Second a lot of advice here. I did 'up the middle and down the east side' as a final fling before my 4 years in aus ended.. 1/2 an eye to hours building and 1/2 for the sheer hell of it.
a) Do it.. it's awesome
b) get all the charts - the cost is minimal compared to the cost of the trip. I did overlook a vnc, and it's a right pain trying to do east coast airspace with an ERC-L/WAC combo..
c) If you're hours building, it might work better to get something slow and cheap (relative), after all, you log the hours, not the distance..
d) Use everything - yup, hire a plane w/o GPS
(well, there was a garmin etrex hid in the back just in case, but..)
e) go up the middle... it's something else.
f) the 'remote' areas have more features than you'd think, it's just different (and I didn't hit the central/west desert, so that I can't comment on.
g) take something with an ADF. most of the time was spent up around the 9000 mark, NDB's were far more useful/rangey and far more common than VOR's..
h) have the night rating. Managed at least 2 legs where things got behind schedule, had it not been for the night rating, the plan would have gone right out the window. Really handy to be able plod on. Also some awesome sunsets from way up there.
i) anywhere remote, ring ahead for fuel. well ahead.. seriously!
j) if you're going remote places, put a bunch of flight plans in naips, and phone them to ammend details / change dates and times before you go. It's a *heap* easier than actually passing the entire flightplan by phone.
k) If you can, have the luxury of time, and don't make it all about flying. So many interesting places and side trips. Pretty awesome country you have there.
l) perhaps a bit contraversial, but... Don't overplan it(!) I nearly abandoned 'cos I hadn't got every last i dotted, t crossed, and a schedule for everything. Honestly as a 100hr PPL I was more than a bit scared of the thing. In the end I went.. most days just packed up the tent, did the flight plan / chartwork on the tailfeathers and blasted off. It's different, but not as hard as you might think.
I actually took a non-flying (well, bit of glider time) mate who I know well, and has flown with me quite a lot. It worked fairly well from my point of view, not least because there's no question of who had authority in the cockpit(!) Made a useful autopilot and nice to have someone to talk to. Depends how relaxed you are, but I'd think very carefully about committing to that much flying/time with someone you don't know, and/or don't know as a pilot.
Oh, and lastly, should you go into YWMC, and find that there are more lady pilots than you expected, and attractive ones to boot... don't be a chump and be so distracted as to forget the change from the (painfully expensive) avgas bill will you
