seeking general guidance for planning a long trip

Hey everyone,

I am starting to plan a long (for me) trip across the US. I will be traveling solo with my dog so I have to think about that when planning park visits etc. I've never been on a trip longer than a week and only drove a day or so to get there so this is all new.

the details so far:

leave middle TN in April and return some time in October or later.

My hope is to hit a majority of these, the order is yet to be determined but might look something like this -

Northern Minnesota (april or oct/sept) in hopes of catching Northern lights
Badlands
Yellowstone
Glacier
Grand Tetons
Crater Lake
Redwood
Yosemite
Sequoia
Joshua Tree
Grand Canyon
Zion
Bryce
Arches
Petrified Forest

some may be added or removed based on further planning and research

The question I have for now is would you head west across the south first then circle up to the north later in the year or would it be better to go north first then south towards the end of the trip

and any suggestions to add or remove stops please feel free to mention them

thank you!

I always plan my trips out using Google maps. I start by putting pins in the map at every place I want to stay. Then I draw lines between them in the most logical order. I have a few rules. I always plan out a circular route and never cross my path. I never go backwards. I usually stick to the Interstates as much as possible. And I never make reservations. I always pack up and leave first thing Sunday morning and arrive at the next campground before noon. The vast majority of campgrounds are empty on Sundays because that is the day most people return home. If they are going for a long weekend it is almost always  Friday, Saturday and Sunday. A four day weekend will be Thursday, Friday, Saturday and Sunday, etc. Most people wish to return to work on Monday morning so that means leaving Sunday morning. If you look at the occupancy rate of campgrounds they are almost empty on Sunday and every day more and more people will arrive and Saturday will be the most crowded. Now if you have very specific plans, like you want to be in Yellowstone on some exact date then it would be prudent to make a reservation. If you want to camp on the valley floor of Yosemite then your reservations must be in exactly five month in advance. Go to the Yosemite reservation page for more info. I like to spend a week at each location because that cuts down on traveling and gives you more time to stop and smell the roses. And typically an RV park will charge like $35 a night or $175 a week. So you save money in camping fee and gasoline. The first time I went out on a long trip I picked 26 destinations and spent a week in each one for a 6 month vacation.

https://www.nps.gov/yose/planyourvisit/camping.htm

Now every time I mention this there are a few people who seem to think every thing I ever thought of was wrong and they will attempt to convince you how stupid I am. So I am putting on my fireproof underwear and getting ready to be flamed by the experts.

Seiler, please don't be defensive. You have been a member of the Forum for many years but I respectfully ask when was the last time you were actually RVing and drove or pulled a Class A, B, C, TT, or 5th Wheel? I've noticed many changes in the RV world in just the last 5 to 6 years. 

Hello rbtN, I'm a native Minnesotan and have recently traveled to a few of the places on our list.  My first thought would to be start south and head north but I'll give it some thought.  I'm sure others will pipe in.

You can be faced with snow and road closures at each end of your time frame.  First, establish an approximate date for each place and the roads to them.  For example: https://www.nps.gov/yose/planyourvisit/wroads.htm

I'd take the Southern route in the spring - the weather is often mediocre anywhere north of I40. Returning via the norther route is often pleasant in Spet/Oct. Chilly nights but mostly nice days. You are going to hit broiling hot weather in-between, no mater which you choose.

The summer months are the "high season" and you will visit most of America's most popular national parks, so expect crowded conditions.  I recommend reservations around holidays and all the summer weekends if near the big parks. Once school is out, RV parks near popular destinations tend to be mobbed.

I know 6 months seems like a really long trip, but it's not all that much time to visit all those parks. You will enjoy your journey much more if you plan to travel slow (150-250 miles/day) and stay 3-10 days in each location. When you stay longer, you will discover more of each place, e.g. local museums, shops & restaurants (diners!) and out-of-the-way sights, plus the slower pace is relaxing.

Dont over plan once you get to the west.  Sadly you will find almost all state parks and NF camp grounds will require reservations.  So IMHO pick an area, get a reservstion for maybe 5 nights.  Use thst as a base of operations.  Fan out from there.  For instance, LaPine state park in central Oregon.  Crater Lake is a few hours south.  Then you have the options of Bend for groceries, and a reasonable drive to all other attractions. Like Mt Batchlor, High Deaert Museum, Lava cast forest, Lava river cave.  If you plan tomviait the coast, plan maybe three stops.  Starting at FtStevens, then central coast finally southern coast.  This will give you opportunities to visit all of the Oregon coast.

Donn, which site on his list is in Oregon?

Crater Lake

Thanks bird.

