South Florida to South Dakota and Wyoming and back to FL

You did not give your dates of travel Thats important on your itinerary.

I assume you need to make the trip and the kids will tag along. If the trip is for the kids sake I'd postpone it for about 10 years.
Do Google searches for `______ tourism' and put the State or Town or area in the blank and read what the experts suggest.

High Falls State Park just south of Atlanta is one of our favorite stopping places. Since you have 12 days I'd suggest a stop at Great Smoky Mountains followed by Mammouth Caves. We generally prefer to avoid St Louis since they have awful traffic and worse road surfaces but you may want to do a stop there to see the Arch, the kids will like that. From there to South Dakota is something of a empty spot in our experience. Not a lot of things to go and see until you get to SD.

flgator4 wrote:
Hi,
We are going from Ft Lauderdale to Interior, SD, and we have 12 days to get there. After SD and Wyoming (last stop is Grand Tetons), we will be returning to FL. We have SD and Wyoming booked (we are staying 20 nights between the 2). We have 4 kids ages 3-8. We have have never taken the RV outside of FL, and we will be towing a truck. We have a Class A FR3 32DS. We don't have reservations for anything on the way there and back. Do you have any recommendations on stops along the way, drives, routes (not sure if this should be on the Routes board), etc? This is a lot of driving for the kids so we need to tire them out. :) Thanks for any help.

Time of the year - Dates will be a help (12 out 20 there - 2 between - 12 back and i get 46 days! - I use Bing Maps - zoom in and with Campgrounds in the search, I've always been LUCKY - State Parks and Reservoirs are always good. With the Kids if you stay in a commercial CG then a POOL is good - Is fishing in the kids plans - on the west side of the Mississippi lot's of lakes to camp at.

With 12 days to get to the Hills (2,000 miles) I would push to get to the Rockies then Meander up to your reservations, but that's me, what sort of mileage do you think you will be comfortable with, for say three hard days in a row? Will you be the only driver? or will there be two of you? Do the kids play well together? Do you have a list of probable stops?

Fill us in and let's see if we can be of more help.

Sounds like an Awesome TRIP,

SDcampowneroperator wrote:
You did not give your dates of travel Thats important on your itinerary.

Sorry about that. We're planning to leave June 1st, but we would only drive in the afternoon. Just out the door is the hardest part for us. :) Our 1st 2 nights will be in Interior (I still have to book this part but thinking about the Badlands KOA), and I'm planning this to start June 13th. 2 nights in Interior (June 13-15), then 6 in Hill City at Rafter J (June 15-21st; leave on 21st), then 2 nights somewhere between Hill City and Yellowstone (didn't want to be rushed across mountains; don't have any reservations and hope that's ok; want to stop by Devil's Tower on way)), 7 in Yellowstone at Fishing Bridge (June 24-July 1st), 5 in Grand Tetons at Colter Bay (July 1st - 6th), then back to FL.

Dick B, This is strictly a fun trip for us and the kids. We're driven my oldest 2 to VA many times. I miss going out west and can't wait to show the kids. I've been to WY and SD and think they would be fun for kids our age. I think it gets harder as they get older with more activities. I grew up traveling and loved it. We can always go back if they don't remember. :)

Busskipper wrote:

flgator4 wrote:
Hi,
We are going from Ft Lauderdale to Interior, SD, and we have 12 days to get there. After SD and Wyoming (last stop is Grand Tetons), we will be returning to FL. We have SD and Wyoming booked (we are staying 20 nights between the 2). We have 4 kids ages 3-8. We have have never taken the RV outside of FL, and we will be towing a truck. We have a Class A FR3 32DS. We don't have reservations for anything on the way there and back. Do you have any recommendations on stops along the way, drives, routes (not sure if this should be on the Routes board), etc? This is a lot of driving for the kids so we need to tire them out. :) Thanks for any help.

Time of the year - Dates will be a help (12 out 20 there - 2 between - 12 back and i get 46 days! - I use Bing Maps - zoom in and with Campgrounds in the search, I've always been LUCKY - State Parks and Reservoirs are always good. With the Kids if you stay in a commercial CG then a POOL is good - Is fishing in the kids plans - on the west side of the Mississippi lot's of lakes to camp at.

With 12 days to get to the Hills (2,000 miles) I would push to get to the Rockies then Meander up to your reservations, but that's me, what sort of mileage do you think you will be comfortable with, for say three hard days in a row? Will you be the only driver? or will there be two of you? Do the kids play well together? Do you have a list of probable stops?

Fill us in and let's see if we can be of more help.

Sounds like an Awesome TRIP,

We think it will be about 6 weeks. We have never take this out of FL so we're not sure what we're comfortable with. We need to break it up (our youngest are 3 year old twins). They generally play well together, but they definitely fight. I don't have a list of stops yet because I don't know how the kids will do. That's why we want to allow plenty of time to get there. We just swapped our travel trailer for a motorhome in Dec 2015. My husband will be the only driver. We've taken about 5 trips in FL since then. Our longest with the trailer was about 5.5 hours.

