From Dallas/Chicago to San Francisco in two weeks, July

Hi! First post to the forum.
I would like to hear your comments about our plans for road trip during next summer (i.e. is our plan realistic, is the season too hot etc.).
We have been planning for two week trip from either Chicago or Dallas to San Francisco. On the way we would like to visit at least Santa Fe, Grand Canyon and Las Vegas and if time permits Bryce Canyon, Yosemite etc. This would happen during next July. There would be four of us and we plan to sleep in motels. Is two weeks long enough time for this if we would like to stay 2-3 days in Santa Fe, Vegas and San Francisco? We would fly from Finland to Dallas or Chicago or Dallas and rent car which we would return to San Franciso and then fly back home from there.

(Some background: in December 1997 while studying in Austin, Texas, I did trip with my German friends from Austin to Santa Fe, Flagstaff, Grand Canyon, Page, Bryce Canyon, Las Vegas for two nights, Yosemite, San Franciso 2 nights, San Diego, El Paso and then back Austin. We did this in two and half weeks and now I would like to visit some of these places again with my girlfriend and friends from Finland).

And welcome to the RoadTrip America forums!

Why fly into Dallas or Chicago? Unless you plan on touring those cities, both just add a lot of miles to your trip. It would make much more sense to just fly into San Francisco, imho.

The trip is do-able if you fly into Chicago or Dallas but most of your time will be spent driving with only quick look-sees at the places you want to visit. It would also be very hard to stay two days in the places you want to spend more time in.

If you did San Francisco-Yosemite-Las Vegas-Bryce-Grand Canyon-Santa Fe, you would be driving 1430 miles. If you started in Dallas, you would be driving about 2100 miles. Starting in Chicago brings it up to a good 2800 miles.

It's possible that flying Finland-San Francisco-Finland round trip instead of arriving and leaving from different airports will also save you money that you can use toward buying your ticket on Southwest or other small, regional airline that flies out of Albuquerque.



If you do a one-way route, you will always have a drop-off charge. It makes more sense to me to pay to drop off the car in Albuquerque and then take a short flight back to San Francisco. Those should be relatively inexpensive. A check at Southwest Airlines shows that you might be able to get this for only about $120. I think that would be money well spent to give you more time at the places you want to see the most.