My name is Robert. Almost every year I travel to travel in the USA. When I arrived there for the first time in 2002, I realized that only in this country everything is done really for people. Not only for tourists, but also for people in general.
Why the USA
Usually I fly to Florida or California, and travel around the sights in a radius of 4-5 thousand km, but this time we got together with my wife and son to travel to all states.
The goal was to visit all your favorite attractions. This is another criterion why I prefer to travel to the states - all the most amazing and beautiful places are located in one country. In addition to the attractions of Florida, we had to visit Las Vegas, Chicago, Detroit, the Valley of Geysers, the Valley of Arok, the Grand Canyon, the Smoking Mountains, the Nutty Indian, the Arizona desert and much more.
The first convenience for tourists in the United States is to rent a car right at the airport. A free shuttle, bus or train usually goes directly from the terminal to the car rental center. About 10 different companies work there. To make it cheaper, it is better to book a car in advance via the Internet, then the price of a standard Kia Rio sedan will be about $ 1000 per month.
Trip start
We managed to get a rental car a little higher class than we ordered. This happens because cheap cars make out quickly. And despite the fact that you have chosen a cheap car and have already paid for it, they offer you a more spacious car.
We chose Nissan Almera, set up our Tom-Tom tracker, an analog of our Yandex-maps, and went to friends who have been living near Miami for 20 years.
Having a rest with friends in a summer house on the Atlantic coast, we drove to the north of Florida and further to the west. It was necessary to travel from 500 to 1000 km per day, depending on the location of the sights.
First adventure
May 7 was the first adventure awaiting us.
We were at the beginning of the 1.5-month journey, and our son slipped by the pool in one of the hotels and broke his arm and leg. We had the opportunity to experience American medicine.
In short, this is a very cool provision for patients and hospital beds. Each bed has a full range of tools, expensive diagnostic tools are all mobile. For example, we did X-ray 6 times, rolling the apparatus from the corridor.
This entertainment is sky-high money:
a day in the ward - about $ 3000,
a mini-bone reduction surgery is about the same
all diagnostics - from $ 100 to $ 1000 per procedure.
As a result, the total bill from the hospital was about $ 15,000. Hotel insurance paid $ 8,000, the rest had to be paid by our insurers.
Where were and what they saw
On the road in front of Houston, we entered the bridge over the Atchafalaya River.
This bridge does not go across the river, but along almost its entire length. This is the first such bridge in my life. According to the stories of Americans, it was built in 1930 with an environmental goal - so as not to disturb the local flora and fauna.
Gasoline prices in the USA depend on the state (sales tax, which in each state is different). In the southern states: Mississippi, Louisiana and Texas, it is the cheapest. In terms of rubles - 37 rubles per regular (analog AI-92). But further down the states gasoline is growing very strongly. The most expensive is $ 3.3 per gallon, which is around 50 rubles per liter.
In Arizona, we stopped at Cactus Park. It is about 30 km in the hills with flowering plants. It is very dry there, nature is poor in colors and only cacti feel great, growing up to 4 m tall.
In New Mexico, we were unable to drive past the White Sands.
Despite the 50-degree heat, these sands are cool because the whole sun reflects its whiteness. Tourists ride cheesecakes from small hills there.
A path past to Las Vegas
I can talk about Las Vegas for hours, as I have often been there. Once I spent 1.5 months there without a driver’s license (I just forgot) and was forced to use public transport until the return flight.
In Las Vegas, we stayed at our favorite Stratosphere hotel to relax and play a bit at the online casino. After all, as without a casino in Las Vegas, right? Which deserves a separate story.
The hotel has a huge swimming pool on the 8th floor, a restaurant on the tower at an altitude of 100 m, attractions located above the restaurant, slot machines, the area is comparable to the Red Square in Moscow.
After resting for a week in the Stratosphere, we drove on to my beloved Grand Canyon.
Such emotions, when you approach the edge of the cliff, and its bottom is at a distance of 1.5 km below, you can only experience Niagara Falls. There is an asphalt path along the canyon.
On the way to the Grand Canyon we stopped at Sequoia Park in California.
Trees with a thickness of 10 girths are impressive. Inside the fallen trees, cars pass quietly. The oldest tree is about 300 years old. Suffice it to say that in this hot state, a sequoia forest really reduces the temperature due to its huge mass by 5-10 degrees.
Well, of course, we did not pass the Yellow Stown (geyser valley).
This is the second of my favorite places in the USA. If you have ever seen pictures of colorful lakes on postcards, imagine that in nature it will look as colorful as well. Blue-yellow-red lakes and streams, yaks and buffalos roaming the roads and along them, 20-meter water fountains erupting from the ground.
There we again fell into an adventure.
There is one two-lane road along the perimeter in the park. And suddenly we got into a 2-hour traffic jam. As it turned out later, a herd of buffalo stepped onto the road and slowly went about their business. When we arrived at the place of walk of these huge bulls, two of them came to the center line of the road and calmly walked along it, glancing at the passing cars. And the whole herd was walking along the road and probably consisted of hundreds of bulls.
Next came the more populated states, and through Chicago we drove to Detroit.
I have long wanted to look at the "dead" city, where in the middle of the last century was the capital of the global automotive industry. There are huge blocks of expensive abandoned houses in it, which, apparently, are being rented to the homeless. But most of the houses are empty and destroyed, as are automobile workshops.
Our car trip to the USA was drawing to a close.
Limited by the scope of the narrative, I have not yet talked about many attractions - Arok Arches Park, small waterfalls, LeoVegas, beautiful mountains and gorges.
Results and expenses
The USA is a very safe country.
Sometimes hotels, which we rented solely for reasons of economy, were in poor neighborhoods. But apart from the surprised looks of black people, nothing threatened us. Sometimes during trips some kind of excesses could occur with the car. But the companies in which we rented cars always helped us. Until the replacement of the car.
To summarize all our expenses for traveling around the USA by car, we spent $ 10,000 from the total budget on:
$ 1,400 for car rental for 1.5 months,
$ 1,500 for gasoline,
$ 1,500 for hotels that stayed along the way,
$ 1,600 for a round-trip flight for 3 people,
$ 500 dollars for food,
the rest is for shopping.
