After leaving Dallas, first stop on our route would be Big Texan Steak Ranch in Amarillo, TX, one of the best 10 steak houses, according to Travel Chanel and Maxim Magazine. Next, just outside the city, we’ll visit Cadillac Ranch.

Next is Colorado Springs, CO, with it’s natural beauties, Garden of the Gods, the Seven Falls and a trip to Pikes Peak on the cog railway (with the train, not our car, of course), the highest Colorado railroad and highest train in the United States. It should take us to the 14,110 ft. summit of Pikes Peak.

From here, we’ll drive to the “Mile High City”, Denver, where we plan to visit the city downtown and the Coors Brewery.

More exciting for us is the Rocky Mountains National Park, home to Longs Peak (14,259 feet / 4,346 m), several small glaciers, the Bear Lake and Alberta Falls.

Before getting to Salt Lake City, we’ll make a stop in Park City, UT, city that hosts the annual independent film festival, the Sundance Film Festival and was home to the 2002 Winter Olympic Games.

Our final destination in this segment of our trip is Salt Lake City. It’s main focal point is, of course, the Temple Square, headquarters of the Mormon Church.

Today I’ll start going into details as to what places we want to see in our journey. Here is where you can give your suggestions about what else we can see in our way, places of interest that we didn’t think about.

We’ll start our trip in Key West, FL, the Southernmost City in the Continental United States. We’ll visit Ernest Hemingway’s first owned house in America (he owned the house since 1931 until his death in 1961), the place where he did most of his writing (over 70% of his literary work), including “A Farewell To Arms” and “For Whom The Bell Tolls”.

Next stop is South Beach, in Miami, the first section of the Miami Beach to be developed, starting 1910 and the world’s largest collection of Streamline Modern Art Deco architecture. It is best known as a major entertainment destination with hundreds of nightclubs, restaurants and boutique hotels. Ocean Drive is the most popular street in South Beach with it’s many restaurants and Gianni Versace’s former ocean front mansion.

We’ll then go to Kennedy Space Center, NASA’s launch headquarters, with a tour of the launch areas, rockets and spaceflight simulators. It is located near Cape Canaveral, on Merritt Island.

Next is St. Augustine, FL, the continental United States’ oldest city settled by Europeans, in 1565. It is home to Castillo de San Marcos Spanish built fort and the oldest Wooden Schoolhouse in America.

New Orleans is our next stop. Founded in 1718, the city is most famous for it’s rich history (it was the richest city in the US in 1840), the Mardi Gras parades, the Jazz Fest and, more recent, the Hurricane Katrina.

Next on our list is Houston, TX, the fourth largest city in the US. It’s main attraction is Lyndon B. Johnson Space Center, home to NASA’s Mission Control Center, where we hope not to hear the oh-so-famous “Houston, we have a problem!” from all the Hollywood’s space flight related movies.

From here we’ll go to San Antonio, TX, to wander along the River Walk and learn about the Alamo culture.

We’ll make a stop in Austin, TX, Best Place to Live, according to Money Magazine, Greenest City according to MSN and #1 College Town according to Travel Chanel.

The last stop in this first segment of our trip is Dallas, TX, home to J.R. Ewing and the scene of President John F. Kennedy’s assassination, in 1963.

We will leave from Key West, FL on August 2nd. The plan is to get to NYC on August 25th or August 26th. The route:

Key West —170mi— South Beach in Miami —222.1mi— Kennedy Space Center —693.7mi— New Orleans —376.8mi— Houston, TX —196.7mi— San Antonio —79.7— Austin, TX —195.9mi— Dallas —363.8mi— Amarillo —386.6mi— Colorado Springs —82.7mi— Denver —82mi— Rocky Mountain N.P. —496.3mi— Salt Lake City —769.4— Mt. Rainier N.P. —193.2mi— Seattle —173.8mi— Portland —30.5mi— Multnomah Falls —120.9mi— Lincoln City, OR —291.1mi— Redwood N.P. —359.8mi— San Francisco —46.8mi— San Jose, CA —387.6mi on US1— Santa Monica, CA —16.6mi— Los Angeles —120.9mi— San Diego —125.8mi— Palm Springs —51.3mi— Joshua Tree N.P. —278.1mi— Las Vegas —111.5mi— Death Valley N.P. —337.6mi— Yosemite N.P. —678.2mi— Las Vegas —-157.2mi— Zion N.P. —188.7mi— Grand Canyon North Rim —260.5mi— Grand Canyon South Rim —79.3mi— Flagstaff —109.3mi— Petrified Forest N.P. —236.8mi— Albuquerque —63.9mi— Santa Fe —566.8mi— Oklahoma City —472.4mi— Memphis —387.8mi— Knoxville —487.8mi— Washington DC —38.4mi— Baltimore —98.6mi— Philadelphia —308mi— Boston —215.6mi— New York City

Of course, the route doesn’t take into account the “in-town” driving, to and from the attractions in the visited cities, nor the improbable, but not impossible emergencies, like a car breakdown or an accident that would change our plans. Hopefully not!…

In the next couple of posts, I’ll present in more details the route, with driving segments and attractions that we plan to visit.

The idea is to spend our vacation driving from Florida (where we live) to NYC and, in our way there, see as many interesting places as we can. Of course, a simple search on www.mapquest.com will show a distance of 1,291 miles between Miami and NYC, but we thought we can do better than that. Bigger is not always better, but, this time, we hope 11,111 miles will give us the chance to visit many landmarks that the US has to offer. We designed a route where we get to see a couple major cities we haven’t seen before, get in touch with the nature, visit some of the many National Parks of the continental US (Rocky Mountains, Mount Rainier, Redwoods, Death Valley, Yosemite), to learn more about the American Indian culture (Santa Fe, NM), to taste the most delicious BBQs from Tennessee and many others…

Any suggestions as to what we can see in our way are welcomed as long as we don’t have to go too much out of our original route. Of course we would’ve loved to see many other places that are not present in our route. We would’ve wanted it all, but it’s impossible. We pretty much made a plan and now we try to stick to it as much as possible.

We want to leave from Key West (most southern point in the continental US) on August 2nd and get to New York in 24 days at the most. Time management is therefore very important. We’ll try to do most of our driving (except on the driving segments where the scenery is an attraction in itself) early in the mornings and late evenings, so that during daytime we get to enjoy the city or other place that we get to.

We have exactly 1 month to put all the details in place. We’ll keep you updated.