>>1018325Buying an ACA map is a pretty good idea. It will keep you on a fairly safe route in terms of traffic and access to supplies and give you lot of information on where you can get food/water/a place to stay, as well as the hills along the way. You'll also run into more tourers. When I did the Trans America route (OR to VA) as my second big tour, I ended up riding maybe 40% of it with 4 other people around my age who I met on the road. What I will say is that you should consider detours. I had a great time in Colorado on that trip, hitting Rocky Mountain National Park and then Great Sand Dunes and hiking in the Presidential range, none of which was on the ACA maps.
As far as first timer advice, here are a few things which have helped me as I've learned more about touring. I'd be happy to answer more specific questions:
-If money is at all relevant, learn to stealth camp. Basically, this means finding someplace that isn't visible from the road to set up your tent. You can get a decent idea of where such places will appear from maps.
-Finding such a place with a water source is often harder, so if you're going to camp without a water source, you'll need to have enough for dinner, breakfast, and however far it is until your next refill point. When I started touring I carried ~4L of water in bottles. For the last 2 trips I've had a 10L bladder which I can fill as much as I need to. I didn't fill it all the way too often (20 lbs is a lot of weight), but between it and ~2.5L in bottles, I've done close to 100 miles in hot, mountainous areas between refills. ACA would never put you in a position to need to carry that much water.
-Don't worry about speed. On a mph level, you're going to go slow if the wind and hills aren't helping. On a daily level, sometimes you'll feel fantastic and push all day, and sometimes you won't. On a weekly/monthly timescale, the main thing is to keep yourself rolling and enjoy the journey, which is more mental than physical.
