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Mschnorbus's avatar
Mschnorbus
Explorer
Dec 14, 2016

First summer road trip

My husband and I want to plan a trip traveling the pacific coast highway in our travel trailer this summer. We would like to start in San Diego and see many must see sites along the way as we travel up as far as Vancouver BC. We have from mid May until mid August to go up and then back down a more inland route so we can see as many states on the west as this block of time allows. We will be ending in Phoenix Arizona where we live full time in our travel trailer. This is a daunting itinerary and I really haven't a clue where I should start planning. I know there are many well traveled campers and history lovers on this forum who I hope will share their expertise with me. Our overall goal, in the end, is to see as many of our country's national parks and interesting attractions as possible. We want to start this summer with the west coast. We hope we will be able venture out to the Midwest and to eventually travel to all the 48 states starting with this first summer vacation.

Thank you
  • 4runnerguy's avatar
    4runnerguy
    Explorer
    Dec 14, 2016
    You can find a ton of info using the search function. Like put in Oregon beach in advanced search, and check "Find posts with all of the words in any order" and then check RV Parks, Campgrounds, and Attractions and you'll get hundreds of posts, many extolling the virtues of Oregon State Park CG's.

    As many others will probably also post, I'd try to go up the inland route and return via the coast. That way you are driving on the ocean side of the highway and using the pullouts is a whole lot easier.

    Starting in mid-May means you can hit some of the Utah parks (e.g. Zion, Bryce, Arches) before it gets too hot. By the time you get up to Yellowstone and Grand Teton, it will be early June - late enough for much of the snow to be gone but early enough that some kids won't be out of school yet.

    As you head south along the coast, it gets to be more of a pain once you get near to SF and then pretty tough driving in an RV south of Ventura. Through LA and much of San Diego, it's something to skirt way around or try to do it at night?

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