I am on a month long trip right now which has included some of the stops on your list, and have visited a couple of the others on your list in the last few years.  As others have mentioned reservations are important in some places, particular the popular national parks in the busy season.  We visited Yellowstone in the summer of 2017, just before the big solar eclipse and were able to get reservations inside the park, 1 night each in 3 of the campgrounds, reservations made in late January for a visit in August the week before the eclipse.  We have a 28 ft class A and generally travel without a TOAD car, so can fit into spaces others can't, even as such we had to juggle dates around to just to get 3 nights in a row in Yellowstone.  Our current trip involved a visit to the Grand Canyon for 3 nights last weekend, for this trip after what they call the busy season we were able to book 3 nights in Mather Campground, just 6 weeks in advance (Mather campground has a 30 ft max total RV length limit, and many of their sites are only good for car camping), alternatively we could have stayed in the full hookup trailer village park for the same dates, though at 6 weeks out for an October visit, that would have been luck as the days we wanted were the only 3 day block that week when we made reservations.  Most other stops on this trip were done with no reservations, or reservations made at most 1 day in advance.  These included a stop at goosenecks state park in UT overlooking the canyon rim,  as well as spending a night in the free RV campground at the gift shop by the south entrance to Petrified Forest National Park, and a night at Cosmic Campground a free dry camping campground in the Gila National Forest in NM (the only IDA dark sky campground observing site in the US), though in this case I managed to snag the last of 6 official improved / gravel sites at 3 pm, though there are also a number of unofficial unimproved pull out sites.

Ike

p.s. if they call October the off season at the Grand Canyon I am glad I was not there in busy season, on the day we arrived the day main parking lots were full and had people circling waiting for someone to leave to find a place to park, also the shuttle buses which run every 15 minutes on the blue loop were standing room only.

rbTN, I'm with Seilerbird, but more old school. We are planning a trip next April of about 5000 miles length.

I use paper maps to start. I went to AAA and got a US map, and taped it to the door of my office. Then, I went to Staples and got a pack of those Post-It style signature flags, the ones with arrow points on one end. You can write on them with a pen or Sharpie.

I started flagging the important places that we wanted to go, and soon 2 things happened... First, the route started to reveal itself, and second, there were a couple of obvious outliers that were not going to make the itinerary due to their distance off the emerging route. Attached is a pic of the map as it was a couple of months ago. We are the western most point, and the 2 red flags in TX are the outliers, because other things are more time sensitive for us.

Then, I went back to AAA and got all of the state maps that the route touched. I would sit at the table or in my recliner with a glass of wine in the evening and peruse the maps for other places that looked interesting, or tickled a memory.

The thing is, you have laid out a list of NPs, and there are many other fascinating places to see along that way, that are likely less crowded and just as beautiful. And you would still be close enough to the NPs to visit them. For instance, you have Zion/Bryce/Arches on your list. Utah has many state parks tha are just as interesting, and less crowded.

And, I agree with others, for your timing, I would go clockwise, south first and then north home. That's an ambitious trip, but you have allowed 6 months for it, so it should be doable.

A couple of other notes, first I am more modern, I use google maps, and drag the route sections around to fit where I want to drive, I also use google street view to check out the highways, I prefer to stay off the interstate as much as possible,  this lets me compare routes, possibly tell general road condition (how wide the shoulders are, maybe even pavement condition if the street view has been recently updated), though when the street view is from 2008, as it seems to be for much of rural NM and AZ it does not tell you much. 

Also build in as much flexibility as you can in case of weather, mechanical or health issue delays.  For example if you have a fixed date visit to a popular destination like Yellowstone, consider building in a few days of optional stops within a day or so drive from Yellowstone, perhaps Laramie, Thermopolis, even Saratoga, WY (I would say Cody, but that should be a mandatory stop if in the area) that you could skip if you are behind schedule.  All nice places to visit, but not world class like Yellowstone.

thank you all for the info and suggestions, I will review them all. I do hope to keep things fluid, avoiding hard dates for locations.

The sites I mention are "general" in that a site close to or a more central location would also work. My goal is for this to be a very relaxed trip where I go when and where I can, primarily primitive or boondocking sites but knowing I will stay in a campground to get a better location to the sites I want to see.

I put some notes as comments in the original posting.

rbTN said:

Hey everyone,

I am starting to plan a long (for me) trip across the US. I will be traveling solo with my dog so I have to think about that when planning park visits etc. I've never been on a trip longer than a week and only drove a day or so to get there so this is all new.

the details so far:

leave middle TN in April and return some time in October or later.

