Advertisement

What’s The Best Car For A Solo Cross-Country Road Trip?

Image: Bradley Brownell
Image: Bradley Brownell

Eastbound and down, loaded up and truckin’. If you’ve got to run across a wide swath of countryside, and you have a limited period of time in which to do it, put another way, a long way to go and a short time to get there, what’s your vehicle of choice? If you had to, lets say, get from Los Angeles to Miami in short order, what’s the best way to skin that proverbial cat? Are you taking something small and economical, or do you want a big teutonic cruiser? Do you care more about speed, fuel economy, or distance between stops?

I’ve lost track of all the cross-country trips I’ve done in recent years, but I’ve managed to run basically every east-to-west highway from sea to shining sea in everything from big delivery trucks to motorcycles. More often than not my road running steeds are neither particularly comfortable or fast. A couple of years ago I drove my 996 Turbo home from San Francisco, and a couple of weeks ago I took my new Audi A3 from Los Angeles to the midwest. Both were pretty great for their own reasons.

Sound off in the comments below as to your choice of road trip radness. What’s the best way to eat up highway miles in a single sitting? You have the choice to grab the keys to any car ever made, what are you picking? Cost no option, what’s the thing you’re taking? Given my choice, I’d pick something that’s not all that comfortable. I want to drive a Volkswagen XL1 across the country and see if I could do it with one stop for fuel. If I hypermiled a bit, and added a little more battery to the stack, I could probably do it without stopping. Wouldn’t that be a treat?

For the latest news, Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.