The central route follows a path across the middle states, like Kansas and Colorado.

Mostly self-explanatory, the northern route stays on a path across the northern states like Minnesota, Montana, or Idaho. Generally speaking, there are three main routes to drive cross country: northern, central, and southern. Trip map created using Wanderlog, for making itineraries on iOS and Android This post is going to examine routes to consider, destinations to include, and a few other great pieces of cross country road trip advice… so buckle up, because it’s going to be a long ride! While there is no formal definition for what qualifies as a cross country road trip, I feel confident that a trip covering 2,600 of the 3,000 mile span from coast to coast definitely fits the bill! In fact, on our drive heading west, we zig-zagged our way across nearly 8,000 miles during just one road trip! All of my other cross country road trips have either started or ended in Pennsylvania (instead of the Atlantic coast). Technically, I’ve only done one coast to coast cross country road trip, and that was when I was 18. It’s time to get out there and explore! A Round Trip Itinerary for a Cross Country Road Trip The Round Trip Road Trip Like our time in Las Vegas, we were going to have to prioritize. With my sincerest apologies to residents of the flyover states, the time constraints for these trips forced us to take the highway across some of the center of the country, leaving very little time for sight-seeing. Well, sort of… While the majority of these trips were on back roads, I must admit up front that we did also do a fair share of interstate driving across the Midwest. During the summers of 2020 & 2021 – in the middle of the Coronavirus pandemic! – I managed to cross the latter two items off my list. However, there are still a few cross country road trip ideas that remain on my bucket list: riding a motorcycle cross country, taking one of America’s historic highways the whole way from coast to coast (US-50 is the most likely candidate), driving cross country on one of the northern routes, and driving a back roads loop around the country. I’ve taken a handful of cross country road trips over the years.

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