Tearing up my return ticket

Hi Guys,

I'm brand new here, but I'm a fairly experienced road tripper and hitch hiker. The first week of August I am flying to Rapid City, SD. The plan was to stay with an acquaintance at his condo in Deadwood and party there during the Sturgis Bike Rally. Well...I changed my mind and decided I want to explore instead.

I rented an SUV and have decided to not use my return flight to Phoenix. Instead I am going to drive home. I have never been able to figure out how to use road trip planning maps that can be found on Google. Every time I try I get frustrated and give up. Can anyone suggest a user friendly map generator? Or even better- do it for me?!?!

I have 9 days to make it from Rapid City back to Phoenix. I have a couple of "must sees". Looking for some advice on maybe some off the map stops. The biggest help, for me, would be help with the map generation.

Must sees:
Mt Rushmore
Yellowstone
Zion Nat'l Park
Horseshoe Bend at Lake Powell

I'm also open to changing my must sees, if there is a completely amazing route that takes me in a different direction from my current list. It would have to be some amazing stuff, though, to keep me from Yellowstone.

Welcome to RTA!

We love to help, but to get the trip that you want for yourself, you'll have to do a lot of the work.

First off, rather than use some electronic gadget that only wants to route you where IT thinks you should go, how about using a paper map or atlas? You should have those with you anyway, just to make sure that the electronics won't die on you when you least expect it.

From Rapid City -- which, btw, is just north of where Mt Rushmore is, in Keystone -- you could head west either on I-90 or US-212, depending on how long you want to take. Stop at Devil's Tower NM if that interests you, and/or Little Bighorn Battlefield (near intersection of I-90 and US-212). Enter Yellowstone through the NE entrance on the Beartooth Highway (Red Lodge). Spend a couple of days there.

Take US-89 south from Yellowstone through Grand Tetons, to I-15, to Zion on UT-9, then on to Lake Powell. Take 89 then I-17 south into Phoenix.

Day 1 - drive Rapid City to Laurel
Day 2 - 3 - AM 4 - enter Yellowstone, see Yellowstone, leave in PM of Day 4
Day 4 PM - drive to UT
Day 5 - Drive to Zion, spend rest of day in Zion
Day 6 - See Zion
Day 7 - Drive to Lake Powell, see Lake Powell
Day 8 - Drive to Antelope Canyon, see canyon (get reservations for tour)
Day 9 - Drive to Phoenix


Tweak as needed.


Donna