Toronto to San Francisco then Seattle

A few months ago I made a post about how to get free maps, now that they have all arrived the planning begins.

My route is very flexible and is very open to change. The only places I want to make sure to hit are San Francisco and Seattle. The 4 corners and St. Louis are two other main places I would like to hit, but they are certainly not necessary.

On the way back to Toronto I am hoping to go through Sault Ste Marie, Sudbury and then South instead of through Chicago.

Any suggestions of highways, places to stay, places to see, or anything at all I am certainly 100% open to any help!

Just some random sights, roads, and other things that would fit into such a trip: The Ozarks, Capulin Mountain National Monument, Wolf Creek Pass, Monument Valley, the Grand Canyon, Death Valley, Yosemite, the Pacific Coast Highway, Redwood National Park, Crater Lake National park, Mt. Ranier National Park, Coeur d'Alene, Glacier National Park, Yellowstone, Devils Tower, Mt. Rushmore, Badlands National Park, Fort Michillimackinac, and the Soo Locks. And that's just off the top of my head, there's a ton more. Is there a theme to this trip? Are there things you particularly like to see or do?

AZBuck

pfunk--

there is a lot about the SF area on the sit already, so let me just give a couple of suggestions for MI.

The detour to Frankenmuth is well worth it. There is an "all you can eat" (don't let that scare you) German Restaurant that anyone in town can point you to. It is outstanding food and they make their money due to the fact it is high quality, but everyone gets full!

Of course, Mackinaw Island is a great history lesson, but also a "tourist trap."

Once in the Soo, you can go look at the locks, but the dinner cruise will give you an up close look. I have to confess, when we lived there we actually did the dinner cruise from the CA side.

While in the Soo there is also Tahquamenon Falls.

To be honest though, I always wanted to do the circle around Lake Superior, but only was able to make the southern (US) portion when we lived there. Depending on your likes, you may want to consider adapting your route (if you like nature and history).

just my humble 2 cents!

If you make it to Seattle and San Francisco, I'll just make a few quick suggestions.

You might want to explore Mt. Rainier before heading into Seattle. In Seattle, there are a tons of things to see. That should get you started.

Here's a great roadtrip report with all the reasons you should consider taking the coastal route from Seattle to San Francisco.

Thank you AZBuck, love to see America, and Judy for the great responses. I am currently looking up all of the suggestions and plotting them on my map situated on my wall. I am 100% sure I will have more questions soon, but for now it's time for lots of research!

After reviewing your suggestions, I have some more questions. Keeping in mind that my rough outline of the trip is Toronto to St.Louis to the 4 corners, followed by San Francisco, Seattle and back across the top of the States to enter Canada through Sault Ste Marie.

1. What highway(s) should I use to get from Toronto to St. Louis and more importantly St.Louis west to the 4corners and San Fran? Going North to Seattle the 101 would be my best option I'm guessing? (any help on this would be much appreciated as I am not familiar with the American Highways.

2. I am a music enthusiast and would love to see any musical landmarks along the way! Any suggestions on places to see?

Gosh, I would think you'd want to visit Cleveland's Rock & Roll Museum, and these cities with rich, musical histories: Memphis, Nashville, New Orleans. If you have time, you might consider adding those stops in.

4 Corners is kinda fun but there are so many other wonderful places to visit near there like Mesa Verde, Monument Valley, Grand Canyon, etc. I would visit one of those places in addition to, or instead of, 4 Corners. Depending the time you have, of course.

This map shows you a possible route but it is not the only route, nor the best route. For example, you might head over to the Pacific Coast and taking CA-1 up from Los Angeles or San Diego. You might get off these interstates and enjoy differing roads. There are dozens of variations you can make. It's a bit hard to advise you because we also don't know how many days you have for this trip.

Note that we generally recommend not traveling more than about 840 km per day. This gives you a few hours to explore. Obviously, less distance is better if you have a lot of things you want to see that day. Your trip would be about 13 days of just driving so, if you want to explore and possibly linger along the way, you will need to add extra days for that.

This map shows you what your trip might look like if you add in the "musical cities" I listed above. Since this trip would be about 13,000 km, you would need at least 2.5 more days to your trip to see these places. But, still, this doesn't include time to really enjoy the things along your trip but is merely your travel time.

Hope this helps a bit.

Thanks Judy,
I was planning on going to the Rock and Roll Museum I forgot to mention that! I was planning on visiting the 4 corners, monument valley, and the Grand Canyon in that leg of the trip. New Orleans would have been great to visit, but is rediculously out of the way. Nashville is not exactly my type of music either.

That map was a great starting point to my planning, thank you so much for doing that for my benefit!

I was hoping that the trip could be done in around 3-3.5 weeks. Would this assumption be reasonable at a nice pace?

Thanks Again, Pfunk

You can figure that it takes 5 days to go cross-country at a reasonable pace so that's roughly 10 days total. Add a minimum of 4 days, preferably 5, for the Pacific Coast drive, and you've taken up 15 days. This leaves you about 6-10 days for sightseeing, staying over in one place if it intrigues you, etc.

If you wanted to, you could probably squeeze Memphis and New Orleans in but, of course, this leaves less time to linger elsewhere. Going into The South for their music might best be left for another trip in the future.