Family Friendly Road Trip-Utah/Colorado/New Mexico

My family (two adults, a 6 year-old and a 3.5 year old) is driving out west from Michigan in mid-June for a few weeks.

We will be driving non-stop to La Plata NM to visit family for a few days followed by two weeks-ish of travel. We want a good sampling of what the region has to offer without rushing or pushing the kids beyond their ability/car ride limit. We'd are going to camp a little but haven't been with the kids before. I narrowed down the options into a somewhat cohesive itinerary. I would appreciate your input as far as your opinion of where we are going, how long we should be at each place, and other places you think we should (or shouldn't) go.

So, after four/five days in the La Plata New Mexico area, here's the tentative (and incomplete) plan

1. Three nights in Moab-staying near town at a condo with a pool-explore Arches and/or Canyonlands

a. Is there a particular hike that would be best for a young family?

2. Drive from MOAB to Dinosaur National Monument (camp?) and stay for (1 or 2 or more) night(s)

a. Is there someplace in between where we should go?

b. How many nights should we stay?

c. Is there a particular campsite or hike that would be best for a young family there?

3. Dinosaur NM to Glenwood Springs/Glenwood Caverns (2 nights?)

a. Is there someplace in between where we should go?

b. Is Glenwood Caverns a worthwhile destination?

i. if so, how long should we stay there?

4. Glenwood Springs to Black Canyon of the Gunnison NP (2-3 nights)

a. Is there someplace in between where we should go?

b. How many nights do you suggest staying?

c. Is there a particular campsite or hike that would be best for a young family?

5. CVG NP to Ouray (2 nights?)

a. Is there someplace in between where we should go?

b. Would you recommend Ouray as a destination?

i. If so, is a jeep tour a good idea with two little ones (if so, anyone in particular?)

c. How many nights do you suggest staying?

d. Is there a particular activity or hike that would be best for a young family?

From there I'm not sure what to do....we could drive back to La Plata and say with family and do the small gauge railroad from nearby Durango or travel more in New Mexico

Am l missing somewhere that we should camp (in UT/NM/CO)?

Should we see more of Colorado's towns/cities? Denver? Boulder?

Should we head south and hit more of New Mexico and head home through Oklahoma City and Amarillo or head east home through Colorado?

Any advice for stops between CO and MI on the way back?

Thanks again for your help.

Welcome to RTA!

While it looks like you've got some nice ideas for a vacation, there are some questions I have -

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We will be driving non-stop to La Plata NM to visit family for a few days

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Does this mean you are planning a 1700 mile trip without stopping overnight at least twice? With kids, this will be super important! Imagine being strapped in a car seat for 36 hours and only allowed to get out to go to the bathroom and maybe run around. Kids need to stop, stretch their legs, and will probably be fine in the car for about 8-10 hours. After that, they need an overnight -- and so do you. Also, two drivers does not help this either, because the shotgun-rider has to do the navigating/map reading and keep the driver awake while s/he does his job -- no sleeping on the job. (It may help to know that commercial drivers can only drive 10 hours, then they MUST, by law, retire to the back of the rig. Any time spent riding shotgun means they are still "driving".)

Have you tried to sketch this out on paper and include all driving days? It's easy to get caught up in the "we'll go here, and we'll go there" portion of trip planning, and forget to include the time it takes to drive from place to place, and to allow time to actually see what you are spending that time and money to see.


Donna

Welcome to the RTA Forum!

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Originally Posted by jaydough

We will be driving non-stop to La Plata NM to visit family for a few days followed by two weeks-ish of travel. We want a good sampling of what the region has to offer without rushing or pushing the kids beyond their ability/car ride limit.

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I'm not sure if you realize just how gigantic of a contradiction you have made in those two sentence.

Gross Point to La Plata is 1600 miles - an a bare minimum of 3 full days on the road - anything less than that would be homicidally dangerous. Trying to do it "non-stop" not only would be pushing the kids far beyond their car ride limit it will be pushing YOU far beyond the limits of what any human can safely do - and yes, that's even with multiple drivers. It is a 100% certainty that your driving skills would be impaired every bit as severely as someone who is driving drunk. If you think doing that with kids in the car is "family friendly," then we have some very different definitions of "family friendly." It's even worth noting that while 3 days to complete the drive is the bare minimum - professional drivers, with no concerns about children, would be required to take at least that amount of time because of safety laws - even that is beyond our recommendation for travels with children. If you want the trip to be family friendly - and not hate being in the car long before you start the "fun" portion of your trip, you might want to consider making the trip 3.5-4 days.

It also appears that you haven't really factored that time in for your return trip either - you've listed about 12 days of activities already, for a two week-ish trip, so factoring in that drive back, you're already over the two week mark, and you're looking for more ideas/considering detours all the way south into NM and TX.

As far as the route you've laid out, I don't understand why you are going all the way up to Moab and Dinosaur NP and then doubling back down to Black Canyon and Ouray. To me, I would make far more sense to start by going up the Million Dollar Highway to Ouray and onto Black Canyon, then keep working your way North to Moab and Dinosaur NP. After Dinosaur, start heading back east, through Glenwood Springs - or stay north and make your way to Rocky Mountain NP - as you start to make your way back home. To me, that would make far more sense, and be a far more efficient use of your time. Along those same lines, If you want to drive through OK and New Mexico, doing that on the way west would make plenty of sense - it's always good to find different routes each direction if possible - but that does increase the miles a bit and would make a 3rd overnight stop on the way west even more important.

Thanks for the responses.
I guess with this being a road trip forum, I should have been sensitive to how specifically detail oriented everyone would be to the proposed road-trip and I should have been more clear/specific as a result. