Hi everyone. Pretty sure this is my first post here, so hello.

I'm planning on road tripping around the U.S.A some time in the near-ish future. What stuff should I see? What should I do? I like driving, so you can include stuff where the destination is the journey.

I assume car? Where are you starting? What is your general route. Need more information.

Yeah, car. I'll be starting somewhere in the north, because I'll be coming from Canada. I need to take in Rochester, NY and Athens, Georgia. And my friend wants to go to Arizona.

Those are the only mandatory stops. Apart from that, I am young, and I will be free. I could go anywhere, and stay till the end of my money or visa, whichever comes first.

If you're stopping in Athens, you might as well drop by Atlanta. You'll probably have to come through the city to get to Athens, anyway. In all honesty, Atlanta kind of sucks compared to most metropolitan US cities.. so yeah.
I'd suggest Chicago, IL, plus some other Midwestern cities. Avoid Texas.

Yeah avoid the south.

Texas is just too big and full of texans to get to the few cool places. Alabama needs to be purged, mississipi is poor and depressing. Florida probably not worth the time (especially in the winter). The entire east coast is just one homologous blob of metropolitan area (avoid it). And I mean the actual coast, not the colloquial east coast region. Places like Maine, Vermont and New Hampshire are pretty fun, but there's not really much to do and see besides just bumming around the mountains.

Are you just looking for cool places to visit or a lot of out door stuff? Probably want to head out west either way.

I'm into camping and whatnot, easily prepared to live out of a cheap, dirty van for weeks on end eating tinned food or noodles. I'd love to do outdoor stuff like hike or ride a pushbike in some scenic bush and get to a cool spot. Not really one for fancy hotels and shopping.

I'd love to see a show or two. Maybe some blues or jazz in Chicago.

I would check out N. Cali, Oregon, Washington, Colorado. They offer some amazing forests and mountains...but they're heavily populated enough to have fun in.

Wyoming, Montana and the likes are pretty cool as well, but be prepared to drive 4 hours without seeing someone.

If you go to chicago...the aquarium downtown is my favorite thing to do (Shedd aquarium). There's also a really cool park a long lake michigan with some great sculptures...lots of places to shop but Chicago is really boring otherwise.

Wisconsin and Minnesota may be worth checking out. Minneapolis/St. Paul and Madison are both pretty fun areas. They get some pretty good shows...there's a lot of smaller festivals between the states. In northern minnesota you have Voyagers national park too, great place.

But yeah, you're from Canada right...so I don't know how much some of this stuff will appeal to you (Minnesota pretty much is Canada once you get passed the twin cities).

Not from Canada. But i'll be coming from that way because i'll be on a working holiday.

ahh australia...my bad.

There is another thread exactly like this in TT.
I'd say to visit all the major cities, of course, but also check out the smaller cities too. They usually have some cleaner food, nicer people and overall better road-trippy sort of stuff that you can miss out on when you only go to the big cities.