We have 3 boys and 1 girl (the twins are boy/girl). The 2 oldest are 6 and 8. They like fishing, but the twins can't do that yet. Pools are definitely good because swimming really tires them out. :)

I would like to get out of FL fast. I understand what you're saying about 3 hard days and like the idea, but I'm not sure how the kids will deal with that.

flgator4 wrote:

Busskipper wrote:

flgator4 wrote:
Hi,
We are going from Ft Lauderdale to Interior, SD, and we have 12 days to get there. After SD and Wyoming (last stop is Grand Tetons), we will be returning to FL. We have SD and Wyoming booked (we are staying 20 nights between the 2). We have 4 kids ages 3-8. We have have never taken the RV outside of FL, and we will be towing a truck. We have a Class A FR3 32DS. We don't have reservations for anything on the way there and back. Do you have any recommendations on stops along the way, drives, routes (not sure if this should be on the Routes board), etc? This is a lot of driving for the kids so we need to tire them out. :) Thanks for any help.

Time of the year - Dates will be a help (12 out 20 there - 2 between - 12 back and i get 46 days! - I use Bing Maps - zoom in and with Campgrounds in the search, I've always been LUCKY - State Parks and Reservoirs are always good. With the Kids if you stay in a commercial CG then a POOL is good - Is fishing in the kids plans - on the west side of the Mississippi lot's of lakes to camp at.

With 12 days to get to the Hills (2,000 miles) I would push to get to the Rockies then Meander up to your reservations, but that's me, what sort of mileage do you think you will be comfortable with, for say three hard days in a row? Will you be the only driver? or will there be two of you? Do the kids play well together? Do you have a list of probable stops?

Fill us in and let's see if we can be of more help.

Sounds like an Awesome TRIP,

We think it will be about 6 weeks. We have never take this out of FL so we're not sure what we're comfortable with. We need to break it up (our youngest are 3 year old twins). They generally play well together, but they definitely fight. I don't have a list of stops yet because I don't know how the kids will do. That's why we want to allow plenty of time to get there. We just swapped our travel trailer for a motorhome in Dec 2015. My husband will be the only driver. We've taken about 5 trips in FL since then. Our longest with the trailer was about 5.5 hours.

We have 3 boys and 1 girl (the twins are boy/girl). The 2 oldest are 6 and 8. They like fishing, but the twins can't do that yet. Pools are definitely good because swimming really tires them out. :)

I would like to get out of FL fast. I understand what you're saying about 3 hard days and like the idea, but I'm not sure how the kids will deal with that.

This Summer? end of June? Boys will need to have LOTS to DO, We had two boys and Now have 6 granddaughters, the girls are so much easier.

Is late night driving an Option? That way they might sleep in the Bus.

What we used to do was go one really long late day, then get going before they are up for another long day that ended in a CG with a pool. Would wear them out then tuck them in and do another long day followed by an early stop to wear them out again. (I was pretty much crazy and would pull almost a thousand miles in two days) but then we would have so much more time on location, which is the reason we were doing the trip. This will all depend on the Driver being able to handle the long days safely.

Today with the internet and the Mapping programs you can see where you are going to be and what is available, making the trip just so much easier.

With the New Class A you just need to keep the kids safe and occupied, get the grand parents to help out by sending you some of the kids fav's to play with while going down the road. The great thing is that the Coach really seems to have a number of places to hang out that are separate. One thing we have found with the older two is to get them involved as Co-pilot in the front seat - with a map and let them help Dad out. This will also allow you to maintain peace in the rear of the coach.

I've said this before, don't get too hung up on the kids seeing and appreciating the destinations, as they will LOVE being with YOU, and they will remember only the Vacation not so much the specific sights,(Once after an Epic -IMHO - hike - Maroon Bells - wit the older girls 5-7, we asked what they enjoyed about the hike "Skipping rocks in the Stream" , so just remember they see thing "Differently".

Having been the son of a military Dad we did the coast to coast thing 11 times before I graduated from High school and the things I remembered were Dinosaur NM and the Bones - Old Faithful - Mt Rushmore - all the rest was just time with the family and the stops were fun but it planted the seed and I have never stopped enjoying seeing and being in the National and State Parks, Your Kids are going to Talk about it for along time. And hopefully you are starting a new family tradition.

Enough for now it is going to be just GREAT!!!!!!!!!!

I use Google Maps. I put in the start and stop points then look for stops based on how many hours we want to drive and pick a city. then I use www.woodalls.com for campground info and check www.rvparkreviews.com before we decide. I will send you a private message.

I use Google Maps. I put in the start and stop points then look for stops based on how many hours we want to drive and pick a city. then I use www.woodalls.com for campground info and check www.rvparkreviews.com before we decide. I will send you a private message.

Coming back, I'd drop down to Dionosaur NM in the upper NW corner of CO and NE corner of Utah. Should be a hit with the kids. Then take CO 139 south to I-70 then west to the Arches NM exit. Then maybe see a little of Canyonlands, at least do the Anticline and/or Needles outlooks. Then 191 down to Monticello and 491 to Cortz and Mesa Verde NP. Then 160 east to Alamosa and then a bit north to Great Sand Dumes. They have an excellent CG in the park.