Car rental. Hotels, Hostels. Flights. General Travel. Gear. SOUTHERN PACIFIC. Following old US-80 and its contemporary equivalents across the nation’s southern tier takes you through more varied cultural and physical landscapes than you’ll find along any other cross-country route.
Throughout this 3,000-mile journey you can shift from one world to another in the time it takes to watch a football game. Heading east from the golden sands of San Diego, within a few hours you reach the harshly beautiful Southwest deserts, their trademark saguaro (SWA-row) cacti creating a backdrop straight out of a Roadrunner cartoon. The route’s central segment crosses the thousand-mile, “you can see for two days” plains of New Mexico and Texas, where pumpjacks jig for oil and cattle graze beneath a limitless sky.
To the east spreads another land, starting at the cotton-rich Mississippi Delta and continuing along the foot of the Appalachians to the bayous and sea islands surrounding the country’s grandest little city, Savannah.