Starting March next year Cristina and I will be getting out of dodge for our honeymoon - a year of traveling - woohoo! The first half of this will be road-tripping around the U.S., during which time we plan to visit about 35 National Parks in the western half of the country. Seeing all 58 is a bit of a dream of mine, so this will be a big down-payment on that. But how long should we plan for in order to do this all right? And how to actually figure out a good route for such a long trip with so many destinations?
Starting to figure out some of this has been pretty easy.... other parts not as much. We knew we wanted to go to a bunch of the biggest and best known parks, but quickly realized that adding in all the parks in the continental west wasn't an outrageous idea, geographically speaking. But actually getting a route between all of them was harder than it should be.
Starting to figure out some of this has been pretty easy.... other parts not as much. We knew we wanted to go to a bunch of the biggest and best known parks, but quickly realized that adding in all the parks in the continental west wasn't an outrageous idea, geographically speaking. But actually getting a route between all of them was harder than it should be.
We know we want to be in Austin, TX by April 10th for the wedding of some good friends of ours. And we know we want to be in the Southern half of the country in the spring before the desert gets unbearably hot. But we also are shooting to do the most popular parks (Yellowstone, Glacier) after the snow melts, hopefully by May, but before the crush of tourists hits in July and August (sweet spot for those = mid to late June).
That's how we landed on a more or less counter-clockwise route that takes us straight down to Austin, through the parks in the southern half of California, southern Arizona and Texas, and then back up through NM, northern AZ, and the rest of the trip. This should give us 5 weeks or so in March and early April to do Yosemite, Kings/Sequoia, Death Valley, J-Tree, Saguaro, and Big Bend.
From Austin, we'll head back through NM, to the Grand Canyon, and up to the dense parks of Utah and Colorado (Arches, Bryce, Canyonlands, etc), over to the Dakotas in late May / early June, and down to Wyoming for the Tetons and Yellowstone, where I'm hoping to spend a couple of weeks. Next up, Glacier, then over to Washington for the Cascades, Mt Rainier and Olympic, down through Oregon to Crater Lake NP, and back to CA for Redwoods and Lassen Volcanic.
We also want to add in stops in Los Angeles, Kingman, AZ, Denver, Seattle, and Portland to see friends and family and take hot showers and sleep on real beds, time allowing.
We've made our best educated guesses about how much time we'll want to spend in each park and how long it takes to get between them, but whether we'll actually want to keep to that schedule when we're on the road is another question!
Anything else we absolutely have to see or do on the way? Let us know in the comments!
That's how we landed on a more or less counter-clockwise route that takes us straight down to Austin, through the parks in the southern half of California, southern Arizona and Texas, and then back up through NM, northern AZ, and the rest of the trip. This should give us 5 weeks or so in March and early April to do Yosemite, Kings/Sequoia, Death Valley, J-Tree, Saguaro, and Big Bend.
From Austin, we'll head back through NM, to the Grand Canyon, and up to the dense parks of Utah and Colorado (Arches, Bryce, Canyonlands, etc), over to the Dakotas in late May / early June, and down to Wyoming for the Tetons and Yellowstone, where I'm hoping to spend a couple of weeks. Next up, Glacier, then over to Washington for the Cascades, Mt Rainier and Olympic, down through Oregon to Crater Lake NP, and back to CA for Redwoods and Lassen Volcanic.
We also want to add in stops in Los Angeles, Kingman, AZ, Denver, Seattle, and Portland to see friends and family and take hot showers and sleep on real beds, time allowing.
We've made our best educated guesses about how much time we'll want to spend in each park and how long it takes to get between them, but whether we'll actually want to keep to that schedule when we're on the road is another question!
Anything else we absolutely have to see or do on the way? Let us know in the comments!