I've ridden a recumbent trike coast-to-coast on the Southern Tier. I don't regret that as the ride that I chose, but everything comes with tradeoffs.
- Comfort: Sure, my wrists and shoulders had it easy. But I had to hold my neck forward, which was a strain, and the buckles that tensioned the seatback eventually dug into my spine, creating a painful growth (this was specific to my model of trike, and I eventually dealt with it by adding some foam).
- Speed: A trike is slower. Go ahead and fight me on this. If you've got a long day ahead and are chasing the sunset from the word go, even on tour, that makes a difference.
- Navigability: In some places—Arizona and Mississippi especially—there was just no good place to ride because the shoulders are narrow and every road seems to have sleeping policemen. In Arizona, I either had to take the lane or carefully straddle the sleeping policemen with my left front wheel on one side and my rear wheel on the other. This was nerve-wracking, for hours at a time. In other places, I was just taking up more road width where it wasn't really available.
- Cargo capacity: I was touring pretty light, and could get everything into two conventional panniers (although this played hell with downhill handling). If I had wanted to carry more, it would have been a problem.