The old routes are IMHO definitely the way to go if the goal of the trip is purely pleasure.
There’s an old saying about limited access highways: “I passed through some beautiful country on the highway today”… emphasis on “passed through”.
You gotta make it 49. While I respect Alaska, wilderness isn’t my cup of tea, but Hawaii is absolutely gorgeous. But bring lots of money. 
A road trip from the Continental United States might be a little difficult.
LOL, good point.
But in '71 myself and a few fellow GIs had a layover on the way to… well, to Vietnam… and drove a rented car all the way around Oahu. It left a deep and good impression on me. As did the Arizona Memorial. And Waikiki. Great stuff.
Man, there must have been a big profit on those after-market shifters he sold.
;-]
As far as high costs go . . .
Aren’t many/most goods flown into Alaska and Hawaii?
If so, that would go a long way towards explaining the costs, I would think
Excellent point.
Whatever the reason, it’s expensive there. But well worth it if you can get there. It truly is a beautiful place. And driving there is just plain gorgeous.
I recall the drive in Big Island be both fun and a bit unnerving. We cut through the non-recommended route to the other end of the island with a rental Nissan Altima. An off road car would had been more assuring as at around midnight on the way back I was starting to worry about the car breaking down on me and I had not see any cars on the road for quite some time.
Monkey see monkey do I guess. One person says it and everyone does the same. Hearst. Thank you.
According to the website “Tickets may be purchased at the Visitor Center upon arrival depending on availability, but advance tour reservations are strongly recommended” you can make a reservation up to 56 days in advance.
That is true, but I still think it is interesting that Hawaii has “Interstate Highways”.
http://www.hawaiianswers.com/why-are-there-interstate-highways-in-hawaii/
Outer Banks are fantastic (when it’s not hurricane season). I also love camping all around the Shenandoah Mountains. Seneca Caverns and the Seneca rock climbing areas of West Virginia are stunning (even if you only go to take pictures and hike instead of climbing). I have some breathtaking pictures from Blackwater Falls State Park too.
Closer to my neck of the woods in PA, Centralia is really neat trip to take, Lancaster County has a ton of things to do (Amish and non-amish) like the Strasburg Railroad Museum, historic Lititz (voted America’s Coolest Small Town), Ephrata Cloister, Hans Herr House…All of the major cities have a ton of things to do no matter what age range your family is.
I’m taking a weekend trip to Chicago for the first time in late October, so I’ll probably be putting up a similar topic in a few weeks 
In 1969 I had a short layover in Hawaii also and several of us rented mopeds and cruised around despite being told not to leave the airport. Maybe one day I can get back and see more of Hawaii. What I saw was beautiful.
My rental car company (Avis?) required me to read and sign that I understood driving Saddle Road was prohibited using their vehicles.
If you had one of those Aqua cars, you might be able to drive from Hawaii but take extra gas along. Not many stations between Honolulu and LA. Maybe someday they’ll build a bridge. Nice place though but I get claustrophobic on islands. Must see the Peal Harbor memorial though.
You guy’s that has been to Hawaii have me curious do people ship their car’s to hawaii or is there no out of state tag’s there?
You just rent a car or buy one there. I never actually paid any attention to license plates. Gotta remember they are islands and you fly from one to the other usually, so your own car is a boat anchor.
I saw a few out of state plates. One was Alaska. I just did a search and you can ship a car from our West coast for $900-$1,200. I’m thinking the out of state cars belonged to people who moved there. I don’t think there would be much advantage to buying a new car in Hawaii as the sale price would certainly include the shipping.
Speaking of the Amish . . .
I used to live in Pennsylvania, once upon a time
There was a occasion, where we came across some Amish young ladies, selling something. I forget what. Anyways, at some point, they were talking to each other in their language
I had no problem understanding them, but I didn’t want to talk to them in German, because that might have surprised them, and possibly have been considered rude. I believe Amish consider anybody not from their community to be “English” . . . Isn’t that funny, because even if you’re from Germany, if you’re not Amish, you’re “English” as far as they’re concerned
Later I did some quick reading about the Amish, and it turns out their “Pennsylvania German” is considered very similar to the dialect from the region of Germany I grew up in. But Pennsylvania German is quite different from High German, and I doubt Amish would understand that
re: Hearst Castle
Been there, done that. If you’re driving by and have time and able to get a ticket, why not. But if you can’t get a ticket, no worries, imo it’s not particularly interesting. Time for that subject better spent watching Citizen Kane. It’s a blue sky day, highway 1 looms ahead, why spend all that time inside a dreary building?
Yes on the Hwy 33 I mentioned earlier outside of Cashton is a thriving community of Amish, see the buggies on the road, but the baked goods are most excellent, got fooled by fresh trout once, stopped in, 1lb 2lb or 3lb? 3lb would be fine, got his dip net went to a pond and handed me a 3lb live trout, I cleaned it to put in the cooler on a trout food bag in the driveway with my swiss army knife with kids in bonnets playing in the drive, skipped fresh turkey and fresh beef after that.
There is a switchback road going up wildcat mountain, too fun!
Just for the record the Pennsylvania Dutch are not actually Dutch, they were Deutsche, or German that got mislabeled into Dutch.