USA Road Trip - Seeking Advice!
Hey guys,
Michelle and I will be going on one of two potential road trips this Northern Hemisphere summer. One option is below (this is what I want to do). The other option is driving through Banff to get to Calgary (which is what Michelle is leaning towards). Anyway, my proposed route can be seen on the map below.
Is there a different route you would take?
Is there anywhere near/along the way that you would recommend?
Is this too much to do over say a four or five week period?
Anywhere else worth stopping along the way?
Possible route as seen on the map:
Whistler
Vancouver
Seattle *
Portland *
San Francisco *
Los Angeles
Joshua Tree National Park *
Las Vegas *
Grand Canyon National Park *
Salt Lake City *
Yellowstone National Park *
Then back home
* means I have not been there before.
Please give me any suggestions, ideas, or steer me in another direction.
Thank you! ???
Sick trip Jeremy!! You guys will have a blast.
Seattle is amazing. Great night life and the space needle is def worth a visit. Listen to some Nirvana while ya there.. Haha.
San Fran, where do i start. Pier 39 has it all. Check out the local chocolate shop to fix ya sweet tooth. Best rocky road ever. Haha, A visit to alcatraz is a must along with hiring a bike and riding from the pier around the coast and over the golden gate bridge. So much cool scenery. Little Italy town is great for food and drink too. Jump on a tram for a spin, good way to see some of the downtown area.
Vegas. I was there for 36hours. Ruined me. What happens in Vegas stays in Vegas.
I went from Van all the way to Malibu, then onto Vegas and back up to San Fran. The drive out to Vegas is pretty boring, then BAM massive bright lights and a shopping mall in the middle of the bloody desert! Insane.
The route you’ve picked looks great along with the time frame. I did San Fran, Vegas, Seattle and LA in 3 weeks i think?? The drive down the west coast is pretty rad. Heaps to see, lots of stop off on the highway to check out the coast line.
Wish i could do it all again.
Route looks really good, plenty places to stop along the way! I’d recommend at least 4 nights in Yellowstone.
I’d add in Yosemite in there somewhere for sure….and Crater Lake in Oregon. 4-5weeks is heaps of time for that.
Freddy and I did the below in 6.5 weeks. (15,422kms or 9583 miles)
My biggest recommendation would be to make sure that the US Government doesn’t have a shutdown while you’re on your trip - all the national parks will be closed :-( ahaha that is what happened to us right before we got to Yellowstone so we missed out on Yellowstone, Yosemite and Crater Lake. We still drove through the Yellowstone area though and it was AWSM!
What sort of vehicle are you going to take? Are you going to camp? Are you navigating with a GPS? If you are open to camping, I can recommend the most badass place to camp at the Grand Canyon and you might have it all to yourself, like we did!
Lonely planet says only 10% of Grand Canyon visitors see it from the Northern Rim (as most people travel to the South Rim from Vegas). We immediately thought we wanted to go to the Northern Rim to see it…then Freddy found this campsite and we had it to ourselves for 2 nights, the quiet and the lack of light pollution (and therefore the stargazing) was incredible…then we went to the regular northern rim campsite and visitors centre just to check it out before we left the area. We were there about 1 hour and we couldn’t stand sharing it with so many people! haha.
All to ourselves!
I also recommend inserting Zion National Park in to your plans there somewhere.
And Canyonlands…
And Monument valley if you haven’t been…
Utah was amazzzzzing!!!! Sorry for all the pics. I had already recently been reminscing on the awesomeness of our trip. haha
Thanks for the replies, guys.
@cords, your photos are awesome! Thank you for the recommendations. I am definitely going to look into all of that. Such a bummer about the government shutdown while you were away. Sorry to hear that.
We have a Toyota Matrix. Small but reliable (it actually fits a lot of stuff as the back seats go flat). We are very open to camping in some spots. Actually, it’s quite appealing. We’ve been waiting for the opportunity to do some proper camping. Please give me any specific recommendations.
