I have 7-12 days to go anywhere! Suggestions?

I live in St Louis Missouri and both my sweetheart and myself have an opportunity to travel together for anywhere between 7-12 days. Our original vacation plans fell thru. I just started my vacation today, Fri 11/02 and will not have to return to work until 11/20. I do not want to travel the entire time but a week to ten days would be ideal. It could involve a roadtrip only or a flight to somewhere and then road travels. Some thoughts we had were to travel by plane to Vegas and then drive a rental across the desert toward California. I have been to 33 states but never the west coast. The prospect is exciting but does not dominate, as we are open to all ideas.

Another idea was to drive down to Memphis and travel across the state of Tennessee ending up in the Smokies. East coast, west coast, north, south, we are ready for a serious adventure. Any ideas of a place to travel to and sights not to miss would be greatly welcome!

Welcome aboard the RoadTrip America Forums!

Since one could conceivably cross the entire continent in 6 days, and you're already pretty much in the middle of it to start out, you could get just about anywhere in the lower 48 and back to St. Louis in just 6-8 days of driving. That's less than half the time you have available to you. So there's really nothing to stop you from going anywhere you would like with one exception. You're vacation has started and you have no plans or reservations! So, if there's nothing that is really jumping out at you and your partner, you can try a few exercises to pick a destination. You could each make independent lists of your top 3 or 4 preferences and see if there's any overlap, or even pairs of destinations that could be done together in one trip (e.g. the Smokies and the Outer Banks). Pick a destination at random, even throw darts at a map, and make the trip about the journey and not the destination. There is a wonderful myriad of things to do in every state in the country so the where is not nearly as important as the why and how.

AZBuck

We really took some time to think about all our options and have chosen to explore Arizona. Out itinerary is sketched out below and we would greatlly appreciate anyone who has visited these areas to offer advice on what may be best to visit.

Day 1: Flying into Phoenix 9am.
Driving to Grand Canyon to spend the afternoon. Staying the night.

Day 2: Grand Canyon majority of the day. Heading to Monument Valley by sunset.

Day 3: Monument Valley sunrise. After exploring MV heading to Lake Powell. Leaving LP and begin travel to Death Valley. Stay night somewhere.

Day 4: Arrive in Death Valley. Explore DV. Stay night at Furnace Creek Ranch.

Day 5: Head to Las Vegas. Stay night. Go see Cirque.

Day 6: Las Vegas

Day 7: Leave Vegas in AM travel back to Phoenix.


This is loosely based. Also we have an extra day to play with and can use it anywhere along the way. We were thinking maybe and extra night at Grand Canyon. Neither of us have traveled this area and are unsure how much time is adequate in each place we visit. We heard there is a train ride around GC. Thought that may be nice. I origianally wanted to visit Canyon de Chelly but their guided tours ended in Oct.

Any ideas of what may be good to see in each of these areas or any suggestions on something we should incorporate?