Considering a east coast to west coast trip. What would we have time for?

[Brandon Yates]

Hi all,

I'd like to take a road trip with my girlfriend this summer. We are both gainfully employed so money will not be our main constraint, time will be. At most we could take two weeks vacation time so that would give us about 14 days from start to finish. We have traveled together several times before but it always involved a single destination, typically in the Caribbean, so this will new a new experience for us.

So we will be setting out from Philly and I figure my best bet is to rent a car and fly home, which will save us a few extra days of driving. Id like to get to the following places on our trip:

Start: Philly
Boulder Colorado
Yellowstone
Teton
Vegas
Death Valley
Yosemite
Finish: San Fran.

Is this way too much for a two week period? Would I be better off flying into CA and just driving a loop to hit up most of these places? I really want to see the national parks I listed. Vegas and Colorado could be saved for another time I guess.

[AZBuck]

Welcome aboard the RoadTrip America Forums!

As I responded to another similar planned trip today, your proposal includes the two most expensive options for travel that there are, a one-way rental, and one-way plane tickets. And then there's the fact that you have nothing to see, or at least that you thought was worth mentioning, between Philadelphia and Boulder, over 1800 miles of driving before your vacation really starts. I just think you'd be far better off to buy some round trip tickets to Denver, and rent a car there, do a loop trip through the west that ends up back in Denver, and fly home. You might actually save some money and you will certainly save at least three days that you can spend exploring the west. A simple loop such as Denver - Boulder - Yellowstone - Zion - Las Vegas - Grand Canyon - Monument Valley - Arches - Denver could be driven in as little as 4 days, leaving you the rest of your time to experience the west rather than getting there.

AZBuck