USA Road Trip 2018 – Part 2 – Detroit, New England and New York

Highlights From This Trip

• 9 Days
• 36 Locations Explored
• >1500 Miles Driven
• 4 States Visited

This road trip blog is split into two parts; this part covers the second half of the trip, covering our journey from Detroit to New York. See photos from the first part of our East Coast road trip here:

Read Part 1

In the spring of 2018 this long-awaited trip finally happened, after several weeks of research and collaboration with some wonderful American (and Canadian!) explorers. An East Coast America trip has been talked about for at least a year, and it was amazing to finally explore the USA. We travelled over 4000 miles in just over two weeks, photographing around 60 locations spread across 10 states. This was surely the most ambitious route plan yet, and we both psyched to hit the road as soon as we landed.

We finished up in Chicago at the mid-point of our trip, driving through the night to Detroit. We had a very memorable day (with a few close calls!) in this city. We drove through the night from Detroit to Buffalo the next evening, cutting through Canada and spending the night on the Canadian side of Niagara Falls. More churches awaited us on the second half of the trip, many with attached infant schools with tiny cute desks. We visited several of the classic upstate New York locations on our way east, including a convent in the final stages of renovation, and an iconic nursing home complete with a lonely piano. We made our way to New England, zig-zagging across New York State through these enjoying there more well-known locations along the way.

New England had abundant decaying treasures to behold (as well as a few more churches, to add to the growing collection). We visited a navy Church, a dark and gloomy power plant, a rusty train diner cart,  a monastery and overgrown drive-in movie theatre (to name but a few). We visited many locations in Massachusetts, Rhode Island and Connecticut before heading west back to New York. As we made our way back to New York we enjoyed an evening exploring an old junkyard, packed full of rusting American cars as well as an old motorbike sitting on the back of a truck.

We spent the last few days exploring New York City and New Jersey, in between enjoying some much-needed relaxation time around the Big Apple. On the final day, we got up early to visit an old theatre; finishing off this amazing adventure on a very positive note.