Coast to Coast America

[r34ver]

hey, bit of an odd one. I'm planning to drive coast to coast across N.America in a couple of years time, i was wondering about the logistics of such a journey. Firstly, how expensive is it to get a car (mini, of course) shipped/flown out to the USA? Secondly, how long do you reckon it will take? I'm not planning to do it as quickly as possible (i want to see the sites a bit) but a rough idea? Also i'm thinking of doing it for charity, whats the best way of doing that? Contacting the charity outright?

As a bit of an aside- reccomendations for CD's to take on the journey. Thanks in advance. Ross

[AprilWhine]

Can't help with most of your questions, but can help with figuring time. If you drive 16 hours a day, use freeways, choose the most direct route and exceed the speed limit regularly, you can make it coast to coast in about four days.

[redskunk]

I'm planning on doing it next year, will watch the thread.

[bigcoyote]

Hey there,

Well, lets see......Driving across N. America - USA & Canada. I would pick some places you want to visit and plan your route accordingly. As April said , you "could" do it in 4 days - but that would be a non-stop adventure - no sight-seeing at all . It would also depend on weather - the Northern States & Canada can get lots of nasty weather in the winter - so a Southern route would be better. Or vise versa - in the summer the Southern States would be hot & humid while the Northern route would be a little cooler???

As far as the charity thing goes - I would talk to your prefered charity and see what they say - you will most likely need a letter on a formal letterhead and have to present your idea to several people before you get to the real "decision maker" of the charity. OR you could do it "unofficially" and send letters to businesses asking for donations and explain what you are going to do and how the money will be used / distributed and how much the charity will get. Maybe get some decals made up for the biggest donations and put the business name on the car someplace ( like $500.00 gets a 2"X4" decal on a window, $2500.00 gets a big door decal, $5000.00 gets the hood / roof , etc....) .

On the music question - I would buy an Ipod ( or something like it ) and get the FM transmitter so you can listen to all your tunes on any car you are in ( no adaptor required ).

Good luck - hope this helps
Just remember - the USA & Canada are HUGE - very long distances and some very remote areas. ( did you ever see "deliverance"??? )

PS - you might contact MINI USA or MINI International with your idea - they might provide a car?? If its for charity it might fall under the MINI USA Motoring Hearts program.

[dakini]

I've done a Washington, D.C. to Tempe, Az. drive in 7 days. Not too fast a drive, had time to stop in New Orleans, etc. We took the Southern route. Absolutely gorgeous. Add 2 days to make it all the way to Cali.

I'd check into other cars ... maybe Mini can work out something with you delivering a car to Cali for them? I had a friend who did this in college ... Because if you're coming from Britain, you don't really want a right-hand drive car on roads in the US. It's different than driving a right-hand car on the Continent.

I agree with the iPod suggestion. Or else burn songs to mp3 disks if your car stero will read them. That means 250 songs per CD.

You might also see if Mini will put your car on one of their chipping containers for a cut rate. I know some of them dock at Charleston, SC. At least, that's where my mini came in. And a great place to start a Mini adventure.

Good luck figuring out the logistics, and keep us informed of the plans!

[Wooly]

Quote:

Also i'm thinking of doing it for charity, whats the best way of doing that? Contacting the charity outright?

what charity is that, donating to global warming. unless there is a purpose to this trip i wouldnt bother to be honest. just my 2p

[r34ver]

I take heed of your warnings that the usa is indeed a largeish area and i'm not going to start this without some serious planning. As regards the charity i had thought of some decals, which brings me back to the car shipping situation..Great idea to see if mini will let me get onto one of their shipping containers, but who the bejeesus would i speak to about that? my local dealer ? "alright mate".."yeah..uh.. i want to move my car to america please", "o...k..do you want TLC with that?"

hrmm. an alternative is to buy a banger out there and dispose of it before i come back ( a friend of mine suggested i drive it into the hudson at the end of my journey..not too sure they'd be happy with that, what with all the mafia bodies already down there and all)


global warmings a load of nonsense. hyped up by the media to get us to buy their "eco friendly" products.Climate flucuates heavily,there was a mini (no pun intended) ice age just 300 years ago. Ozone depletion will counteract the greenhouse effect anyway.

[Goonery]

You might like to check out this :

http://www.mini2.com/forum/off-topic...05-thread.html

Basically the coast to coast thing as regards Chicago to LA and back if you want is around 7000 miles as we did it.
We started in Chicago and motored west on Route 66 keeping as much as possible to the old alignments, then after arriving at Santa Monica LA journeyed up Highway 1 along the coast to Monterey before turning back in land to Vegas, then Zion Nat'l Park, Vail Colorado in the Rockies and on back to Chicago. It took arpund 15 days in all and was not a 'pressure' drive to get anywhere.
Travelling and accomodation was surprisingly easy and we'd like to think we saw a lot of the real America on the way.
Renting a MINI although possible was not cost effective waht with regulations about taking cars out of state and so on, so we went with a stock rental from Hertz which happened to be a nice Mustang convertable.
Lots of help from US residents via Motoringfile and NAM webites and forums plus a extra tips from the various Route 66 associations prepared us for much of the trip and I have to say if we could do it again tomorrow we would