Getting Around the United States

The first decision on an American itinerary is not which airline. It is whether this is a driving trip with flights at either end, or a city trip where a car is a liability. Getting that wrong is the most common way a well planned route becomes an expensive one.

Driving

For national parks, small towns, scenic routes and anywhere outside a major metropolitan core, a car is not merely convenient; it is usually the only practical option. The interstate network is fast and monotonous, and the older federal and state highways alongside it are slower and far better. Distances are the thing visitors from smaller countries and Americans from denser regions both misjudge: six hundred miles is an ordinary day's drive here and it is still nine hours with stops.

A license from any state works in all of them, but the rules underneath change at the state line: speed limits, whether you may turn right on a red light, phone use, tolling, and how tolls are collected all vary. Many toll roads no longer take cash at all and bill the vehicle instead, which matters for a rental. Fuel is cheaper than most of the world and the price differs noticeably between states. In the West, fill up when you can rather than when you need to, because the gap between stations can be a hundred miles.

Flying

Domestic air travel is the practical way to cross the country, and the network is dense enough that most city pairs connect through a hub within a day. Build in more time than the schedule suggests: security lines, hub connections and weather delays compound, and a tight connection in a major hub during a summer thunderstorm is an optimistic plan. Regional airports are often calmer, cheaper to park at and closer to where you are actually going.

The cities where a car is the wrong answer

A short list of places have transit good enough that driving is worse than not driving, and parking expensive enough to make the point twice: New York above all, plus Chicago, Boston, Washington, San Francisco and Philadelphia. In those cities a rental sits in a garage at a daily rate that rivals a hotel room. Several other cities have useful rail spines that cover the places visitors want even though a car still helps elsewhere. Rideshare covers the gaps almost everywhere, and in most of the country it has effectively replaced hailing a cab on the street.

Trains and buses

Long distance rail in the United States is best understood as a journey in its own right rather than as transport. The routes through the mountain West and along the coasts are genuinely spectacular, the sleeping cars are a real experience, and the schedules are long and not always kept. Take the train because the train is the point. In the Northeast the calculation is different: the corridor between Washington and Boston is fast, frequent and often the best way to travel, city center to city center, with no airport at either end.

Intercity buses cover far more of the country than most people realize and are the cheapest way between many city pairs, particularly in the East and along the West Coast.

Inside the parks

Several of the busiest national parks run shuttle systems in their peak season, and in some of them the shuttle is the only way to reach the most popular trailheads, with private vehicles excluded from the canyon or valley road entirely. Those systems are seasonal and differ park by park, and some parks also operate timed entry or vehicle reservations at busy times. Check the individual park before you assume you can drive to the trailhead, because the answer changes by season and occasionally by year.

Sources

• National Weather Service: Safety: the hazard by hazard public safety material covering heat, lightning, flooding including flash flooding on roads, winter storms, tornadoes, hurricanes and wildfire smoke, and the standing advice to know the forecast and the alerts for where you are going. Accessed 17 September 2026.
• National Park Service: Entrance fee prices: the per park schedule of entrance fees, which differ by park and by whether a vehicle, an individual or a motorcycle is being admitted, and which are published per site rather than as one national figure. Accessed 17 September 2026.