Road Trip Vacations

[justafigment27]

I grew up road tripping and swore I was never going to do one as an adult. But when my youngest expressed interest in seeing Old Faithful, we decided to plan a road trip with our kids from Michigan to Yellowstone. We dubbed it the “Great American Road Trip” and I had a great time planning the thing. We tried to incorporate as many states as we could into the trip, but also didn’t want to move every single day, so we planned 3 stops where we stayed in the same place for 3 nights. It looked like this:

Day 1 - MI to Minneapolis
Day 2 - Minneapolis
Day 3 - Minneapolis
Day 4 - Minneapolis to Bismarck, ND
Day 5 - Bismarck to Billings, MT
Day 6 - Billings to Yellowstone
Day 7 - Yellowstone
Day 8 - Yellowstone
Day 9 - Yellowstone to Cody, WY
Day 10 - Cody to Keystone, SD
Day 11 - Keystone
Day 12 - Keystone
Day 13 - Keystone to Sioux Falls, SD
Day 14 - Sioux Falls to Davenport, IA
Day 15 - Davenport to Michigan

We saw all sorts of stuff and stopped for hokey tourist trap stuff as well as gorgeous natural wonders. We had at least one planned stop every single day we were on the road and then more detailed plans for our 3 major stops. We were super tired when we got home, but also very satisfied with the adventure we had ...

We took a road trip from Michigan to the Grand Canyon the following summer. We followed the general path of Route 66 (spent very little time actually on Route 66, but went through IL, MO, OK, TX, NM) on the way there and then went up through Utah, Colorado and Kansas on the way back. That trip was nowhere near as fun ... part of it was probably the circumstances since we were trying to make lemonade out of lemons (booked & planned the whole thing three days out as a last minute replacement trip for one that had to be cancelled), but it just felt like way too much driving over the course of two weeks IMO. Would have been much better for a 3 week trip or as a shorter loop trip where we flew into Las Vegas and toured from there or something. We had two stops where we spent 2 nights (Grand Canyon & Zion), but only spent one night everywhere else and that was just too much driving and switching hotels to keep me happy. Plus it was like 9 million degrees for a big part of that trip and that was just exhausting. We had planned for 2 nights in Colorado Springs to see some sights on the route home, but we’re so worn out & cranky at that point that we scrapped that plan and basically just drove straight through Colorado and cut the trip short.

So, I don’t know. If you are looking at the two weeks as a break from normal and want a bit of an adventure, a road trip with lots of stops might be fun. If your looking at it as less of an adventure and more of a vacation, then I think I’d fly somehwere close to the park(s) that interests you the most and maybe do a shorter but more focused trip?

 

[WVMomof3]

We’re doing a similar trip this summer. Driving from the Midwest to Denver, then going to Arches, Monument Valley, Page Arizona, Grand Canyon, Zion, Yellowstone, Grand Tetons, Steamboat Colorado and back home. We have 17 days, and 3 of those will be long driving days. We really enjoy road trips.

Personally I’d drive to Colorado myself from Indiana, just make it one long driving day at the beginning and end. Use the money you’d spend on airfare and car rental to do several activities, whitewater rafting, rock climbing etc. However we did do what you are suggesting last year and it worked out great too, just had to plan our budget a bit differently to allow for the extra expense. We wanted to do a road trip of the Pacific Northwest and I wasn’t willing to spend an extra several days getting there and back. We flew to California, rented a car and traveled up the coast and back.

Whether you like road trips or not depends on you and your family. Some love them, some hate them. It’s really about what you consider a vacation. For some they want relaxation, flying to one location and staying there and enjoying it for a week. I’ve tried that it’s not for me, I enjoying seeing as many places as possible on a trip.

Wow, that sounds very ambitious. Will you even have time to enjoy any of the stops? We flew into Vegas and did the Grand Circle tour of Grand Canyon, Page, Monument Valley, Moab, Bryce, Zion and back to Vegas. We had 13 days and it was really not enough time to see everything. I wish we had a few more days to enjoy some more things.