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[webny99]

Have you ever driven coast-to-coast?
It must be from a state that borders the Atlantic to a state that borders the Pacific (or vice versa) to count. Or if you're from a central state, two separate trips, one to each coast, would qualify.

If you have, tell us about it. And if you haven't, do you plan to, and what would be your likely path?

[Max Rockatansky]

I've done several that involved cross country moves.  The last one was a couple years back when I moved from Florida back to California.  I had a car full of stuff that needed moving but enough room for me and the dog.  Conventional wisdom would have me taking I-10 but I couldn't stomach that long of a road trip on all Interstates.  I dipped up to US 180 via US 49 in Mississippi I-20 through Louisiana and most of Texas.   I went to Carlsbad Caverns then Guadalupe Mountains National Park while out on US 180/62.  I wanted to go over US 60 in Globe, AZ but the road was snowed over and I had to jump back on I-10...just to run into another snow storm.  I did hook with AZ 72 and AZ 95 to reach California on CA 62.  I took US 95 north to I-40 in Needles so I could do as much of Old US Route 66 as I could west to Barstow.   If I didn't have stuff to move I would have taken a much more haggard road through Texas, but all things considered it was probably the best I could do in the winter.   

[oscar]

I've done sixteen coast-to-coast round-trip road trips. All started and ended in northern Virginia. These include two where I turned back short of the west coast, like one to the California side of the Lake Tahoe area, but did reach a Pacific coast state. Three reached Alaska (in 1994, a rare two-month vacation while I was still working, which included a little beach time on all four coasts, plus additional trips in 2012 and 2016 after I retired). Several additional road trips not in my coast-to-coast count had turnaround points in the Mountain time zone such as Colorado or Alberta, but fell well short of the west coast.

Being retired since 2011 helped. But my first job after law school let me build up enough leave for a cross-country road trip every few years. Later, I moved to a similar job where management pressed me to take more "normal" vacations of three weeks or less. But I took one coast-to-coast road trip while working that job, taking off most of summer 2008 after my office won an unexpectedly quick mega-litigation victory, that temporarily left me and many other lawyers in my office with little to do.

[slorydn1]

Not yet. I have only been as far as El Paso and back. If my youngest son ends up stationed at Camp Pendleton or 29 Stumps after he gets out of boot camp we may do a road trip to visit him there. My wife's first husband was stationed at Camp Pendleton in the late 80's so she lived there for a while before they went to Okinawa, and then subsequently back here to Cherry Point, so she knows the area. I think it would be cool to do myself just one time.

[1]

"State that borders the Atlantic" would exclude someone starting in Philadelphia while including many other places starting farther from the coast.

[dfilpus]

When I was a teenager, our family made a pair of cross-country trips from Michigan, one across Canada to Vancouver BC and back from Oregon to Michigan. The other was from Michigan to Maine and back from New Brunswick to Michigan.
When my son moved from North Carolina to Seattle, we drove his car one way, visiting Mount Rushmore and Yellowstone, along with other national and tourist landmarks. I flew back to North Carolina.
The visits to Yellowstone were 41 years apart.

[webny99]

"State that borders the Atlantic" would exclude someone starting in Philadelphia while including many other places starting farther from the coast.

For the purposes of this thread, PA can be an east coast state. Close enough.

And same for Vermont, too, since you have to go through NY to head west.

[Rothman]

I think the only one by the OP standard that I took was from western MA to San Francisco then down to Los Angeles and back, hitting Yosemite and the South Rim of the Grand Canyon along the way.

[Duke87]

Twice, with both trips originating in New York City.

On the first trip I reached the Pacific Ocean at the Santa Monica Pier, and I kept the parking receipt in that car for the remainder of the time I owned it as a trophy of sorts. So I could show it to people and say "look, this car has been all the way across the country and here's the proof".

On the second trip, in a different car, I reached the Pacific Ocean along the coast of Washington State. I didn't have a parking receipt from anywhere along there but I kept my receipt from the Tacoma Narrows Bridge toll on the way back east, figuring that was close enough to serve the same function.

My third and current car has only been as far west as Las Cruces, NM and I don't foresee taking it any further west since I have no particular reason to. The first two cross-country trips already sealed the deal on me making it to all 48 continental states, and if I want to explore the west coast it is more efficient to fly out there and rent a car.

