Trek America - What, How & Why

If you want to experience a different way of exploring, or you might just be fed up with your everyday busy life and want to get away, start over & concentrate on yourself.. Trek America offers you just that.

What a better way to do it than to jet yourself off to a different continent,
where a bunch of new friends and incredible adventures are waiting.

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WHAT IS TREK AMERICA:

Trek America has made a great name for itself since 1972 and the idea of it was and still is very simple & super exciting..

A group of likeminded free spirits, a trailer full of camping equipment (or just backpacks/suitcases for BLT) and a tour leader who knows everything there is to know on how to spend the best time on your great American roadtrip.

IT’S GREAT.

Why I decided to choose Trek America

Since my friend Rachel won a trip to Los Angeles a few years ago and took me with her (yes, for real) I wanted to go back and see as much of the continent as possible, asap.

My dream was to do a roadtrp from west to east, originally route 66.

Both Rachel and I were extremely up for it but there was one problem, which put a stop to our genius plan – I don’t drive and Rachel does.. but she was too scared. Plus we figured it wouldn’t be very doable for only one person to drive through 13 states.

We thought of many different ways to do it, but everything was either too expensive or too difficult. This was going to be our very first ‘travelling’ experience and we didn’t feel very brave at the time.

We finally came across Trek America and loved the idea from the beginning – everything is sorted out for you to just turn up and enjoy.

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Is It For Me?

At this point you will probably have an idea whether this is for you or not. It all depends if you prefer to do it all yourself or go for the easier way out and not worry about a single thing other than to have a great time.

It’s a great way to travel across the US without the worries and stress on how much money you have to spend on petrol, where you will end up going the next day or if you can find a place to sleep – everything is sorted out for you, and it’s brilliant!

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Should I Go On My Own Or With Someone?

As mentioned above, I went with my friend as we decided to go on a roatrip even before finding out about Trek America. It was great and I had an amazing time, however the main good thing about Trek America is that you can go on your own.

I know it can sound scary.
Especially if you never travelled before but trust me – it’s not.

Your trek mates will become really good friends maybe even for life, I had a great group and still talk to most of them today.

If I’d get to go again, I would do it on my own.
We tend to open up a lot more when no-one we know is around and this can lead to meeting many great people and experiencing things you wouldn’t otherwise.

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What Exactly Is Included

There are two types of trek to choose from: Camping and Lodging.
I went for camping and I will explain why later on.

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Trek Leader

What I absolutely love about Trek is that they make sure their leaders are fun, easy going, extremely adventurous but still responsible & knowledgable.

Your leader will play a huge part in the trip – organising the activities, accommodation, teaching you how to set up the camp and most importantly know the ins & outs of every place you are going to explore.

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Accomodation/Camping

This will be all booked and sorted – you have nothing to worry about.

Lodging
Most of the accommodation is hotels, hostels and camping cabins. You will be sharing your room with your trek buddies, with how many of course varies on the type of accommodation.

Camping
My trek ‘Southern Sun’ includes: 14 camping, 2 hotels, 2 hostels & 2 apartment nights. This can vary as usually, the trek leaders are pretty chilled and sometimes you might be able to stay longer at one location. In our case, for example – we got to go to Nashville instead of Alabama and stayed in the most amazing hostel instead of camping (Shout-out to Erin!).

I know what you are thinking now, ‘ARE THERE SHOWERS ON THE CAMPSITES?!’
Yes! And they are pretty good, some super nice even. Some campsites have swimming pools too.
Yup, you read that right.

Camping Equipment (unless you’re lodging)

You will get a 4 man tent which will be shared between 2 people, this gives you a lot of space for yourself, your tent buddy and both suitcases or backpacks. Sleeping mats, cooking equipment from pans to cutlery, cooling boxes and everything that you could possible imagine.

Sleeping mats, cooking equipment from pans to cutlery, cooling boxes and everything that you could possible imagine.. all is included.

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Transport

The van will become your home for the length of trek and you will love it.

I definitely did although I couldn’t help but sleep for most of it.
However, if you’re not asleep – there’s lots of stuff to do from having a laugh with the group to stuffing your faces after every petrol station stop (this will be very exciting!). Make sure you also bring playing cards with you too.

Most (or every?) van comes with a trailer for your stuff and the camping equipment, so you get quite a lot of space inside the van, as everything is out of the way.

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Activities & National Park Entrance Fees

You will end up doing incredible activities from staying overnight at a Cowboy ranch and the stunning Monument Valley to visiting many national parks such as the Grand Canyon or Zion.

You can however, add a lot more to it and pay extra for things such as white water rafting or a helicopter flight, all the extra costs are stated on your treks itinerary.

