The Route & The Vehicle Clockwise, starting and ending in Toronto. Click images for larger versions. Planning vs. Reality The above map shows the actual traveled route. It's surprisingly close to what we planned. The major difference being the shortening of the large loop through Colorado and Wyoming that would have included Yellowstone and Mt. Rushmore. Even in planning it was questioned whether or not we'd have the time / energy / interest in going this extra distance. Since I'd seen Yellowstone and Mt. Rushmore when I was younger, and since we wanted to maximize the amount of time we'd have on the west coast, we decided to shortcut through Colorado to Utah. (We'd both covered the south-east in our previous travels, so we skipped over that area entirely.) Place the Points and the Route Will Follow From the beginning, the plan was to see everything in the U.S. and Canada that Dan and I wanted to see and go everywhere we wanted to go. To plan our route we just made lists of every place we wanted to go, then transferred that list to dots on a large map, then connected the dots. The route quickly became clear and straightforward. Meet Me in Vancouver An interesting twist in the trip was the arrival of Danny's friend Candice to Vancouver Airport, one month after we began our journey. With Candice, we toured Vancouver Island, camping in the rain and staying in various hotels when the weather was nice. 11 days later Candice flew back to Toronto and another of Danny's friends, Holly, flew out to Vancouver. Holly accompanied Dan and I all the way home. The Tiny Black Ant Our vehicle for the trip was Danny's 1998 Volkswagen Golf. This tiny black 4-door marvel comfortably transported Danny and I through the first month of our trip, though it became extremely cramped with the addition of a third passenger in Vancouver. While it offered decent gas-mileage, a good environmental system, and satisfactory sound system, there were some drawbacks: the brutal reality of 24,000 km with no cruise control anything metal rises to searing temperatures in mere moments when parked in the sun only sleeps one person comfortably for the night; three is definately an issue < Back to Main