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Hello folks,

So as it turns out, I am not able to find employment in current economy and one of my friend quit his job last week, we decided its a good time to do a nice little road trip. So we were thinking of driving from chicago to Seattle; but we def. want to go through Utah, Colorado, Arizona and Cali. Any suggestions for the route are welcome. My friend wants to go through (now defunct?) Route 66 and since I'm the only driver, I'm not too comfortable with just a two laned road all the way. So, any ideas are welcome. :Cheering:

That should be fun! Driving through Arizona & Utah gives you a very different feel,with the geographical features being so different in comparison to the rest of the country.
Route 66 is still functional in some segments,and in summer its actually not that bad.Drive there in winter,and you'd find yourself a bit scared with all the traffic.
I'll talk around and see what people suggest.

Driving through Arizona, Utah and Nevada is going to be a great experience i can assure you! Try to drop by Zion national park and Brice canyon.

Its a beautiful stretch which I did, albeit a few years ago. I have run through I-70 in Colorado, into Utah, across to Arizona (Grand Canyon) and back to Colorado through New Mexico. A 1500 mile trip I think and the air conditioning in my Enterprise Rented Car stopped working halfway on that stretch. Once you hit Utah, there are (or were) no emergency services/food/gas for a hundred mile stretch, not sure if that is the case even now, take a lot of drinking water, and make sure you are tanked up before you hit this stretch (you will get a sign board before that indicating the same).
If you have dune bikes, nothing like it. have fun in Utah!

Enjoy your ride! and do write about it when back.

Go to california, take the old route 66 and relive history! It will be the trip of a lifetime.
Alternatively go to Bonniville salt flats!

Keep the suggestions coming in. Now, while I decided to do this exciting adventure, I thought that renting a car wouldn't be a big problem; turns out it is, in the sense that they're charging a one way rental drop-off fee in excess of $1200. So, just the rental with taxes and other bs charges for about 10days looks like about $1800. Not worth the case I think. I tried National, thrifty, dollar, alamo but to no avail. Any of you guys could help me out on this front ? I am scared of driving my '94 Mazda on such a long journey, not that there's anything wrong with it besides tyres but still considering its such a big trip and its such an old car, certainly not in the pink of its health, gives me jitters at the thought of doing this trip in my own car. I mean I have driven upto 500 miles a day for about 10hours in my car but still, 10days is a whole different ball game I think. Ideas, suggestions ?

Chicago-Denver (Iowa, Nebraska)
Denver-Salt Lake City
Salt-lake city-Las Vegas
Las-Vegas-Phoenix
Phoenix-LA
From here you drive northwards towards SFO and up. I have done these and don't remember the exact freeways.

Hey Sri,

Did you rent a car or drove your own ? Please Refer to my post above yours regarding problems with the rental.

Go by car and come back by the same rental car, if you drop off at a distant location, exhorbiant charges apply for all rental companies.

Sorry did not mention. I have done these routes many times but not all through at the same time.
However, I have done Chicago-Denver-Las Vegas back to Chicago once with a special deal on Toyota Sequoia. See if you can get a deal from the dealer themselves who sometimes rent cars like these.
Done not more than 1000 miles on my own car.