Salt Lake City/ Yellowstone National Park / Grand Teton/ Seattle

September 2015 Family trip 4 adults with key focus on Yellowstone/ Grand Teton area (14 days-18 days) - entry Salt Lake City, departure city Seattle.

What is the optimal use of our time, taking into consideration time of year and our areas of interest being: scenery, wildlife, adventure and hiking. Budget mid range. Would like to cap driving to max 3 hours per day, happy to move to various locations for accommodation. We are looking for best tips for -
- Must see locations
- Route suggestions
- Accommodation
- day trips

Appreciate your thoughts.

Kiwi's on the road

Hi, and Welcome to the Great American Roadtrip Forum.

First thing which comes to my mind that you will need to book your Yellowstone accommodation as soon as the booking window opens. Accommodation within the park - highly recommended - is limited and much sought after.

Driving in the US is very different to driving almost anywhere on the planet... certainly very different from driving in NZ, or Oz for that matter. You will most likely find that you will soon travel for longer, with sightseeing stops in between. Actually three hours is less than 200 miles. You will be travelling through some spectacular country.

Do you actually have some good maps of the US and / or Utah and Wyoming? I would highly recommend that you invest in some. If you are not able to get any locally, you may consider a Rand McNally road atlas. It usually takes no more than two or three weeks to arrive. It will give you a much better understanding of what there is in the region, and just how many routes there are from which you can choose. (Only six months ago I spent quite some time in this area.)

You might look at the little town of Pinedale, a wonderful little town with a great deal to see in the area (the Visitor centre there is very helpful).. You could head up through Tetons NP on your way to Yellowstone. I would also suggest that you look at a detour from Green River to Rock Springs via Flaming Gorge National Recreation Area. From Yellowstone you could travel some of the spectacular scenic routes through central Idaho to Spokane, on your way to Seattle. If sticking to the Interstate highways is more your thing, you would take the road through the Columbia River Gorge to Portland.

If time permits on the way to Seattle there is Mt Rainier NP and Olympic NP is also in the Seattle area. Lots to choose from.

If you stick to your three hours per day, the total distance point to point without detours, could be driven in 5 days.

One further little point, which I have always found useful, is to take your automobile club membership with you. It gives you access to free maps and tourism information from the AAA. You could pick up detailed maps of all States you plan to travel, while in SLC.

Lifey

Hello and welcome to RTA !

From SLC you could be near to the Tetons [Jackson WY] in a 5 hour comfortable drive, it would make sense to go to the Tetons first for driving economy. If you wanted to detour, Lifey above has made good suggestions, in the other direction you could go to Twin Falls for the Snake River canyon [Evil Knievel fame] and Perrine Bridge and just a little way out of town are Shoshone Falls, aka the Niagara of the west. They will be quite dry this time of year but still impressive. Then you could to the 'Craters of the Moon' NM on route to Yellowstone. Heading towards Seattle there is the National Bison Range just North of Missoula, but a 'huge catch' for not too many added miles would be Glacier NP.

In actual fact, unless Seattle is a 'must do' for you, I would consider doing a loop trip in and out of SLC which would get rid of those pesky one way drop off rental fees which can be quite large and possibly save on airfares. You could go SLC >Tetons > Yellowstone >Drive the Beartooth Highway out of Yellowstone to Red Lodge > Glacier NP > Missoula [National Bison Range] > Twin Falls [Craters of the Moon/Shoshone Falls > SLC. Stopping wherever you feel comfortable to your driving parameters.

You will be lucky to get anywhere in Yellowstone driving for just 3 hours, the place is huge ! You will have lots of stops and entertainment though ! Even if you stay in the park I would look at different areas to lodge to save lots of backtracking and as said, look into lodgings asap !