I think first of all you have to service your bike. Because bike is the main thing in a road trip. And than after you have to take all the things like clothes, torch light, helmet, and some carry bags, and little bit food. These are the main things which i consider while going on a road trip.

 

Been cross-country several times ... both East-West and North-South. I'm assuming you're talking about East-West (or Visa-Versa). Two major approaches.

1) Plan every detail ...

2) Just ride ...

Personally, in the past few years I've actually been planning trips along a theme type of ride. As an example, a couple years ago I went from San Diego to New Jersey, and I hit 16 major league baseball parks along the way. It took some major (pun intended) planning, which was part of the pre-ride fun, and it was pretty expensive for the whole trip, but in the long run I've now got a wall full of baseball souvenirs that all have a ride-story attached to them.

I've also done trips where I hit restaurants form the Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives TV show (back before the show started covering all these foo-foo places that serve grilled squid with Martha Stewart poon sauce on the side).

When it comes to the just ride approach ... I find that when I only have a general destination in mind the "point the bike and ride plan" works pretty well. As a rule, I usually try to get to particular points by certain time frames, but sometimes it is just fun to see where the road will take you. There's been a couple times that I've actually gotten myself so lost that I rode all day and only ended up 50 miles from where I started. Other times I've ended up 200 miles from where I thought I would end. For example, I got twisted around in northern California a few years ago and only realized how far west I'd gotten when I topped a hill and found myself looking at the Pacific Ocean. I hadn't planned on being on the coast for two more days, and I started that morning around Callahan, CA, and ended up near Crescent City. I knew each town's name, but since I'd not looked at the map I never put together their actual locations. It ended up a great ride and it took me well out of the way from where I had originally thought I was going. This approach means you need the time to get lost, though.

 

Texas - Big Bend.
New Mexico - Carlsbad Caverns, Lincoln, Ruidoso, White Sands.

Enjoy!

 

Here are my two additions:

1 Get AAA, one day it will save your bacon, especially if you ride a lot
2 Enjoy the ride - everything else is noise