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Food Kitty (Optional – Camping Only)

This is at an extra cost: $10 per day which you pay at the beginning of the trip.

Your trek leader will ask the whole group to see whoever wants to go ahead with it and once you give the money, he or she will then make sure it lasts for the whole or most of the trip.

This works out really good as it covers your breakfast, lunch and most dinners. It’s also great to be able to cook and eat all together by the campfire.

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Which Trek Should I Choose?

You can go on the Trek Americas website here and choose one of the many options such as budget lodging, camping, mini adventure, winter adventure and more.

Trek America also does a yearly brochure, which includes most of the information you need to know. I found that the most helpful as it lets you physically mark the pages, write or stick notes etc.

The most important thing is to choose how long you would like to go away for, this can vary from 7 to 63 days. Keep in mind that you will most likely need to add a day or two before and after the trek as it starts at 7am. You might also want to explore a bit more after it finishes.

Our trek started in Newark and we went to New York 2 days before. We also extended the trip after – having an extra day in Los Angeles and then carrying on to San Fransisco, where we stayed 3 days before going back to the UK.

I felt that it’s much better money wise to go for a longer trek as you are paying a lot for the flights either way. I figured that the time will probably just fly by and anything less than 14 days will be too short.

Because the trek is not cheap, I had to save a lot in order to do it in the first place. I decided to save up for a few months longer and get as much out of it as possible. It also depends on your job arrangements, I managed to get it off work before I decided to quit and carry on travelling for a bit.

I decided to do the Southern Sun as it covered the most places that were on my bucket list.
It was 21 days – absolutely perfect length of time in my opinion.

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Camping or Lodging?

The reason why I have chosen to do camping is simply for the full experience.

When else will you get the chance to sleep under the stars in the Monument Valley with nothing but your sleeping bags? I’ll be honest and say that the idea of making smores and drinking from red cups around the campfire might have made a massive tick on the pros list too.

I had a few worries when deciding – not being a huge fan of camping in the first place, the fact that I would completely freak out when seeing a spider or anything crawling plus my allergies.

However, I decided to forget about that and just go with it, I wanted to become stronger, more open minded and learn how to deal with situations out of my comfort zone. I also didn’t want my allergies to stop me from doing my dream trip at the time. So I’ve spent an endless hours on google, finding products and must haves that would make this possible instead of worrying.

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Read : Trek America – Full Packing List

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Saying that, lodging can be a great option too. The best way to decide is to choose the trek you want to do – read the itinerary, see what places you will be visiting and literally just write a list of pros and cons.

If you want to visit a lot of national parks for example, then camping might be the only option.
If however you like your comfort and don’t care about campfires and smores because either way, you will have an awesome time – you can just go for lodging.

I’ve heard that camping brings everyone closer together,
but I’m sure it depends on the group and both experiences are just as great.

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What Is The Cost?

I will say it straight – it will cost you a lot, but deciding to travel in North America will most likely cost a lot whichever way you choose to do it.

Depending on which trek you do, the prices vary a lot.
It can cost you about £600 for 7 days or £1,700 for 21 (my one, for example). I managed to get a deal at the time of booking, getting a free night before & after the trek at the gateaway hotels.

You might of course be able to do it cheaper yourself, but adding all the costs up including car hire, petrol, accommodation etc, will still add up to quite a lot and might be quite nerve wrecking if you have never done something like this before.

Choosing Trek America is also mainly for the convince, you simply pick what you want to do, book it and turn up to have the time of your lifetime.

It’s great if you don’t have anyone to go with and don’t feel brave enough to just go out there and explore a different continent all by yourself.

There are other companies that do similar trips including STA Travel and I can’t remember the others but they all looked good as well, however I found Trek America to suit my needs best – accommodation, group sizes and location wise.

Below I’ve listed my spendings (more less) that you need to consider as well:

Flights – £700
Travel Insurance – £85 plus the extra days added = around £100
Food Kitty – $210 / About £150
Activities & Spending Money – £1700, including New York, San Fransisco, helicopter flight etc. Make sure you take petrol station stops into consideration.. you will spend more than you think! ?
Things You Need – Don’t forget about a sleeping bag, suitcase, day backpack, trainers etc. all of this adds up too before you’ve even left. I will do a packing list soon if you would like to see it!

Read :
How I Saved £7,000 in 10 Months

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If you would like to find out more about Trek America or book a tour, click below
www.trekamerica.com

I think I’ve covered all the basics and hope that it’s helpful to some of you.

If you are considering to go ahead and book a trek – Do it!!
I’m not saying that because they sponsor me (I wish!)
But because I really did have an incredible experience that I will never forget!

And here is a little something for you, my amazing Trek Buddies made a whole movie from our trip and here is a trailer that will for sure make your feet itch!