Nevada Photo by João Martinho

Car rental in the USA is great value and it affords you the freedom to explore wherever you choose in your own sweet time. Today we consider the rugged landscape of Nevada, which effortlessly combines hedonistic cities with charming small towns and beautiful scenery.

Here are just a few of the highlights…

Las Vegas

It just wouldn’t be right if we didn’t start this list with Las Vegas. What better way to begin your road trip of the state than with a slow cruise down the Las Vegas strip? Don those sunglasses, get that roof down, marvel at the towering hotels, and try your best not to be blinded by the brightness of all the neon. Try your hand on the tables if you dare, and if you have time, you know this is where all the cool kids come to party – make sure you experience all that it has to offer.

Lake Tahoe

From the bright lights of Vegas, to one of the USA’s most tranquil destinations. Lake Tahoe is a 191 square mile body of the most crystal clear water located right on the border of California and Nevada. Gaze into the water and you can expect to see an almost perfect reflection of the surrounding snow-topped mountains and alpine forests. As well as its undeniable beauty, Lake Tahoe is a popular destination with lovers of the great outdoors, and is the perfect place for you to stretch your legs and get some fresh air after all of those miles behind the wheel.

If you are visiting in the summer you’ll have the chance to try a little deep water fishing, horseback riding or maybe a few holes of golf at one of the area’s many golf courses. Come here in winter and you’ll find places to ski, sled and ice skate. The area offers great accommodation options whatever time of year you visit, ranging from cosy log cabins to modern and comfortable campsites.

Ski resorts

If you time your trip right, you will have the opportunity to pop on your salopettes and hit the slopes at any one of the 18 ski resorts in Nevada. Depending on your route – a few that you might like to try include Squaw Valley, Sugar Bowl and Diamond Peak.

Reno

Back in the days when Las Vegas was merely a gleam in the developers’ eyes, Reno was satisfying the tourists’ desire to have a flutter. Affectionately dubbed the “biggest little city in the world”, Reno traditionally attracts tourists from San Francisco and Sacramento, whereas Vegas was more frequented by those hailing from Southern California and Phoenix.

Reno is located just 90 minutes drive from Lake Tahoe but just 18 miles south of the city is Washoe Lake – another great photo opportunity and popular choice with kite boarders and windsurfers.

Lifecruiser Love Roadtrips

Other US Roadtrips related posts at Lifecruiser:

Maine – The Getaway from the Getaway
Travelling The U.S. By Road This Summer
Cool routes for a driving holiday in Florida
Travel Dreams: Cruising US Coast in a Corvette Stingray
Hiking on the edge: a Grand Canyon experience
 

Of course I couldn’t resist taken a picture of it. I just love that I never know what to find to take pictures of when out traveling. Always something new, unexpected and exciting!

©Lifecruiser Love Rally Cars

Other car related posts by Lifecruiser:

When hubby was rally Harry
Driving in the mountains – scary experiences
Swedish Classic Volvo Car Trip
High Life Cruiser – Champagne of Beers Classic
Travel Dreams: Cruising US Coast in a Corvette Stingray
VW Camper Van Blue Retro Twins
 

As a person that every year wishes for a red & white Corvette Stingray of 1957 years model for Christmas (ha ha), you can imagine that this would not at all be wrong for me to do one day….! Putting it on my bucket list!

What also is interesting is that this highway of America, also sometimes is called the Mother road and was established as early as in November 1926 – which also happens to be the birth year and month of my own mother. If I ever manage to fulfill this dream, I will for sure remember my Mom during the trip.

Do you have any similar travel dreams? Let us know in the comments!

©Lifecruiser Love Cab Cruising
 

Lifecruiser Love Flights
 

How old I don’t know. Today when you read this, it should be a lot of old mopeds on the way up to the island, we’ll see if they manage to come since the weather reports is not looking so very promising.

©Lifecruiser Love Vintage Vehicles
 

I love classic cars (don’t everyone?) and this one is a real beauty, isn’t it? I would not mind at all to take a ride in it…. *dreaming*

©Lifecruiser Love Classic Cars

Some other Classic Car related posts by Lifecruiser:

56ans Nostalgia Cafe, Gotland
Swedish Classic Volvo Car Trip
Old cars in Sweden
 

Yes, of course we had to test it at once, putting some yummy snacks to go with the two Champagne bottles. We noticed that the cooler worked very well already at the short time we did have it on. Perfect!

We will hardtest this cooler during our month-long roadtrip, from Stockholm, Sweden through many countries in the hot summer month of August. Our goal is Provence, France and we know by experience that it’s hot there at that time of the year.

.. and we had to have some fun too – look at this other photo below and you’ll understand….

This was another cheap Ferrari though….lol… Our Skoda Yeti is almost Ferrari red funny enough. And our favorite Skoda service adviser is Alexander…

I hope he likes this celebrate of his name!