[Mapmikey]

1984 (passenger) - drove round trip from Charleston SC to San Diego CA.  My parents were strict adherents to the 55 mph speed limit all the way out and back so this was a long trip...
2010 - drove round trip from Virginia to Astoria OR
2014 - drove round trip from Virginia to Vancouver BC

Near misses based on the OP criteria (but these are cross-country as far as I am concerned):
1997 - drove from Virginia to Cut Bank and Glacier NP in Montana back to Virginia
2000 - drove from Virginia to Yellowstone NP then Glacier NP in Montana back to Virginia
2013 - drove round trip from Virginia to Scottsdale AZ

[Jim]

I've got three that qualify by the definition here and I think 7 others where I got to the Rockies from the east coast by car.  I've never had a single trip by car where I saw both the Atlantic and the Pacific, as I've always lived well inland, in the Albany area or the Berkshires.

I look back in amazement at how much we did on the August 1985 trip.  My parents' vacation time limitations meant it had to be done in 3 weeks.  Somehow, starting and ending in New York, we hit many of the big attractions in southwestern South Dakota, Yellowstone, down through SLC and Reno, San Francisco, down the PCH to the LA area, including Disneyland and a side trip to San Diego and a brief walk into Tijuana.  Then back across on a more southerly route including Las Vegas, the Hoover Dam, the Grand Canyon, followed by a mad dash home.  http://www.teresco.org/pics/california-19850810-31/ has all the details.

The first I organized myself was in 1999, motivated by a conference talk in Boulder.  This started back across the north, with the SD sites and Yellowstone.  But then it was off to Seattle, down to SLC, Arches NP, across Colorado to get to Boulder for the conference, with the main remaining stop being in St. Louis.  http://www.teresco.org/pics/xc-19990722-0810/

Still the biggest was Alaska 2001.  Western Mass to Alaska via Chicago, Minneapolis, Winnipeg, Edmonton then up the Alaska Highway.  Then time in Fairbanks, Denali NP, and Anchorage.  On the way back, it was a drive to Skagway via Whitehorse, then the ferry to Bellingham, followed by a "we need to get back" ride mostly on I-90 back home.  http://www.teresco.org/pics/alaska-20010606-30/

[corco]

I have none that quite meet the OP's criteria, but I have made three cross-country trips that barely miss:

1) McCall, ID to Portland, ME and back in 2007 with a few friends from high school after our freshman year of college. We stopped to see various people we had met at our respective universities all the way there and back, essentially partying our way across the country and back. It was a fun two weeks. We did cheat on the way out and go through Ontario and Quebec.

2) Deer Lodge, MT to Woodruff, SC and back in 2014. Woodruff was not the destination, but was the furthest I got from Deer Lodge on my way to the 2014 St. Louis meet. I did this trip nearly completely off-interstate once east of Billings - heading through the UP, then snaking my way down to SC and back to Missouri. With the exception of a few (< 100) miles where the route I was driving was concurrent with the interstate, I drove no interstate mileage outside of Montana.

3) Charlotte, NC to Boise, ID in 2001. I was too young to drive, obviously, but my Dad and I took a Jeep Wrangler that my older sister had been using at college at UNCG back to Idaho when she bought her own car. It was a soft top 4-cylinder Jeep Wrangler with no A/C in the middle of summer, which made for a reasonably miserable trip. We drove I-70 across Missouri with bags of ice on our lap - my Dad finally had enough of the interstates when we got to South Dakota (we took I-90 across SD), and we continued back through Yellowstone. 

I've made more trips from Idaho/Montana to the Pacific than I can count to combine as a single "cross country trip," so I won't list those.

[webny99]

I have none that quite meet the OP's criteria, but I have made three cross-country trips that barely miss:

Given that Idaho isn’t on the coast, you can count two separate trips

[webny99]

Looking through the "clinching counties thread, surely we haven't exhausted this thread yet. 

[webny99]

I've driven as far as North Dakota. Someday, I want to go from there out to Portland and Seattle 

[Ian]

I've done one cross-country trip in my life, and it was a round trip from my home in Pennsylvania out to California and back. This was done in August 2016 (left on the first, returned on the 23rd) with one of my buddies from high school. He had no license at the time, so I ended up doing 100% of the driving. I took over 5,000 photos on this trip, which I'm still uploading to Flickr.

We hit seventeen states total in that trip, some of them being states we drove out of the way to hit, then immediately turn around just to say we went there. Took a dragged-out eight days to drive out along the I-70-44-40 corridor (hitting many US 66 sites), about a week and a half driving all over California, then another eight days to drive back east along the I-80 corridor (with a 3-day detour to Colorado). The best part about this trip was that my buddy and I came up with the idea roughly two weeks before we set sail. Best spur-of-the-moment decision I've ever made!

[pdx-wanderer]

When I was very young, my parents and I drove from Atlanta to Oakland, using a route mostly on I-40. I don't remember much of it at all, but I can say I've been on one! If I ever do one again, I'd like to traverse I-10.

