit friends and keep it to day hikes or something.

AskMeFi, what say you?

Thanks for your help-
cgs

posted by cgs to travel & transportation (17 comments total)

About a year ago I was planning a cross country bike trip but couldn't find anyone willing to go through with it, plenty of people said they wanted to of course. I ended up going it completely alone, very little planning and making my own trail as I went. I had the time of my life and met all kinds of people I'm sure I would have never met had I been with someone else.
posted by nintendo at 9:50 PM on February 21, 2006

followup: Trek America link
posted by cgs at 9:56 PM on February 21, 2006

How long do you have? I've done St. Louis ->Maine->St. Louis in four days, and have been out to Idaho for a leisurely road trip and home in nine. The biggest things, if you've never been out west, are time management and sight (as in, seeing the sights) management. What do you really want to see? How long/how in depth do you want to be with each place? I ususally plan on 60 mph average on open road, stopping only for gas and piss.

Do it yourself. Then you can change your mind mid-stride. Take lots of pictures-if you've got digital, plan on backing stuff up via Walgreens CDs or something. Enjoy the time.
posted by notsnot at 10:35 PM on February 21, 2006

Get a lot of audio books too, if you don't have satellite radio.
posted by brujita at 11:04 PM on February 21, 2006

A little over a year ago, I quit a job that had completely burned me out and took a six week, twelve-thousand-mile road trip (solo) all over the southern half of the country and up and down the pacific coast.

(NYC to LA via Memphis, Little Rock, Flagstaff, etc., then up to Portland, OR, then all the way down the coast the slow way to San Diego, then back via Tucson, Dallas, Atlanta, etc., then up the east coast and back to NYC just in time to shovel off my stoop after a major blizzard.)

I had my iPod and satellite radio to keep me company, and plenty of friends to visit along the way, but it was simply the best thing I've ever done.

As nintendo notes above, it's a wonderful opportunity to meet people. After a day of driving alone, I would find myself striking up conversations in bars and restaurants with people whom I normally would have ignored or been intimidated by.

As an added bonus, I ended up reconnecting with at least one old friend, and was inspired to get the heck out of New York and move back to Portland.

The whole thing cost me a lot more money than a guy who just quit his job should probably have been spending, but it was by far the most worthwhile time and money I've ever spent.

However (and this is a pretty big however) you have to truly enjoy the process of being alone; it helps to be someone who does NOT equate "being alone" with "being lonely." If you do equate those two things, you probably won't enjoy yourself. The good news, however, is that if ydiscover you're not enjoying it, you're never really more than three or four days of hard driving from home, as long as you stay in the continental US.
posted by dersins at 11:27 PM on February 21, 2006

This certainly goes away from conventional wisdom, and I don't want to hear about it if anything does go wrong, but going solo doesn't have to mean giving up hiking and time spent in nature.

First, you can spend time in nature in all sorts of ways that don't involve dangerous activity alone. A nice beach, relatively popular national park, or other similar attraction is a great place to spend some time by yourself. You're likely to find plenty of other people around, so danger isn't really an isue.

But more significantly, taking a serious backpacking trip or hike by yourself can be a wonderful experience. Solo trips aren't exactly condoned by experts as a particularly safe activity, but the pleasure that comes from "getting away from it all" and being alone in nature could be really satisfying. I recommend you look at the backpacking classic The Complete Walker (http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0375703233/qid=1140595275/sr=2-1/ref=pd_bbs_b_2_1/104-9701540-2603134?s=books&v=glance&n=283155), which does advocate the benefits of solo trips. Obviously, take some basic safety precautions: plan a route in advance, tell others where and when you are going to be, and give them your route so they can seek help if you do not emerge by a specified time. Certainly, don't do anything you're not comfortable with, but going solo doesn't mean you have to give up nature at all.
posted by zachlipton at 12:06 AM on February 22, 2006

"no real hiking or time spent out in nature (which would be dangerous, alone)"

What's more dangerous ... that, or crossing a few streets in NYC one day?

I've always thought tours are good for things you don't want to deal with yourself --- say, a five-day river run. You see that photo of Monument Valley in the upper-left corner of the Trek America website? You have the option of paying (errr, $17?) to drive your car on a windy path and stop here and there to take photos, or you can pay a little bit more and have Trek America do it for you down the same road or maybe a different one that goes by the same features. It's not difficult to do it yourself.

Yosemite, for example, you can just drive through. Or you can pull off at the side of the road for some features. Or you can meander on a two-three mile trail through Mariposa Grove and look at the Giant Sequoias. You can make the trip fit your level of confidence, which will probably increase the longer your trip.

Keep your days as flexible as possible. You may find yourself picking your jaw off the ground in the Southwest and you might want to devote more time to it than other places, for example. But know your options etc -- don't get stuck in some small town looking for a motel at 2am.

"I would be glad to know which is worst: to be ravished a hundred time by pirates, to have one buttock cut off, to run the gauntlet among the Bulgarians, to be whipped and hanged at an auto-da-fe, to be dissected, to be chained to an oar in a galley; and, in short, to experience all the miseries through which every one of us hath passed, or to remain here doing nothing?" -- Voltaire, Candide

“Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn’t do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover.” -- Mark Twain
posted by user92371 at 12:22 AM on February 22, 2006

I did do a Trek America trip.. but not one of their road trips (I did their New England area Footloose one - camping and hiking and being driven between different locations).. I quite enjoyed it (although as with any group, there'll be someone who drives you crazy). But it didn't involve a lot of driving. People on that trip who had been on other Trek America Road Trip tours said there were quite a few long days on the road - and not everyone gets a window seat.

Another company you might consider is Green Tortoise, although they tend to focus on natural attractions and don't go cross country.

You could possibly do a combination - some driving yourself and some organised stuff for a few days here and there if you don't want to go hiking by yourself - you can also check for organisations that do day hikes in the areas you want to visit.

If you enjoy your own company, I would just do it. If you can't face going to the cinema or a restaurant by yourself, it isn't necessarily going to be for you - or at least not at first. While not discounting the pleasure that you can get out of travelling with others, I enjoy the selfishness AND the sense of achievement of making it on my own.

I would then second the Mark Twain quote above.. I did this very literally last year when I signed up to crew on a yacht across the Pacific, knowing nothing about sailing, not knowing the people I was going with and suspecting that I get seasick (confirmed).. the adventure of my life!
posted by AnnaRat at 12:58 AM on February 22, 2006

I drove from DC to Canada then across the US to LA on my own. It rocked. I've also done SF-NYC-SF with friends. That was also great.

As dersins says - on your own you kinda have to talk to people.

The hiking on your own thing could be a bit dodgy. But - if you can stay in cell phone range you'd be better off. I've camped on my own and quite frankly do not like doing that.

Why not try and talk some friends into doing stuff for a weekend or so? That and meeting people in hostels and stuff could work. You might also want to check out Lonely Planet's Thorn Tree web site for travel information and couchsurfing if you want to cut costs a bit.

Actually, on that point, I stayed with friends and relations in quite a few spots and that really improved my trip on my own. I also met people in hostels and took a few people on quite sizable rides.

But there is something unbelievably free about heading out on your own.
posted by sien at 3:42 AM on February 22, 2006

SunTrek is another tour company in the same vein as TrekAmerica. I did one of their tours last summer, in the PNW. I really enjoyed it but it's a very different way to travel. You see a lot of the natural attractions and not so much of the towns and cities. Where on a normal trip you might go to a restaurant and bar at night and meet the locals, on one of these tours you hang out in your campsite with your fellow travelers. Which one is better depends on whether you're outgoing or not.

Another consideration is that these tours are a very economical choice if you're traveling solo. Road trips are pricey when you're alone, since you're paying for all the gas and the whole hotel room, which is probably at least $100/day.
posted by smackfu at 6:31 AM on February 22, 2006

What Zachlipton and others have said--don't be afraid to venture into the wilderness alone. I have hiked thousands of miles alone, including cross-country, off trail hiking. So have thousands of other people. Don't get yourself caught up in statistically improbable what-if scenarios. You do more dangerous things every day. In most national parks solo hikers can register with the park office coming and going and they will look for you if you don't show up on schedule. Go for it.

