Renting Class C for Nat'l Parks Roadtrip

Lwiddis wrote:
Your issue is why I have a travel trailer.

Me too.

Thanks everyone for the great ideas! I've now reserved a car for when we are in Moab. When we're in Kodachrome Basin, we'll just need to leave a camp chair or old tent behind. And other than that, we should be all set with the shuttle services at Bryce and Zion. Looking forward to our trip! thanks again!

Specifically which parks, based on that, you may well not need a car much of the time.

Grand Canyon, Zion, Bryce and others, have wonderful tram systems that come right to some of the campgrounds. We wouldn't touch a car if we had one in those parks.

Sounds like an awesome trip!
Yes, you can break down and tool around in it. No worries there. Not the most convienent vehicle obviously for that, but it's the perfect vehicle for a cross country road trip and camping in, so, everything RVing is a bit of a compromise. No one setup does everything the best.

I like the tent idea as they truly are cheap at Walmart. You could also stop at the office in the morning and tell them you're not checking out.

I found the best thing to leave at my campsite while gone for the day (I have a Class B van), is an erected tent. They convey quite clearly the campsite is occupied, the small ones are less than $20, pack up and fold into almost nothing, and not nearly prone to theft like a chair or traffic cone. This strategy does not work in campgrounds that require hard sided campers because of bears (the ranger will visit you with a tent set up) and is not necessary in campgrounds that assign sites as long as you let the office know you have left for the day not abandoned your site and reservation.

We rented a small class C and stayed in Yellowstone for a week. The small C was great for touring around the park. I could park it anywhere. We stayed in a campground that took reservations so I didn't worry about leaving the campground and someone taking my spot. I did notice some people would put an orange cone in the entrance to their spot when they left for the day.

midnightsadie wrote:
X2 rent a car ,they ,ll bring it to you.

X3 - the only answer on this entire thread that makes sense relative to the question asked.

We rented from Enterprise on our retirement trip. "They pick up" within a certain radius of an Enterprise office. At the end of the trip, we found we were picking campgrounds based on their proximity to an Enterprise office. Not the best criteria. When I got home, I bought an Equinox and set it up to tow. Much better.

When I was driving a MH, we would hang bright yellow caution tape across the entrance to our campsite. I also place a sign with our names on it that said that we would be returning. i did not want to leave anything of value behind because it could be stolen. I made the sign at home with my sandblaster so if someone stole that, I was would about 20 minutes of goof off time in the shop.