crispybits wrote:Things I want to do during the 6 days:
- See a proper bit of small town America
- Go to a restaurant featured on "Man vs Food" (and maybe do the eating challenge - but no seafood please, not a big fan)
- Get drunk with friendly strangers in at least 2 different locations (do they have cider in the US by the way? I don't agree with beer, get the hangover before I get drunk)
- Spend a day out in the sticks a bit at a national park or similar
- Spend a day in a area with good shopping facilities (a mega-mall would be perfect but not some two-cent 100 shop thing, minimum 250 shops - remember even the mundane US shops will be new to me and there will be plenty on offer I can't get here in the UK, or alternatively an inner city market with lots of unique one-off independent shops)
- If possible, catch some sort of sports game (football preferably, not sure how the season dates work out for that with a September trip and how easy tickets are to get, happy to combine that into the small town bit and catch a college football game if that's worthwhile?)
- an afternoon at the beach
I realise getting all of that might be a tall order but that's giving you all a better idea.
So far I have:
Small town - New England or North Carolina
Man vs Food - pretty much everywhere
Get drunk - everywhere
In the sticks - New England
Shopping - Philly or Boston
Sports - anywhere?
Beach - North Carolina
Sound about right?
Edit - oh and I don't wanna bump into too many tourists - I wanna meet local people rather than fellow travellers.
I'm sorry, but that's completely backwards. New England is not only the least interesting part of the U.S., but it is also in the wrong direction. The detour to Boston will easily add 12 hours to your driving time (4 hours there, 4 hours back, 4 hours in Boston urban gridlock) without adding any interesting sights to your trip. I would completely scratch that side trip off your itinereary.
From New York I would head straight west across Pennsylvania. Take Interstate 80 across to Interstate 81 and turn south. Get off at any random point and start exploring small-town Pennsylvania. This is the northern end of Appalachia: deer hunting is a way of life, the hills are beautiful in any season except deep winter, and nothing has changed much since 1960. It really is a great place to just wander at random.
It's also the core of Amish country; you can visit sawmills where they still split logs by hand.
If that's a little too hokey for you, you can visit Three Mile Island. Not sure if they're doing tours, you'd better check, but if they are it's definitely worth seeing. Or, if that's still too hokey, you can go to Duncannon, PA, the best little whorehouse that's NOT in Texas. Nearby, Harrisburg houses the National Civil War museum. It also houses the MacDonalds where I slept on the heating grate during my hobo days in the 70's.
From Harrisburg you can choose west or south. West along the Turnpike takes you to Pittsburgh, where three of America's greatest sports dynasties reside: the Pirates, Steelers, and Penguins. Depending on what time of year it is, you can for sure see one of those play, possibly two. That should put a checkmark besides "sports" on your list.
If you take the western choice and go to Pittsburgh, you will go south after that, taking Interstate 79 down to U.S. 48, and back to Appalachia via U.S. 250 and 220, through all the wilderness preserves there.
If you choose south from Harrisburg, take U.S. 15 down to Gettysburg. If you have time, tour the battlefield; if not, then just carry on south to Cunningham Falls State Park, the first of several opportunities on this route for a decent hike.
When you get to Frederick, MD, you have a choice to make: at this point you're only two hours from Washington DC if you turn southeast on Interstate 270. Needless to say that there are thousands of things in Washington worth seeing, from the Smithsonian to the Obelisk, and I won't waste time typing them all. If you choose that route, you can rejoin the coast roads after your visit to Washington and go down through Virginia Beach and along all the little Atlantic ports to Savannah, where you will turn inland. You can cross "afternoon at the beach" of your list in Virginia Beach, or at any of 100 different places south of there.
On the other hand, if you want to avoid Washington and the coastal crowds, you can turn inland from Frederick and go through the Appalachians. The easy-driving way to do this is to take Interstate 70 back to Interstate 81 and south. The more-scenic way to do the same thing is to take U.S. 340 down until it meets U.S. 522, and so on, continuing to shadow Interstate 81 as you go along.
Any of those Appalachian routes, whether from Pittsburgh or from Frederick, will eventually bring you back to Interstate 81. Once you're tired of driving the mountain roads you eventually decide to get back on the Interstate and make some speed. The main things to see along the way are civil war sites and Appalachian outlooks. There are also a lot of cool caverns: Luray Cavern, Tookaleechie Caverns, Lost World Cavern, and many others. Some cool railway museums too, if you're into that kind of thing.
Ultimately your target is Great Smoky Mountains national park, the crown of the Appalachians. On the last day of your trip you take the hike up to the ranger station there. Then you get on U.S. 441, and after a few twists and turns through the mountains you're in Atlanta in a few hours.