[hbelkins]

I think a coast-to-coast on US 50 would be a neat trip, especially if you had never driven on any significant stretches of it. There was a Time magazine story about someone taking this trip about 15 or so years ago.

As for me, I've already driven it from the Atlantic to just inside Kansas, and I really don't care to drive most of that again.

I was always fascinated with US 60, since it runs through my home state, and thought often as a kid about driving it from Virginia to California. Of course it's since been truncated, but I'd still like to drive it to its westward terminus. I already have all of it from Virginia Beach to just inside Oklahoma, and would like to pick up where I left off.

[leroys73]

I think a coast-to-coast on US 50 would be a neat trip, especially if you had never driven on any significant stretches of it. There was a Time magazine story about someone taking this trip about 15 or so years ago.

To do it all in one trip would be awesome.  I agree western Kansas to the mountains is close to torture.
 
Route 50 is also special to me.  I used to live about 7 miles from it.  My grandparents owned an interstate trucking company with home office in the small Ohio town of Williamsburg.  My dad drove for them in the 40s and 50s as did some of my uncles.  Route 50 was one I heard them mention the most. 

I have ridden motorcycle from Newton, KS to the Atlantic right past the White House in one trip.  From St. Louis to Cincinnati many times by car.  The western half I have ridden almost all of it on a motorcycle.  The parts I have not ridden on motorcycle I have covered in a car.

I am planning a coast to coast motorcycle ride from Jacksonville to San Diego in under 50 hours.  It is only about 2300 miles.  The bad part is I must ride to Jacksonville from Dallas to start the ride.  Then I must ride back to Dallas after finishing it.  Oh, well, we don't call it an Iron Butt Association certified ride for nothing.     

[cabiness42]

No coast-to-coast trips because for all but one year of my life I've not lived anywhere near either coast which makes such a trip very impractical.

I have made one trip from Indiana that reached the Pacific coast, and many trips from Indiana/Illinois that have reached the Atlantic/Gulf coasts.

[webny99]

I have made one trip from Indiana that reached the Pacific coast, and many trips from Indiana/Illinois that have reached the Atlantic/Gulf coasts.

Two separate trips can count for you, because Indiana is (clearly) not a coast state.

[cabiness42]

I have made one trip from Indiana that reached the Pacific coast, and many trips from Indiana/Illinois that have reached the Atlantic/Gulf coasts.

Two separate trips can count for you, because Indiana is (clearly) not a coast state.

A few more inches of rain and it will be.

[Buck87]

I don't have any that were coast to coast in one trip, but I have been on 2 road trips to the Pacific and several to the Atlantic....so there are several combinations I could use.

If I want to pair up my 2 Pacific trips with their longest opposite direction counterparts to the Atlantic it would be:
1992 Pacific Northwest + 1998 Florida
1999 Southern California + 2001 New England

And if I want to have a pair that took place in back to back years it would be:
1999 Southern California + 2000 DelMarVa (or 1998 Florida)

[kkt]

One coast-to-coast trip: Richmond Va. to Seattle via Lynchburg, I-64, St. Louis, I-70 to Columbia Mo., US 63 to Macon Mo., US 36 to St. Joseph, I29 to Iowa/Nebraska route 2, I-80 to Salt Lake City, I-84 to Portland, I-5 to Seattle.

This was in January of umm, 1997.  We had pretty good weather, though.  The snow-capped mountains of Wyoming were spectacular.  We only had enough snow to bother my traveling companion once, I-84 through the Blue Mountains of Oregon; we never actually slipped but it was more snow than she was used to driving in.  Because of the short days we didn't drive very long any day.  Nebraska was awfully long and dull in January, just brown, no crops or grass growing.  The shortcut on 2-lane roads in Missouri was fun, terrific breakfast spot.

Would like to do it again with less of a deadline.

[wphiii]

I think a coast-to-coast on US 50 would be a neat trip, especially if you had never driven on any significant stretches of it. There was a Time magazine story about someone taking this trip about 15 or so years ago.

As for me, I've already driven it from the Atlantic to just inside Kansas, and I really don't care to drive most of that again.

I was always fascinated with US 60, since it runs through my home state, and thought often as a kid about driving it from Virginia to California. Of course it's since been truncated, but I'd still like to drive it to its westward terminus. I already have all of it from Virginia Beach to just inside Oklahoma, and would like to pick up where I left off.

50 and 60 both fascinate me, too. If I had to pick a one-route cross-country trip right now it'd probably be 50, but 60 is also interesting for having one of the lowest population densities along its route of the major east-west U.S. highways.

Without being constricted to one route, an actual itinerary for me would involve a lot of dodging and weaving.