The rented Chevrolet showed the air pressure in the back left-hand tyre was significantly lower than normal, and falling.

This was the same rental car that had been towed (for the low, low cost of $US580) from outside of our accommodation in San Francisco, but that is a different story.

This story, on the other hand, took place on the drive from Yosemite National Park to Las Vegas last week. A nine-hour journey through desert and not much else.

Our ability to map the route was inadequate to say the least - the rental company had been "all out" of GPS systems, our screenshot of directions from Apple Maps proved virtually useless, and none of us had workable phones.

It was close to 40 degrees outside, there was no shade to speak of, and we had seen at least one snake.

Unable to confidently change the tyre, the four of us (all Australian women in our mid-20s) felt as if we were in the opening scene of a horror movie.

So we did the only thing we could think to do; keep driving until either the tyre gave out or we came across a town.

Just as the tyre's psi dropped to 21 (from 35) we spotted a work crew on the side of the road, and after some debate we decided to wave them down.

The work crew - Nevadans Chris, Steve and a third crew member who did not volunteer his name - said they were more than happy to help us out because they had "never met Australians before".

The men discovered what we had not seen in our rushed assessment of the situation - a small screw lodged deep into the rubber.

Generously, they offered to change it for us - although the third crew member at one point muttered something unsettling under his breath about us being "somebody's children" as he opened the jack and began to unscrew our tyre.

With a warning to watch for wild cows and horses, they sent us towards the nearest town, Beatty - 110 miles away.

Once in Beatty the owner of Reverts 24 Hour Tyre Shop swiftly patched our puncture and had us back on the road within 20 minutes.

We arrived on the strip just as night began to fall and the night life began to emerge - an impressive contrast to our adventure through the desert.

The glitz and glam of our room in the Venetian Hotel (complete with a Grand Canal and gondola rides) felt well deserved.

A study released recently by Cornell University found that spending money on experience was was more likely to bring lasting happiness than spending it on material objects.

As this story (hopefully) illustrates, travelling isn't always easy, and sometimes it is not much fun.

But for all the stresses of getting lost, going broke, and spending countless hours in a car/train/plane, the thrill provided by travelling is unlike any other.

A five-week jaunt across America might seem like wasted money to some, but not to this almost penniless Tasmanian.

Although our drive through the desert proved more unsettling than we would have liked, it was certainly an experience that we could not have had at home.