A Travel Writer Drves Cross-Country

May 20, 2012— -- According to a recent survey by Expedia, a majority of Americans have always wanted to do a cross-country road trip but haven't yet.

Ever since the publication of Jack Kerouac's On The Road over 50 years ago, and probably since the first wagon train rumbled west, the notion of driving from one coast to the other has been part of the American psyche. And with airfares creeping (some would say catapulting) upwards, and TSA hassles getting more burdensome, I hear from readers of this column and subscribers to the Airfarewatchdog newsletters that they're willing to drive ever-longer distances to avoid flying, even if it turns out that driving costs more. Which it often does, as I found out on a recent mid-May joy ride from New York to Los Angeles.

There were two of us in the car. One-way fares were running anywhere from $150 to $500 including tax, depending on the day. But we were also carrying some cargo, much of it precious and irreplaceable—the kind of stuff -- "valuables" as the airline contracts of carriage call them -- that no airline, or indeed, any moving company, would ever take responsibility for in the event of loss or damage. Plus, we needed to move a car eventually to L.A., and it was either drive it ourselves or put it on a truck at considerable extra expense. So there was that.

But enough about economics for now.

What's it like driving from one end of the USA to the other?

I'd never driven more than 500 miles in a day, and consider even the trek from New York to Boston, a distance of 225 or so miles, burdensome and a bit boring. And I'm well aware that gas costs over $4.00 a gallon, and that my car only gets 26 miles per gallon on the highway. Every fill-up was going to cost about $80, and there were going to be five or six of those. Add meals and hotels and get out the calculator. So even divided between two people this was going to be expensive, although exactly how much more expensive than flying would prove surprising.

So what was it like? In a word, fun. We headed out from Manhattan through the Holland Tunnel toward Pittsburgh (we were tempted, as we passed, to visit the Flight 93 Memorial, which we had seen on a previous trip and still isn't quite finished, but motored on) and found our way to I-70, an east-west ribbon of asphalt and concrete that would be our magic carpet across the USA.

We stopped the first night in Columbus, Ohio, home to Jeni's Ice Creams, arguably the country's best. Being a native Bostonian, I'd always thought that Toscanini Ice Cream in Cambridge, Mass., was the be-all-end-all, but Jeni's is of a higher order.

Equally impressive was the city's beautifully-restored German Village section, with some of the most unusual residential architecture I've ever seen. We stayed in a guest house called, appropriately, the German Village Guest House. I highly recommend it. Columbus was a pleasant surprise.

The next day we ventured on in a southwesterly direction through Indianapolis, where a seriously large pothole destroyed our two left tires. We didn't have a blowout, thankfully, but two ominous sidewall bubbles clearly indicated that driving on them was not a good idea. Since there was considerable wear on the two right tires, we decided to replace all four. Already this trip was going to cost more than flying, even without $4.00 gas. After a 90-minute pit stop at a local tire franchise, and $1,000 poorer, we headed to Kansas City and spent the night at a Hampton Inn ($129) in Blue Springs, Mo. Not much to stay about Blue Springs; I'm sure it's a lovely place, but I was impressed with the very modern and comfortable hotel (the favorable ratings on TripAdvisor were right on).

The next day was a killer: Missouri through Kansas's wheat fields and wind farms, past Denver, Aspen and other famous ski towns, and across the Rockies. If you haven't driven this stretch of I-70, put it on your bucket list. Even in Kansas, it's amazingly scenic, but through the Rockies it's spectacular, so drive it during daylight hours. We overnighted in Colorado at a Courtyard by Marriott ($99 walk-up rate). Surprisingly, we didn't have to make advance reservations and I recommend against doing so, especially if you get locked into a non-refundable rate, because you never know what might happen en route.

Then it was on to Las Vegas and a $250 room (not bad for a Friday night at a 5-star property) at the Mandarin Oriental. Why there was a suspicious-looking chocolate cupcake waiting for me in the room with a note from the manager congratulating a Mr. and Mrs. Lamb for their 52nd anniversary, I haven't a clue. But this is Las Vegas. I also think that a 52nd anniversary deserves more than a cupcake.

But lest you think we were in a mad dash to see how fast we could do this trip, we did take a slight detour through Utah's Bryce and Zion National Parks on the way to Vegas ($25 admission fee to each, but we bought the $80 annual pass that gets you into all national park locations). I had last visited these two treasures 20 years earlier, and nothing much has changed. They're still overwhelmingly beautiful.

And then the easy part: Vegas to L.A., a three-hour cruise through very uninspiring terrain in heavy traffic (with airfares so low, why anyone would drive this route rather than flying is beyond me).

In case you were keeping track, we did it in fewer than 5 days (we left Manhattan on a Tuesday morning and arrived in L.A. on a Saturday afternoon). I don't actually recommend such a compressed trip, but what I took away from this adventure was this:

1. Yes, even with higher fares and baggage fees, flying can be cheaper than driving, unless your car gets 84 miles per gallon perhaps, and you sleep in it along the way.

2. It's a big, amazing country and we're lucky to be living in it (I sort of knew that, but it's always nice to be reminded).

3. Driving can be more fun than flying, even with potholes.

4. And I'll never complain about driving the 225 miles from New York to Boston again.

George Hobica is the founder of Airfarewatchdog.com. Airfarewatchdog features the best airfares on thousands of routes verified by a team of expert fare analysts.