Also, many parks have ranger guided nature walks. These are usually pretty short but a great way to learn some basic natural history of the area and to meet other people.
posted by LarryC at 7:42 AM on February 22, 2006

The hiking on your own thing could be a bit dodgy. But - if you can stay in cell phone range you'd be better off.

Don't hike anywhere with your cell phone that you wouldn't go without it, and don't rely on it to get you out of jams.

Hiking alone can be fun if, like someone above said, you don't get lonely by yourself. You also should be experienced enough that you know how to take care of yourself in the woods. You don't want to be learning how to set up a tent or deal with a blister on your first solo hike.

Any hiking expert will tell you to never hike alone but every hiking "expert" I know (and I used to be one of them when I led backpacking trips) has done a solo trip. It's a classic "do as I say, not as I do" thing.

Leave a copy of your itinerary with a friend and with a nearby ranger. Make sure they know when you're supposed to come out of the woods and, this is very important, let them know when you do come out.

Stay on the trail, and while you probably want to get away from the crowds, stick to trails where, if you fall and break your ankle, someone is likely to walk by within a couple of hours.

Stick to the less challenging trails. Solo hikes aren't the time to be scrambling up cliffs or wading through rivers.

Solo hiking is a bit more dangerous in grizzly bear country since you'll be quieter and more likely to surprises a bear. Sing out loud, whistle a bit, play a tin whistle, etc. Especially when turning blind corners. Pepper spray may or may not work. Like the cell phone, it might come in handy but don't rely on it. You're generally more likely to be hit by a bus anyway.

Most parks these days have designated camp sites so you'll probably be camped within earshot of others. This can be both good or bad, depending on your mood and the types of neighbors you have. If you go in more than five miles you'll usually avoid the guys hauling in kegs and boom boxes.

Yeah, there might be a weirdo hiding out there looking for a solo hiker. There is just as much chance, if not more, that a weirdo is hiding in the bushes outside your apartment. Attacks in the wilderness are pretty rare.

If you have friends along your route, let them know when you'll be around and see if you can get someone to join you.

I envy you. Everyone I know who has done any sort of significant solo cross country trip has been profoundly affected by it. If you have the chance to do it, don't pass it up.
posted by bondcliff at 9:11 AM on February 22, 2006

I've driven from California to Maryland alone, and made the same journey via Greyhound bus. Since I had more money on the driving trip I could stay in motels -- that trip was more comfortable, but less memorable. I've also driven from Maryland to California alone, twice -- in fact, it's one of my favorite things to do. Don't have satellite radio; just pack a bunch of tapes. And it's not necessarily "weeks of driving alone" -- the trip can be done in four days, although it's always taken me five, given no major stops along the way.

I've also done the occasional solo hiking overnight but not in a long time, that's pretty hard-core, even for a hermit like me.
posted by Rash at 9:59 AM on February 22, 2006

Good lord, do the trip! I took a 2 month cross-country roadtrip in 1996 by myself and it was truly the best experience in my life. Do it now when you have the time, don't wait.

The thing that made this work, socially, was that I knew people in many different cities around the US either as old friends or folks I knew from the net. So my general experience was to be on my own for 3-4 days, then spent 2-3 days in a city where I knew someone and had a bit of company. I didn't meet many new people in the places I was alone, but I'm not terribly gregarious that way. So it was good to have folks to check in with from time to time.

It was important to me not to be in regular telephone or email contact. I had a voice mailbox and could check in on my own time, but folks couldn't interrupt me and try to talk to me on my time. That break from the infostream was great.

I'm not much of an outdoorsman, so my outdoors experience was limited to overnight camping in National Parks and the occasional day hike. Even so I got myself into a bit of trouble three times. Got lost for an hour in a national forest north of the Grand Canyon, ran out of water in Canyonlands (dumb, dumb, dumb), and got myself wedged under a rock in Texas. None of these were life threatening, but they did make me appreciate the value of having folks nearby when you're in a spot of trouble. If you stay near popular areas and trails you should be OK.

I can't stress this enough: bring lots of water. Several gallons in the car that you never plan to actually use, plus a couple of gallons for drinking at all times. You can survive most any problem for a few days, but being without water in the desert will make you dead very soon.

