Selma&Louis

Our itinerary

Written by Selma-n-Louis on July 15th 2006 in Itinerary

Here’s our initial travel route:
(click the map to go to a specific part of our route)

NB! We’ve made an updated version of the itinerary, where you can see where we’ll travel from day to day. Click here to check it out!

1 Seattle map

We’re flying in to Seattle, Washington. Here we plan to sleep off the jet lag, shoot some pictures of the Space Needle and then rent a car and start the trip down the west coastline.

See our seperate post about things to do in Seattle.

1 Seattle -> 2 San Francisco map

We plan to make this a rather quick trip down the coast. The view is probably beautiful, but nothing we intend to enjoy for days and days.

See our separate post about the trip from Seattle to San Francisco.

2 San Francisco map

We’ll hopefully spend a few days in San Francisco, visiting Alcatraz, copy the famous shots of the Golden Gate bridge, park uphill in one of the steep streets and party our tits off in the Castro district (… says Selma).

See our seperate post about things to do in San Francisco.

2 San Francisco -> 3 Los Angeles map

Another short trip, just speeding down from San Fran to LA..

3 Los Angeles map

In LA we’ll check out the mandatory tourist stuff: The Hollywood sign, Rodeo Drive, Beverly Hills and so on.

Since we’re both movie buffs and we’re planning to give our trip a movies theme, we’d love to attend the shooting of a film or the taping of a TV show. So if you’re in a position where you can pull some strings and make magic happen, please drop us a note (via the “Help us” link above)!!!

3 Los Angeles-> 4 Las Vegas map

We’ll probably take the shortest route (15?) from LA to Las Vegas, unless people insist (and the schedule permits) that we drive past Death Valley (now, that’s quite a detour) or stop at the Mojave National Preserve.

4 Las Vegas map

It’s time for some fear an loathing! Since we both despise gambling, liquor and strippers, we’ll make this a rather short stop. But we have to see the kingdom of Postmodernism, so we’ll probably stay for one night. Veni, vidi, vamoosi.

See our seperate post about things to do in Las Vegas.

4 Las Vegas -> 5 Indian Nation -> 6 Grand Junction, CO map

After winning or losing a fortune in Vegas, we hope to explore the feeling of the old Western movies, by traveling into the Grand Canyon and further through the Monument Valley (on Route 163?), visiting sites like Tuba City, Arizona (with a big Navajo reservation) and Moab, Utah (movie location for several Western movies, the new Wim Wenders movie “Don’t Come Knocking” AND much of Thelma and Louise!) on the road to Grand Junction, Colorado - where we’ll drop the car off and get on the AmTrak en route to Boston.

We’ll probably spend a night in Flagstaff, Tuba City or Moab - unless someone can recommend better options for this route.

6 Grand Junction -> 7 Chicago map

AmTraks California Zephyr route travels through Colorado, Nebraska and Iowa into Illinois, passing Denver (where we have some friends) and Lincoln, NE (where one of Selmas friends lived for a year). We’ll get off in Chicago and stay for a day or so, before we head on to Boston

According to todays schedule, the train leaves Grand Junction at 10:43 in the morning, and arrives in Chicago around 3:20 PM the next day. The price (as of July 06) for two adults in coach is $226, upgraded to a Superliner Roomette the price is $619 (for both).

7 Chicago map

We’re stopping in Chigaco to let the wind cool us off after the valley heat. We’ll dig up a few movie locations, take odd photographs of the Wrigley building and pimp our wardrobes on the Magnificent Mile.

It would be a shame for two film/TV-buffs to stop in Chicago without visiting the queen of television and future first black female president of the USA. So if you have any tips as to how we can get hold of tickets to a taping of the Oprah Show, please let us know!

From Chicago we might also take a short trip up to Madison, Wisconsin, where our friend, Tim, is finishing his master at the UW-Madison.

7 Chicago -> 8 Boston map

The AmTrak Lakeshore Limited route travels from Chicago into Ohio, and along lake Erie through Pennsylvania and into New York State. In Albany we get on the train to Boston.

9 Boston -> 9 Gettysburg -> 10 Washington DC map

After getting off the train we plan to drive around the New England area for a while. We want to visit the campuses of MIT, Yale and Harvard, visit some movie locations in New Jersey and Philadelphia - and hang out with the rich and famous in the Hamptons.

Then we head south for Gettysburg. We’ve read that Gettysburg is a touristified, commercialised place, so we’ll probably just stop by to take a short look. We’d also like to visit the Amish in Lancaster County, PA. Then we’ll move on to Baltimore, where we’ll spend the night before heading into Washington DC.

10 Washington DC map

While in DC, we obviously have to check out The White House, The Mall, the Lincoln Memorial and the location of the Ford Theatre.

We’ll also head out to Arlington, VA, to visit Pentagon and the Arlington National Cemetery.

10 Washington DC -> 11 Savannah, Georgia map

We plan to visit several places on our way down south, but we haven’t really gotten this far in the planning yet. If you know about a place we really need to stop by, please drop a comment below!

We do want to stop by Savannah, Georgia. It looks like a really idyllic southern town, and we’d like to see the Mercer house, the Forsyth park and other locations from “Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil”.

11 Savannah -> 12 Nashville map

Then we’ll make a detour into the home of country music and further towards the land of the delta blues. If we’re reeeeeally crazy, we might travel into the Smoky Mountains to visit Dolly Partons amusement park, Dollywood.

12 Nashville map

In Nashville we might check out stuff like The Hermitage, the replica of Parthenon or the the Grand Ole Opry, but we’ll most likely just hang out in bars and clubs, enjoying the music and the atmosphere.

13 Memphis map

After a solid dose of country music, we continue to Memphis - the birthplace of the blues and the musical crib for such great artists like B.B.King, Aretha Franklin, Johnny Cash - and of course, the king of Rock ‘n’ Roll. It seems like we will get there just in time for the Beale Street Music Festival, but we’ll miss out on other happenings during the Memphis in May festival - like the world championship barbecue cooking contest!

We’ll also hang out on Beale Street, check out Sun Records and stop by Graceland.

See our seperate post about things to do in Memphis.

13 Memphis ->14 New Orleans map

From country and blues to the birthplace of jazz. From Memphis, we’ll follow the Mississippi river down to Louisiana and New Orleans. We might stop to check out cotton plantations, indian landmarks and antebellum/pre-Civil War houses in Natchez, Mississippi, drive past the largest prison in the US; Louisiana State Penitentiary at Angola and perhaps make a stop in Baton Rouge on our way down to New Orleans.

14 New Orleans map

Sadly, our first visit to New Orleans will be a bit different than we’d hoped. Unfortunate for us, but a disaster for the thousands of victims of the hurricane Katrina. Still, we hope to get a feeling of the old Big Easy.

14 New Orleans ->15 Orlando map

From New Orleans we’ll head towards our final destination: Key West. We’ll drive through the Florida Panhandle, and probably to Orlando. We haven’t planned any stops so far, but all tips are more than welcome!

15 Orlando ->16 Miami map

Louis visited Orlando with his brother and nephew a few years ago, and got his fair share of rollercoasters and psychedelic Disney-happiness. We might stop by just to check it out, but we’ll probably not stay for all that long. We’ll drive further south towards Miami, and would be thankful for any tips about where to stop along the road!

16 Miami ->17 Key West map

We’ll end our tour in the beautiful Florida Keys, driving all the way out to Key West.