Things to bring if you want to camp places with no facilities:
Tent
fold up chairs
fold up table (just a little card table thing is perfect)
Camping kitchen
1 x saucepan, 1 x frypan (can be small ones)
Cups, plates, cutlery, tea towel x 2 + dishwashing brush
Bedrolls (I think the self inflating ones are the most comfy but not sure)
Sleeping bags
Loo paper. Note: Prior to the trip I wasn’t that comfortable with bush toileting but it doesn’t take that long to get used to!
Mozzie spray.
Lantern style torch to hang from the roof of the tent
Baby wipes for mobile showers. I hate going 24hrs without a shower & a change of undies but if we camped a few nights with no facilities, I’d just have a baby wipe shower/change of undies instead. I couldn’t do it for weeks on end but for a few days at a time it was well worth it to get away from the main campsites and have the amazing wilderness to ourselves!
About half way through our trip, I splashed out and bought a fold up mozzie tent from Walmart. It was awesome and I wished we’d had it from the beginning. We put it over our cooking/sitting around reading area. It is great to be able to cook and relax at all times without worrying about insects.
Here is a pic of our camping set up for 2 nights at the grand canyon
Here are some more pics, since you asked for them 
Grand Canyon sunset - our private piece of paradise
Arches NP (outside of Moab, Utah - the adventure capital of Utah)
We drove out to the coast from Portland and went down south as close the coast as possible, that is one of the other pieces of feedback I’d give on your map.
Haystack Rock at Cannon Beach, Oregon (significant for me to visit because it was where they shot the end scenes of The Goonies) haha
Oregon is SO GREEN! I loved it. I think I moved to the US, I’d move to Oregon.
Lunch stop at Mt.Hood
Make sure you get to some kind of Redwood forest. AMAZING!
There are a few of these ‘Drive through trees’ around as gimmick tourist attractions. Was fun trying to get our massive van through!
Amazing! Loving your inspiring photos, @cords. ??
buddy dude guy.
in the south west of montana there are some amazing natural hot springs. def worth a soaking. you can camp near them usually. theres also a bunch of places that do cabins in the woods kinda things and naturally fed hot springs (not a natural rock pool, but a man made pool fed by hot springs)
also the stretch of coast from LA to San Fran is beautiful, incl santa barbra, worth keeping along the coast line as much as possible from LA to portland. i’ve not driven all of it but some amazing coast i’ve heard.
grand canyon is awesome. we did the “west canyon” which closest to vegas by car, ends up at a tourist destination thats run by native indians. pretty cool, they have a bunch of stuff there including a “skywalk” etc.
I haven’t done much on your route but 2 things I can think of that are likely on your way (or slightly off it) are Leavenworth in Washington and Neptune’s Net in Malibu (about an hour north of LA.)
Leavenworth is a town in Washington that is setup like a German village just after Steven’s Pass. It’s awesome and worth a stop for a few hours on your way through.
Neptune’s Net is a fish and chip joint in Malibu where we went with 4 people and spent $10 each for the most amazing fish and chips of my life. It’s also right across from the beach and was packed on a Sunday arvo when we went.
also the stretch of coast from LA to San Fran is beautiful, incl santa barbra, worth keeping along the coast line as much as possible from LA to portland. i’ve not driven all of it but some amazing coast i’ve heard.
This!
The first thing i noticed on your route map is that you seem to have highway 5 selected…
Route 1 is sooo much better!
Try to avoid the main hwys in this US where ever possible (think Old Pacific Hwy instead of the Pacific Hwy/M1 here is NSW)
So much more to see - with the old towns etc.
You should add Yosemite NP and King Canyon NP to the list above.
I spent a night in the fancy pants accom in Yosemite and also at “the Bug hostel’ nearby - which i loved and took my parents back to the next year!
You can also camp. Remember if you are goign to camp in bear populated areas you need something secure to lock food and scented items in overnight. You can’t just lock them in the car.
So in bear areas it might be better to not camp… just something to be aware of!
Also worth looking at this maybe?
Looks sick wish I knew more.. I only know about the LA area now..