Or Hostels?
Hostels aren’t all bad and as I said, they are definitely great for solo travelers, at least from an economical point of view. Just for fun, I looked at one of the hostels along our route, The Hawthorne Hostel in Portland, OR. The rooms look very attractive and the hostel looks neat and clean as well. The prices for the time of year that we will be there are $17 per night for a dorm bed plus an additional $3 charge since we aren’t HI members. That makes our dorm room with a shared bath $40 per night. A private room would be $46 per night and I assume that is with a shared bath. I checked online at Gayot.com, which came up when I did a TripAdvisor.com search - guess that things have recently changed with ownership- and found the Fourth Avenue Hotel for $45 per night. The site claims to be the guide to the good life so it must be an ok hotel.
For my money, I would rather stay in my own room with my own bathroom. After a long day of touring, I don’t want to worry about keeping my stuff in its own little corner. If I were touring alone, I would certainly think differently.
A very nice alternative to hostels is using the hospitality of other members of the Warm Showers List to which we belong. We almost hosted somebody a few years ago, but his plans changed and he ended up taking a different route. We think that WSL is quite a nice way to meet others and get to know locals and get some good advice from them. Already I have had suggestions for sightseeing, routing and general touring. There are WSL members sprinkled throughout the first week of our route, which I find absolutely amazing and rather convenient as well. It might be a fun exercise to one day plan a route that goes from one WSL member town to another.
I need to check out the directory again and see which other members might be along the route. I haven’t really looked at members outside of Washington. Planning for the trip has come to a virtual halt while we spend way too many hours renovating our house. When that is completed in a few weeks, or more realistically in a month, then it will be time to seriously concentrate on the trip.