Touring - Cycle Across America

Hey there...Im planning on cycling across America around March/April next year, via the southern route (at least until new orleans, when I might go on up to memphis and then to the coast.) Being British, im still in the UK at the moment, so I was wondering if any of you could give me the heads up as to whether March/April is a good time to cycle across the southern route, and what costs will be like, I mean the costs of motels and food etc. I hope to coachsurf as much as possible, but what other possibilities are there for staying in free accommodation like churches/firestations?
Basically im looking for as much information as possible, especially first hand info which i cant find on most websites,
cheers,
Steve

Can't tell you about sleeping in fire stations or churches; never tried either. But, I can tell you that even the crappiest motels along the southern route will charge you $50 to $60 a night. Going from West to East, your weather should be fine, so long as you stay out of the Rockies. (Not quite sure what you mean by the Southern route as there are several of them.) If you need any info on Southern California, let me know.

If by the southern route you mean the Adventure Cycling Southern Tier route, I would suggest buying the maps and checking them out for this info. I have not done the Southern Tier, but I know that the AC maps for the Trans America were a good start for this type of info. The ST maps may or may not be as good for this type of info.

Additionally go to CrazyGuyOnABike and find journals by category: Routes / North America / United States / Adventure Cycling Association routes / Southern Tier /

You will find a lot of info about where others stayed in the journals.

The Southern Tier route, just mentioned by staehpj1, is recommended for travel between early fall and late spring. So March should be a good time to start. If you start in April, you can probably count on some pretty hot weather before you finish.

See the ACA page on this route at:

http://www.adventurecycling.org/routes/southerntier.cfm?pg=more

The maps sold by ACA will identify free places to stay as well as places to camp. Your trip will be much cheaper if you plan to camp most of the time.

thanks for the replies! I was indeed talking about the southern tier route-and ill post another reply once ive looked at all the links youve posted,
cheers,
Steve

if i was going leaving the west coast in march or april, I'd head north to the Transamerica as the weather warms up - it will be very hot and very humid by the time you get to, say TExas and points east. Plan it out, avoid the heart of the rockies if you do that until the threat of snow in high elevations is over. La Veta pass in colorado will avoid all but 25 miles of mountains, but its like 9400', so plan ahead. You could stay south until east of new mexico, but I;d head north son - its hot in Texas as early as mid april.

you'll likely get good tail winds then on the TA (if going west to east) too..