©Lifecruiser Love Europe Roadtrips

Earlier post about Lifecruiser Europe Trip 2012:

New car for the Europe trip
Europe Trip 2012 Summery
Europe Trip Accommodations
Mapped Europe Roadtrip Route 2012 by Lifecruiser
Routes and stays booked for our Europe trip 2012
Planning our Europe trip 2012
 

Both of us are already extremely pleased with our Yeti (built from Volkswagen and Audi parts, most of the car). Despite it’s size, there is lots of packing space and all the three backseats chairs are possible to take out with ease.

For us with spine problems, it’s heavenly easy to get in and out of too, since it’s higher than normal cars. A crossover they call it, trying to copy the popular SUV’s, but still not so big and better for the environment.

We also have a Skoda insurance including road assistance, so we will without doubt manage well during this long roadtrip in Europe!

©Lifecruiser Love Europe Roadtrips

Earlier post about Lifecruiser Europe Trip 2012:

Europe Trip 2012 Summery
Europe Trip Accommodations
Mapped Europe Roadtrip Route 2012 by Lifecruiser
Routes and stays booked for our Europe trip 2012
Planning our Europe trip 2012
 

Funny thing is: I just saw a camping tent that is a VW Camper Van Blue Retro at Coolstuff, that is a twin to the one above!

Incredible! Oh, how I want this one, but can’t afford right now. Have to save as much as we can for our Europe trip later this year… *sigh*

Me want! Me love! I would be such a happy camper…

©Lifecruiser Love Camper Van’s
 

The upcoming trip on Tuesday is something we’ve had in mind for a long time since the first time Renny and Diane invited us there, but haven’t been able too, despite the short distance to drive to Mariestad from Stockholm: about 30 kilometers the way we’re taking, some smaller roads involved.

This is not the first time we meetup with our Norwegian blogger friends, the first time was when Tor and Anna did visit our summer island in July 2007, the second time when we went to Tor and Anna’s birthday party in Norway September 2008.

The third time was when we all (including Renny and Diane) went to visit Claudie and Pierre in the French Riviera in August 2009 for around a week of awesome nights together and sightseeing during the days.

When we left Claudie and Pierre we did a week of exploring by ourselves, but I think I’ve only written about Saint Paul de Vence medieval village – also in southeastern France. Shame on me for not having sorted the photos and written about it yet!

The forth time was when we went to the bigger blog gathering in Olso, Norway in August 2010, arranged by Renny and Diane, with wonderful bloggers from around the world participating with a lot of awesome Oslo sightseeing.

After that we’ve been talking about a repeat of the blogger meeting success in France and in August this year it finally will become a reality – in Claudie and Pierre’s newly built house! Yay!

This time we will not meet our Norwegian blogger friends at the airport in Marseille as last time: this time we will be driving from Mid-Sweden to southern France, doing stops and exploring on the way there – and on the way home too, taking another route back though.

We will sure avoid the start fart of the France trip we had last time, by driving our own car this time -avoiding all fuss or mistakes. Now we also will enjoy the road trip more because we have a new car. Yep, a brand new crossover we bought in December 2011 for about all our money we had right then, but we simply had to, because of my bad back and body. This one is higher. I had such troubles getting in and out of our old car that sometimes it took me up to 15 minutes to get in. Sometimes it even was impossible.

Besides that, it was old and had it’s flaws and we were afraid that something would breakdown while out on the road with it. Night mare breakdown scenario’s in European roads went by in my mind… That is not likely to happen with a new car, though now we also have double security in our car insurance that is valid almost all over Europe, just a phone number to call and get road assistance and rental car while they’re repairing ours. Super!

What routes we’re going to take isn’t quite decided yet and won’t be decided up to 100 percent either, but we will probably take a west route down through Germany -> The Netherlands -> Belgium -> Luxembourg -> France and on the way back home again we want to drive through Switzerland -> Liechtenstein -> Austria and make some stops there – especially in Salzburg. It will be at least 3-4000 kilometer to drive – one way.

We have always wanted to do a Europe tour by car. In 2008 we did a really long road trip, 4620 kilometer from Sweden to Spain, but that time it was more a transportation to help our best friend to move there and not any real sightseeing along the way.

We already have some information gathered about certain places on the routes we will take this time through Europe, but I can’t write about all of them now, you have to wait until we’ve sorted out and prioritized which ones would be in our final travel plans.

It gonna be places that have been high up on our wish list to go for a long time. There are sooo many other awesome places we would have wanted to visit, but it would take many months to do that, so we have to narrow the list down a lot and it’s very difficult to do that since we really want to go everywhere!

There are a lot of boring motorways and really expensive toll roads in Europe that we want to avoid, so there will probably many extra kilometers driving because of that too.

What routes, places or accommodations would you recommend to us, that is a simple must to go, see or stay at? Give us your suggestions and tips, we’re welcoming everything even though it will be a tough call to choose…

©Lifecruiser Love Europe Road Trips