The American Southwest is a fantastic place to take road trips. Lots of empty roads, big landscapes, parks, etc. AAA (or CAA) used to publish a terrific map called "Indian Country" centered on Four Corners; way better for this area than the usual maps. See if you can find one. And by all means, stay off the interstates! The US is on the smaller highways.
posted by Nelson at 10:17 AM on February 22, 2006

this doesn't directly answer your question since my cross-country trip was with my husband but I wanted to give a few pointers (or really things i learned along the way) in case you are interested. if you're not, apologies in advance for going slightly off-topic:

1. buy/rent/borrow books on tape: i am an avid reader and hated listening to the books before the trip but there are many parts of the country where there's no radio signal at all and depending on the book, it can be a fantastic experience. if you haven't already read them all sedaris' books are fantastic on tape and i can recommend a whole bunch more if you decide you want to do it.

2. buy a national parks pass; it's 50 bucks and will save you a ton of money if you want to see more than 3-5 national parks. our cross country trip lasted around 2 months and we did almost every national park west of missouri and it was fantasticly helpful to have the pass. especially if you plan on camping at all since most of the parks have camping sites in them as well.

3. upload a free AOL or earthlink or etc account to your laptop: if you're bringing a laoptop. we had a lot of electronic equipment in the car and we are the type of people who couldn't stay away from email for more than 4 days. so every few days we'd stay in a hotel with free local calls. AOL has local numbers almost everywhere (except for parts of wyoming) so you can stay connected without spending any money. cell phones don't work in large parts of the country so don't assume that will keep you in touch. i had a blackberry on our trip and that worked more often than my cell.

4. take a ton of photos: i take photos all the time but my photos of our trip are some of my favorite despite the fact that i had a crappy camera. i love remembering each quirly place and all of our memories there. I also recommend keeping random receipts, tickets, maps,etc. i made a scrapbook of all of our stuff a few years after the trip and we look at it all the time.

5. join AAA: if you're not already a member. it's totally worth it and you can get maps for every single state/region before you start your trip as well as their books for info on each area. we found both to be very helpful and still use them all the time. the books also have info on closing/opening times of all locations(parts etc) so it's very handy.

6. take your time and stop in places that are off the map/books: the best part of the trip is that you can stop wherever and whenever you want. try to enjoy the journey and not the destination. try not to make a rigid list of places to go so you give yourself room to stop anytime/anywhere.

7. if you plan on staying in hotels, be careful of tiny towns. most of them don't have hotels or have b&bs that close earlier than a hotel. just so you don't find yourself in the middle of the nowhere at night with no cell connection.

that's all i have. i wish you all the best and i hope you take the trip. it's a fantastic experience. you're welcome to look at our notes/photos here.
posted by karen at 10:23 AM on February 22, 2006

I used to do this every summer when I taught. I think solo is the only way to go. When you share the car you have to listen to their crappy music as well as your own crappy music. I have a few pieces of advice that helped me:

Stock your car with every fluid you might need, a decent tool kit and a day pack that has warm clothes, rain gear, food and a tarp. If you need to hike away from a stranded car, you can easily.

Every car needs a machete or a khukri to lop limbs off trees. When your littel front wheel drive station wagon gets stuck in the mud on some 4 wheel track, you'll love the tool. Also keep a folding shovel in the trunk.

Get a map that has federal land marked on it. National Forests and Bureau of Land Management lands are perfect places to stop for the night. And...you're allowed to possess firearms, if that's your thing. No need to look for a campsite. Find a dirt road, drive down it, camp just off the road. There are usually limits, 200 yds. from the road, I think.

If you have lots of friends around the country, you can usually plan your trips so you never have to drive a great distance to get from one to the next. Try to give your friends a window of 3- 4 days for when you intend to roll into their town. Give them at least two weeks notice. Don't be upset if they are too busy to even put you up for a night. If you remember that a friend lives in a town near your route, feel free to ride into town and use every resource at your finger tips to try and locate them. Sometimes you will succeed beyond your wildest dreams. Sometimes you fail and spend a day driving around crack slums in Scranton watching kids set fire to piles of tires in the streets.

If you are an experienced backpacker, do not worry that you are alone. Leave an itinerary with the local Forest Service or National Park ranger AND with a family member. Then stick to it.

