Best road trip: East Coast or West Coast ? (home, pros and cons)

[Vincent2514]

Looking for a US road trip, I was wondering..
Which coast would you consider the best for a road trip in terms of scenery, roads, touristic attractions, safety and cities along the way? What are the pros and cons of each?

[BigCityDreamer]

If you prefer scenery - mountains and beaches in close proximity - and urban settings with a lot of natural beauty, then the west coast.

If you prefer more cities, more history and areas with higher population density among natural scenery, then the east coast.

Safety will not be a problem in either region.

[Vincent2514]

Originally Posted by BigCityDreamer

If you prefer scenery - mountains and beaches in close proximity - and urban settings with a lot of natural beauty, then the west coast.

If you prefer more cities, more history and areas with higher population density among natural scenery, then the east coast.

Safety will not be a problem in either region.

Thanks! Sounds like a fair analysis!

[nei]

The east coast has better cities, but for variety I'd choose the West Coast. Depends what you're looking for.

[Bruce S Foster]

What's the cost efficient way to travel east to west starting in Richmond Va.?

[ABQConvict]

If you are from the East, the West coast.

If you are from the West, the East coast.

Expand your horizons. And both have beautiful scenery as well as cities and historic value. The real trick is taking a good route to get the best of any region.

[Pyroninja42]

Truthfully, I think limiting yourself to one coast is a bad idea. All of my favorite road trips haven't been from North To South, but East To West or Vice Versa.

[bluecarebear]

The east coast. More variety and you can get in the water.

[lrfox]

I'd rather road trip the West Coast. For starters, the geography along the coast is more dramatic and if you take the right roads, more scenic for a sustained distance. The East Coast is great. It's beautiful. But from about New Jersey to Miami, the geography of the coast doesn't change that much (you're on the Atlantic Coastal Plain). It's pretty flat. The beaches are wonderful, there are some awesome towns and great cities, but the drive won't be particularly scenic. It's also harder to follow the ocean coast in the East. On the West Coast, coastal 1 hugs the coast for most of California, and 101 hugs it in Oregon and Washington. Both roads offer stunning vistas and are home to a number of great cities and smaller towns. It's much, much, much harder (really impossible for practical purposes) to do that on the East Coast. In some places, primary roads on the East Coast run along the ocean's edge, but the coast is broken up in so many places by bays, rivers, barrier islands, etc. that there's nothing comparable to the West Coast's 1 or 101. Especially north of New York City where New England's coastline is exceptionally jagged. Gorgeous, but not really from a vehicle window.

If you're not really looking for a coastal road trip and just deciding on which section of the country to say, I'd say it's more of a tossup. For natural beauty and weather, I'd lean toward the West Coast. Aside from the coast, the Sierra Nevada and Cascade Mountains are accessible from the major cities on the West Coast and the coastline is gorgeous (and very easily accessible).

For a cultural/urban standpoint, the Eastern U.S. may be more ideal. From an urban standpoint, I think there's a bigger difference between the major cities on the east coast than on the West Coast. Especially from a visual standpoint. While Seattle and LA are very different places, I think the difference between a Boston/New York and Miami is even greater (both visually and culturally). I think the East Coast provides more options for stops outside of the major cities as well. Again, both coasts have great cities and towns along the way, but I think the East Coast has more. There are dozens of towns worth visiting along Coastal Maine from Eastport to Kittery. Coastal New Hampshire is tiny, but a gem (Portsmouth being the nicest spot). Cape Ann (particularly Rockport and Gloucester), Salem, Boston, Plymouth, and all of Cape Cod are great stops in MA. Rhode Island has Newport, Bristol, Narragansett, and Providence that are absolutely worth visiting. In CT, Stonington, Mystic and Greenwich are charming and New Haven is worth a visit for Frank Pepe's alone. That's just New England. I have to reiterate that comparable places do exist on the West Coast (Monterrey/Carmel/Big Sur remains one of my favorite regions anywhere). But I think there are more (in terms of numbers) interesting cities and towns on the East Coast.

Either way, you'll see a lot. If you get a chance, do both.