***Traveling out west*** Need Suggestions

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We live closer than most of you so we visit the parks more often. However, we never camp inside the parks, we stay in one of the campgrounds in West Yellowstone and drive in each day. It's much easier to deal with the traffic in the pickup when not towing the trailer.

My wife and I recently took 2 daughters and 2 grandkids on vatacion for 16 days. It was the idea of the 2 daughters. My wife and I drove our little RV and the daughters drove my wife's Grand Marque pulling our pop-up. When I agreed to this trip, I informed them that we would ALL wake up at 7:00 and the tires would be turning down the road by 8:00. They agreed but the one daughter later regretted that agreement. We went from Wisconsin to the Badlands, Black Hills, Big Horn Mtns, 3 days in Yellowstone, Grand Tetons, Craters of the Moon NP, Glacier, and home. 16 days, massive memories. The grandkids don't remember the getting up early, they remember the great memories. One of the daughters has taken friends on these road trips and her friends want to do more.

BarabooBob wrote:
My family and I have travelled from Wisconsin to the Rockies on several trips. We go from Baraboo, WI to the Badlands onthe first day, hike and goof off there on day one. Day 2 & 3 is sight see in the Black HIlls. Day 4 get into the Bighorn Mtns. Day 5 get to Yellowstone. Spend 3 or 4 days there. Head down through the Tetons, maybe a raft trip, take our time getting home. That is a relaxing 16 day trip for us. If we are wanting more travel, we push a little harder and hit Dinosaur NP, Rocky MTN NP and head home. My kids grew up traveling like this and love it. They are grown now and still do it with their friends and families. We call it taking a ROAD TRIP not a destination trip.

YES! Exactly.

My family and I have travelled from Wisconsin to the Rockies on several trips. We go from Baraboo, WI to the Badlands onthe first day, hike and goof off there on day one. Day 2 & 3 is sight see in the Black HIlls. Day 4 get into the Bighorn Mtns. Day 5 get to Yellowstone. Spend 3 or 4 days there. Head down through the Tetons, maybe a raft trip, take our time getting home. That is a relaxing 16 day trip for us. If we are wanting more travel, we push a little harder and hit Dinosaur NP, Rocky MTN NP and head home. My kids grew up traveling like this and love it. They are grown now and still do it with their friends and families. We call it taking a ROAD TRIP not a destination trip.

It's worth it to us to have those dedicated "travel days" We make the most of our time out West. I realize there's not many people who can do what I do, that's why I make a very good living at it--I drive tractor trailer. Once we get "out there" we do take our time. Perhaps the day will come when I won't have to or don't want to do that but it really affords us the most time where we want to be instead of taking an extra week and paying for more CGs. The space inside our C is more than enough--we have no slides, which we've found take up a lot of space and weight. Not cramped in the slightest.
I won't go into the trip we did couple years ago all the way across. For that one I did take 3+ weeks but we logged over 6400 miles(not including the rental car). We visited 10 NPs and it was done at our own pace which consists of leaving the Park when the consensus is "we're good with this one", lol.

I personally recommend staying outside of Yellowstone Park. The campgrounds are way to cramped for much of any size rig due to the way they pack them in. We parked our 34' 5th wheel in an RV park in West Yellowstone and drove in each day. This worked well for us.

Last year we put our camper and Culter bay full hookup sites for 2 weeks. It was great. As an FYI campfires are not allowed.

Our camper is 35 feet long and we pull it with a 3/4 Suburban and we had plenty of room

dodge guy wrote:

SoundGuy wrote:

greyhook wrote:
It can be done with days set aside for some serious driving, like 750miles/day on the way out and going back home--but it's worth it to us.

At an average 50 mph that's 15 hrs of driving. :E We've done a lot of long distance traveling / camping but there's not a chance I'd do 15 hrs behind the wheel, then have to do it again the next day. :( Our last Yellowstone trip included the Badlands and RMNP, all in a little under 4 weeks - just what we needed so we weren't rushed.

I’ve done a max of 14 and that is pushing it. And no way I would do that back to back. I towed from Chicago area to Stone Mtn GA. 14 hours. The next day we drove to Disney. Even an 8hr day after a 14 is hard.

Dodge guy I've followed some of your travels and I concluded living in the center of the country has it advantages. I applaud you for making it to lots of great destinations all over the country.
Sort of weird in that there are not too many attractions located in the center of the country worth driving 2 days for.
However the center is a good launching point to see the rest of the country.
I've been up and down the east coast,but not very far west simply because my marathon driving days are past me. The thrill of driving a 600 mile day is gone!
In order to make west in a relaxed manner from the east coast I believe it takes 3 weeks which I don't have. I know many would disagree with the 3 week requirement, but I do not consider towing multiple 500-600 mile days in a row a vacation. With that in mind I spend my vacations closer to home which gives me a better relaxation time vs. windshield time ratio.

SoundGuy wrote:

greyhook wrote:
It can be done with days set aside for some serious driving, like 750miles/day on the way out and going back home--but it's worth it to us.

At an average 50 mph that's 15 hrs of driving. :E We've done a lot of long distance traveling / camping but there's not a chance I'd do 15 hrs behind the wheel, then have to do it again the next day. :( Our last Yellowstone trip included the Badlands and RMNP, all in a little under 4 weeks - just what we needed so we weren't rushed.

I’ve done a max of 14 and that is pushing it. And no way I would do that back to back. I towed from Chicago area to Stone Mtn GA. 14 hours. The next day we drove to Disney. Even an 8hr day after a 14 is hard.

greyhook wrote:
It can be done with days set aside for some serious driving, like 750miles/day on the way out and going back home--but it's worth it to us.

At an average 50 mph that's 15 hrs of driving. :E We've done a lot of long distance traveling / camping but there's not a chance I'd do 15 hrs behind the wheel, then have to do it again the next day. :( Our last Yellowstone trip included the Badlands and RMNP, all in a little under 4 weeks - just what we needed so we weren't rushed.