Southwest US trip ideas
Trying to pull together ideas for a trip from southern Indiana across the southwest and back. Hitting some National Parks, Grand Canyon and reasonable sites in a realistic itinerary for a 2 week trip....
Forum Discussion
thbarnett wrote:
Agreed...had no intention to "hit them all!" Just looking for some thoughts on narrowing them down to attainable and still getting the most out of our trip.
Thanks for the great suggestions! Keep em coming!!!
We're likely going in late spring/early summer.
Late spring can be a problem in some of the western parks. Depending on how much snow they get during the winter they may not have the roads cleared until late June or early July. Most of these parks are at high altitude, YNP and Bryce are both at 8000+/- feet for example. The more southerly parks have less of an issue with this.
A couple of years ago we spent 9 days at Yellowstone and still didn't see everything. And that was our third or fourth time there. These parks are BIG, you won't understand this until you start driving around them, but you can easily spend 3 or 4 hours getting from one place to another inside the park.
OK assume you pick YNP , then if I was planning this, I would take I80 west into Nebraska to US 83, then north on 83 to the Badlands NP. Stay for a couple days in that area and do the Badlands, Rushmore, and try to get a campsite at Custer State Park. You'll have to make reservations -early- the winter before to get a spot at Custer. They have a buffalo herd and that park is considered to be one of the best in country for state parks.
Leave west on I-90 and once you are over in Wyoming take a short trip north to see Devils Tower NM, do the walk around the base of the tower and continue on. Change to I25 N and get off on US 14 and take that west to the west entrance to Yellowstone.
BK
