Planning Our Family Road Trip

We live on the East Coast and decided to take a family road trip out West. It seemed like a great idea but boy was it a challenge! When I was around 2 years old my parents took my brother and me on a road trip across the country to the Grand Canyon, Yellowstone Park, and other national parks. We drove all the way from Pennsylvania in our Buick with stops to see family in the Midwest along the way. I was going through some old family slides and converted them to digital photos. I came up with the crazy idea that we should do this too!

I had originally planned on driving cross country as my parents did but with work, it was difficult to take the additional week in travel time. The questions were, how do we get there? How do we get around once we got there? Where exactly do we want to go out west? All these questions and so much planning to do! I started looking into our options. First I looked at renting an RV but with the additional costs in gas plus other fees, it didn’t seem like it was an option for us. Although I bet it would have been quite the trip! Maybe next time!

Time to look at option number two… Taking a train across the country. Nope, again too many days in travel time. What about flying? Now that sounds like a plan! Where do we fly to? We looked at flying into Colorado, Arizona, Wyoming, Montana, Utah, and Las Vegas. We ultimately decided to fly into Las Vegas when my daughter added the zinger that she wanted to stop in California to put her feet in the Pacific Ocean. It’s not like we have never seen the ocean as we live on the East Coast and take trips to the shore all the time. She pointed out that it’s the Atlantic Ocean, not the Pacific Ocean. More planning to fit Cali into our road trip!

I don’t know how my mom planned our trip without the internet. I am sure she used AAA as a great resource and knowing her she spent some time in the library doing her research. I bet the Triptik and all the maps and books they provided her were invaluable! My dad went “old school” for our recent trip by picking up maps and state books at AAA. They actually came in handy along the way!

During my research, I found this great website called Roadtrippers. It has so many great features. There are recommended trips across the US that you can use for inspiration or you can just pick one to follow. You can also map out your own custom trip like I did. I was able to add points of interest, culture, entertainment, hotels and more to my map. I found multiple attractions to stop at when I was going from one place to another which helped with the long drive. Why not stop and see a beautiful waterfall before heading into the desert with nothing exciting to see? We also found some hidden gems to eat lunch along the way.

Another great tool I found was Booking.com. I was able to book hotel rooms and when we decided to change direction I could cancel the room within 24 hours and book a room somewhere else. There was no fee to do this which was great. I was able to get affordable prices by using their site but more importantly it was reassuring that I had a room booked ahead of time wherever we were heading.

I was able to plan our family vacation that ended up being more than I could have imagined. When you live in the US sometimes you forget how much this country has to offer. Yes, we have Disney World which is awesome, but there is so much more to see in our National Parks across the country. To get to some of the most majestic parks, we flew from Philadelphia to Las Vegas. We rented a van in Nevada and hit the road. In the end, we drove 2,978 miles through seven different states in 9 days! We saw The Hoover Dam, the Grand Canyon, Teton National Park, Yellowstone Park, other beauty along the way, and yes, we made it to Santa Cruz, California. It was incredible!

Subscribe below to hear more about our trip as we post it. I would love to hear about great places to visit in the US. Please comment below with any recommendations. May we travel through life together!