over 12,000 miles, gas was about $1500.
We left VA on June 7 & put in a 12 hr day & an 8 hr day (per gps). We then did mostly 5-6 hr days per gps.
When I tried to search for ideas, I couldn't find one family that had done this in a tent, so this blog is for your benefit.
TENT: 12x9 Ozark Trails Wal Mart Special. Tyvek for ground cloth.
VEHICLE: 2004 Toyota Highlander. 152k miles when left 164k miles when returned. We left Virginia with the 3 girls (ages 15, 12 & 10) and myself, then picked up my wife at the Phoenix airport & dropped her off at the Seattle airport. ALL of the camping supplies fit in our car top carrier (a sears sport 20). This was a must.
GEAR:
BAGS: We had one good 20 deg down bag. The person sleeping in that never got cold (hot few times though). I had a 30 deg synthetic down wal mart e (super thin & no way really for 30 deg). It was usually enough, but on the coldest nights I had a short & long sleeve wicking shirt, long sleeve cotton shirt, fleece jacket, synthetic sweat pants, socks and a hat - I also had a down vest that I would put over me like a blanket. This was fine on even the coldest nights near Flagstaff, Mt. Ranier, Glacier...
Pillows: we had pillows about 1/4 size of regular. Used in car for naps too.
Clothes: 5 underwear, 2 shorts, 1 long pants/sweats, 3 short sleeve wicking, 1 long sleeve wicking, 1 long sleeve cotton, 2 socks (1 wool), fleece hat, ball cap, sunglasses.
COOLER: Full size cooler. Ice every day or every other day. Loaded with water bottles - we would buy gal of Arizona Iced tea and refill them as we went.
FOOD: lunchmeat & cheese, condiments, PBJ, canned soups, beans, noodles, sauce, oats. . . Milk or yogurt for breakfast (we had cheerios & oatmeal - either worked good pouring into quart of yogurt to split).
Also had a stove, frying pan & saucepan. Whenever we had a campsite with water for dish washing, we'd cook spaghetti, pancakes...
2 Gal jugs (used Arizona bottles) of water for emergency & dish washing.
TUB: Plastic tub with can opener, coffee, tea, sugar, spatula, dish soap, rag, etc.
Don't worry, you can buy stuff on the way if you have to...
ROUTE PLANNING:
--Have a big picture of where you want to go. We left VA & wanted to get out west to start seeing things we couldn't see in the East. We decided we would do the Southwest first and then go clockwise to the Northern states that we thought would be colder.
--The day before or morning of, plan things you want to see and get a rough estimate of the final area you want to camp. Each morning, head out. If you have wifi, take screenshots of where you think you'll camp, if not just head out and when you find a McDonalds or library... get wifi.
-- ALLSTAYS. An app. Set if for tent sites only. Take screen shots the day before or the day of, of places on the route you think you want to camp. This was so valuable. Also, it shows whether the sites are free (we stayed at many free sites... some of our best & worst sites were free). We'd take screen shots on the ipad, clicking on the "I" and making sure we had scrolled so the gps location would show. When we got close, we'd punch in the gps location into our nuvi gps.
Finally, think, plan... then stop worrying and do it. It was a great trip. The kids will never forget it.
p.s. we climbed many narrow mountain roads and at those times I was so glad I wasn't pulling a trailer.
A couple of teaser pictures:
