Complicated Houston-Grand Canyon-California trip

In July, my daughter and I are planning to travel with my sister and her family from Houston to the Grand Canyon, and then we'll part ways with my sister, et al, and make our way to LA and San Francisco to visit colleges. Our idea is to take a van from Houston to the Grand Canyon (north rim), stay there about 3 nights, then let my sister take the van home and we'll take a bus to the closest city (Vegas?) and fly over to LA, where we'll rent a car to tour around the area and then fly back to Houston.

My questions are:
1. Is the above scheme feasible in about a 12-day time frame?
2. What's the best route from Houston to the north rim of the Grand Canyon?
3. What's the best route from the Grand Canyon to the closest major metropolitan area (i.e., one where there are economical flights to LA or SF)?

Thanks for any help you can provide.

1. It should be.

2. Take I-45 up to DFW, get through/around somehow, and take US-287 to Amarillo. Take I-40. At Flagstaff, take US-89 north to Alt-89 to the north rim.

3a. Take Alt-89 to Kanab, take US-89 to UT-9 and go through Zion NP, pick up I-15 to Las Vegas. A possibility - but I have never taken it and have no info about it - my map shows AZ-389 off of Alt-89 at Fredonia, this goes through Colorado City and turns into UT-59 and joins UT-9 west of Zion.

3b. Retrace your steps to Flagstaff and take I-17 to Phoenix. If you do this, your sister can take I-10 all the way back to Houston.

I am not aware of any public transportation that goes anywhere near the north rim, buses or otherwise.

Welcome aboard the RoadTrip America Forums!

This trip is quite feasible in 12 days, only three of which would be needed for the drive from Houston to the north rim of the Grand Canyon, From Houston, just take I-45 up to the Dallas area and then US-287 to Amarillo, I-40 to Flagstaff, and then US-89, US-89A and AZ-67 to hook around to the north rim.

The getting to Los Angeles is were it gets a bit complicated, so let's just list your options you can see if any of them work for you. The first option is to fly from Las Vegas and there might be a few ways to get there. The nearest place with regular bus service to Las Vegas is St. George, UT. That's 145 miles from the north rim. Your sister would then have another 100 mile drive, roughly, to get back to about where she started so that she could begin her drive home to Houston. Then there are tour companies that run busses from Las Vegas to the north rim. Now while these are meant as excursions from Las Vegas to the Canyon and back, you could try contacting one of them and seeing if it would be possible to get a one-way ride back from the Canyon to Las Vegas. But you would have to arrange this well in advance I suspect.

The other option is to fly to Los Angeles from somewhere that is more on your sister's way home. You could return with your sister as far as either Flagstaff or Albuquerque from either of which you could get a flight to Los Angeles.

AZBuck

Thanks to both of you. I think I'll try the tour bus idea first--my sister is contemplating heading to Denver before she goes back to Houston.

St. George is not that far out of her way from the north rim to Denver - she can take I-15 to I-70 from there.