6,000 mile road trip

I get about 11mpg now...hopefully can improve this by the time I set off

 

Agree completely with obeying the speed limits. It's a road trip. So enjoy it and no reason to rush. (I speed all the time. I'm just saying enjoy the road). I'd also say take a bunch of pictures so we can enjoy. I've never taken a badass road trip so I'll need to live through yours.

 

Me and my friend are both bringing our cameras and will be documenting and posting everything. We aren't leaving till June... but still we will have everything up here.

 

Your best bet for better mileage would be to draft a big rig on the interstate @ 80mph.

My consumption in my car would go from 28mpg to 36mpg when I did that.

 

good idea

 

what dates you planning to do this? You are not going to get to do much of any off roading the the Rockies in Colorado this time of year, everything is going to be closed for snow. Sep Oct is best time for Colorado wheeling. That is definitely terrain you dont want to miss out on

To get better millage try to stick to roads with high speedlimits on days when there is no wind, or stay around 55-65. Last time i hit the highway with 75mph speedlimit, i got worse millage than I get driving in the city

 

I noticed this too. On my most recent long trip I strictly held 65 mph and got about 1.5 mpg better than my summer trip, where I was doing 75 or so average. Just get comfy in the right lane and cruise.

 

Not that far north, but I've done trips from GA to Colorado and back multiple times. Went as far as Yellowstone twice. We went west on I-70 on one trip, took the 1st exit in Utah south and ended up going through Moab and heading back east across northern AZ and NM. We stay off the interstate as much as possible once in the western states.

There are a lot of things to do just about any where once you get past the Dakotas, Nebraska or Kansas depending on the route. We would get up early and just drive. My wife was navigator and she had guide books. If something close by caught her attention we'd stop. We never had a plan. When it got close to dark we'd find a place to camp or a cheap hotel. If we found an area we liked we might stay 2-3 days in one spot, but at a different location most nights.

I'm not saying not to do what you plan. I don't regret going to any of the places I've been to, but won't go back to most. When the grandkids get old enough to appreciate it I'll do another trip that includes Yellowstone. But after multiple trips I like Colorado best. It is a 24 hour sprint from here, not much to see before Colorado so we don't mind driving at night east of there. We drive it straight through switching drivers and and sleeping when not driving. Once there you can spend 2 weeks doing a loop around the western half of the state and see more than you'd see driving another 1000 miles in any direction. There are some excellent off road trails into some old ghost towns, Pikes Peak etc. Rocky Mt National Park is much better than Yellowstone. But it doesn't have the geo thermal features which are worth a look. If I were in Northern Montana I'd love to see Glacier NP. That is on my bucket list.

On a casual trip I averaged almost exactly 20mpg over 5500 miles on our last trip with my wife in my 2007 DC 4X4. A year earlier I went with a BIL hunting. We were loaded heavy and had to haul ass to get there and back. I still got 18.5 even though I was cheating on the speed limit most of the way.

 

Agreed, I have spend a lot of time traveling the west, and Colorado is the only place I continue to go back and re visit places ive already seen a dozen times! Though I have not ventured north of Colorado yet

 

Some more parts to bring: replacement cv axles, at least 1 or 2.

 

I've done some PA to CA road trips. My only advice is to take some more time off if you can. Three weeks will go by fast!

 

+1 on taking more than 3 weeks to be able to see stuff rather than just driving through.

 

Agreed on Rushmore. Crazy Horse was cooler to see. Driving the the Needles is really cool as well.