Go to Buffalo Gap National Grassland in S.D. Everybody always ignores beautiful places such as this for the spactacles of America. Grassland as far as the eye can see is amazing and primeval in a much more subtle way. If you're gonna do the Four Croners area, go to Chaco Canyon. It's a long drive down dirt roads, but worth it. Hike.

Finally, Never ever ever ever drive tired. If you find your eyes closing, STOP. Don't use that as an excuse to drink caffeine. Just sleep. Even if it is only for 15 minutes in your car at a rest stop. 15 minutes was usually enough for me to go another hour and a half. If my body needed more, I might sleep longer. Being a guy, I was unafraid to sleep on picnic tables in rest areas on small side roads throughout America, though I usually did that during the middle of the day.
posted by Seamus at 12:05 PM on February 22, 2006

If you feel like doing it, do it. Do it however you want, there's no pattern and it really depends on what you wish. I've driven about 70,000 miles solo on my various treks, including some extremely intensive driving sessions that lasted weeks of 16 hour a day driving - most notably from Alaska down, then across the US coast to coast, then back.

Generally, it's what you make it. You drive to fast it's not going to work. Drive to slow and you seem to get stuck. Drive interstates and you fly, but you never see. I had my most beautiful times driving down rutted roads, parking, and sitting. Still remember sitting for two days watching trains in no particularly important place. Hiking was effective for when I wanted pain and altitude, but it never contested with where I could stick my vehicle with my determination and a winch in the trunk (I guess I hiked myself out at age 16 and wanted to cut a little more viscerally to the sensory).

Generally what I looked for was space west of the Mississippi river, where it's easy to sleep in your car at night without being bothered (state troopers don't even seem to care, just check if you're alive). With that first choice was BLM land, theres a loose 10 day rule with camps, so move if you're over that a few miles. Second I'd look for forest land. National parks are not good for overnights or if you don't smell good and are on a extreme budget, but they have some damn beautiful things in them. Get the National Parks pass for $50, buy it at the first park you enter. After that, have a $3.96 generic 50 states map with the outline of Canada. Beyond that, old man, it's really what you wish, what you put into it, and how much you want to like home when you get tired of traveling.

That said, most important places I've been in NA are most all of Alaska, wherever you can get in NYT/Yukon, the lush and wonderful parts of BC (best to avoid the highland dustbowl parts of Canada), the Hoh rainforest, that park to the east of it is nice during rainy season, Glacier is good for the impossible drive in the mountains, Yellowstone is just surreal, badlands is a waste of time if you plan to go to Utah, CA - Yosemite is overblown, but just picturesque, giant sequoias is interesting enough, but best in the snow, Death Valley is best avoided unless your car works, standing in the bottom of NA doesn't feel all that interesting, but driving out of it is a workout, all of Utah is beautiful and you should live there - Zion, canonland, capitol reef, byrce canons, and all that wonderful BLM around it is the pinnacle of really what you can hope for, Arches is probably okay to drive through in the car only... Theres a lot of nice places to hide/fish/wander about in WY, CO, NV, UT, CA. Again, mileage varies.

My main advice, don't overplan, there isnt a magic bullet, and if you pack all kinds of money saving food, or a planned route, or a list of people to visit, you're just going to throw it out, vomit on it, then wish you could wash yourself in a stream that was above 50F. Associating with a lot of people that do this, trust me, it's a main theme. Bring a goal and a hope into it and go. You might find you hate it, it hurts, and you want to go home after day 8. Or day 13. Or day 28. I'd been doing this for a long time, and I'd have my doubts after ten days. Then again around day twenty. Then pretty much straight through the end.. always hoping for something better at home. Understanding why people actually worked professional jobs. Praising the idea of running water, packaged food, and central heat. Just be freeform, not afraid to come back, but also don't turn around at the second flat tire, ninetieth mosquito bite, first loosing thats important to you in a stream crossing. It happens, it sucks, but thats probably what your signing up for here.

Best of luck. Email me if you want a little more, but you probably know all you need to already. Remember, enjoy each mile of the journey, because you never reach the end of something like this.
posted by sled at 6:42 PM on February 22, 2006