My hope is to hit a majority of these, the order is yet to be determined but might look something like this -

Northern Minnesota (april or oct/sept) in hopes of catching Northern lights --- random chance of catching these... great place for canoe!
Badlands --- kinda out of the way and interesting, but
Yellowstone-- best before June or after Sept, otherwise very crowded.  Not to be missed, two weeks is barely enough...need reservations
Glacier--- beautiful but the glaciers are almost gone?
Grand Tetons-- beautiful, magnificent, huge... close to YNP
Crater Lake -- scenic and memorable...
Redwood--- if you haven't seen them, a must see
Yosemite--- another two weeker or more, one of the best along with YNP, need reservations
Sequoia---kinda like Redwood
Joshua Tree -- haven't been to this one
Grand Canyon--hiker?  at least a week here to barely get started, need reservations
Zion --- one of the more scenic and memorable but it's so crowded we probably won't go back.  Parking is a real problem.  need reservations
Bryce---one of the smaller NPs; very geologic
Arches---definitely worth seeing but Moab has started drawing huge crowds in the spring/fall.  In the summer, it's hot.
Petrified Forest-- we weren't impressed but it's short along I40

Worthy of consideration:  Capitol Reef!!!; Canyonlands NP!!!; (two of our fav's); Monument Valley, especially if you're in northern Az/ southern Ut; Black Canyon of the Gunnison (a sleeper but impressive) plus Ouray/Silverton are close and cool in the summer;  If you go south, White Sands in NM; Carlsbad Caverns in NM, great for a hot day;  If the spring/fall are cold, there's Big Bend in Tx and Palo Duro in north Tx;  There's a huge "gathering" of RV's every winter in Quartzite, Az; Nice places to take a break... Tucson, Phx, Sedona, Page in Az.  Torrey, Moab, St. George in Ut. T or C, Silver City, Las Cruces, ABQ, Santa Fe in NM.  Durango, Ouray, Silverton in Colo.

If it were me, I'd go south in the spring and north in the fall.  In the spring, there's a risk of wind in the south and left-over snow or new snow in the north.  In the fall, there's chance of an early snow/winter (like last year) in the north but probably less so than the spring.  OTOH, the southern route will be nice in the fall, usually less wind.


It's getting pricey, take plenty



some may be added or removed based on further planning and research

The question I have for now is would you head west across the south first then circle up to the north later in the year or would it be better to go north first then south towards the end of the trip

and any suggestions to add or remove stops please feel free to mention them

thank you!

Click to expand...

I planned my cross country trip that I'm on now (blog link in my signature if you want details) mainly according to weather. We went across the north during the summer and then headed south farther. I did similar planning that was mentioned by others here, finding the places I most wanted to see and connecting the dots in a logical order. I have 6 kids with me so we did make a number of reservations, but if I were to do this again, especially without a hoard of children, I would skip the reservations.

In the area of southwestern South Dakota, not only Badlands but many other places.
Wall Drug is a hoot and right near where I always exit the badlands.
Custer state park is great with free range bison and other an animals. Iron mountain road and needles byway. You cannot take a motor home or truck & trailer but with a toad or a Tow vehicle it is magnificent. I have done it 5 times on motorcycle.
Crazy a Horse memorial is stunning as is Mount Rushmore. A couple of hours drive takes you to Devils Tower (from close encounters of the third kind). Spearfish canyon highway is worth the drive and lunch in Deadwood.
Many of these are much of a day. A week is a nice stay.

South through Hot Springs in to Nebraska is the sand hills and Wounded Knee and if you are in to trains, there is a parade of them through Alliance and on to North Platt and the worlds largest rail yard.

Oh, and we are modern in planning. We have a huge map on the wall that we can write on with dry erase markers. We use Garmin GPS only and do our detail planning in Basecamp, a free software from Garmin. We load the details to the GPS as needed.

Sadly you will find almost all state parks and NF camp grounds will require reservations.

Click to expand...

I have never heard of any place that requires reservations except the valley floor of Yosemite.

Just a note that the West is really, really big. We did a 5,500 mile trip last year in my large sedan. My partner had not been in the Western states. When driving across Wyoming where the speed limit was 80 mph, my partner said, "you don't realize how big the West is until you drive 80 mph all day and don't get anywhere." 

As an aside, both of us are in our 70's and we tent camped most of the time. It was a trip of a lifetime. However, after getting home from that trip I vowed to never tent camp again and bought a nice older travel trailer. Now we only do "glamping." 

We have a Garmin GPS and before long trips download to it a lot of POIs (Points of Interest) from Panorama Factory.  There are many of them but we have a great one with 23,000+ campgrounds that help us find some that are difficult to locate because they're in rural places or have confusing directions.  We also have POIs for national parks, state parks, Cracker Barrel, Red Lobster, various grocery store chains like Safeway, Cummins (diesel engines) and the like.  It's nice to have the places we like most in the GPS so we can find them all around the country.

By the way, I'm still a paper map person.  The AAA maps are best because they're easiest to read.  You can get them for the USA, regions within the USA and each state, although most have two or more states on them, such as North & South Dakota.  I also collect articles about places that sound interesting and put them with the state maps.  As we approach a new state I pull out that state and attached articles.  Travel writers tend to pinpoint the most important places or things to see or do in an area.  Motorhome and Family RVing [formerly Family Motor Coaching] magazines often have useful travel articles and they're nice because they usually have campground information as well as hints such as whether a specific road is RV-friendly.

ArdraF