The BTW Preparations Page

 
 
 

Our Plans

We are planning to make it happen in the month of September 2000. Further if time permits we might continue the excursion into October. It fits in very well with our job change. We will be leaving behind the winter in the northeast. By far this time is the best to travel through the northern parts of America because fall (autumn) will be ssetting in and the fall colours will be out in all splendour. Weatherwise it will be pretty pleasant - not too hot not too cold.

Our plans revovle around the fact that we want to be flexible. What we want to do is go at our own pace and in case we like something we would spend an extra day or two in that place. We are planning to stay in motels / Bed & Breakfasts or even camping. One other factor that we took into consideration is that we wanted to stay away from the big cities, mostly not because we dont like them. But we have seen many of them. Most of the city landscape, though very active, looks the same. So BTW 2000 snakes around natural landmarks, national parks and the like.

Preparing ourselves mentally was also a big thing. We had been talking about this trip for pretty long so that kind of toughened up there. One other thing we did was to take a First Aid course in the local American Red Cross (www.redcross.org). The course was pretty good, the contents were also good. What was bad was the instructor - she was sloppy and came to the course with a big hang over from a previous day's party. However the course material is excellent. We would recommend you do a short course if you are planning to take on such a trip...
 

Our Route

If you want to drive from the east coast to the west coast across the United States we have two popular routes to follow - specifically from New Jersey to California (which is what we are doing):

We are taking a variation of the second route. The changes to the shortest route mentioned above are that we are planning to hover around the  Colorado, Utah area for sometime. We would  drive around to Wyoming, Idaho, Montana, and if time permits into Arizona. So we have really grandoise plans. The basic idea is to cover the following states (some of them in more depth than the others).

The states we are planning to visit
 
Sure about these states
Not sure about these 
(and if time permits)
New Jersey
Arizona
Pennsylvania
New Mexico
Ohio
Montana
Iowa and/or Missouri
Idaho
South Dakota and/or Nebraska
  
Wyoming
  
Colorado
  
Utah
  
Nevada
  
California
  
 
 

Our Packing List

What you pack for a trip can make a lot of difference. You could end up spending a lot on the way or worse not have something that you would desperately need. So we scoured the web for a good list of things to take on such a trip. We landed up with the following broad categories. Please click each of the category for the detailed list or the BTW icon below to go to complete list.


 

The BTW Resources

What would you need to read for undertaking a trip like BTW ? What would you visit on a trip like this ? How would you keep yourself safe on the road ? We were puzzled by the same questions before we started thinking about this trip. One of the best ways to get the answers is to  read about similar trips by other people. The internet is an enormous tool to do this kind of research. Books of course were the final authority about details for the trip. We also need to sit back with a cup of coffee and think about it till everything falls into place. We are listing the resources we referred to in the following categories. This page was developed over time as and when we started collecting the information.  If you get that feeling that it is built in bits and pieces then be assured that the page was built in bits and pieces !! If you want to look at all the resources at one place please click on the BTW icon below.

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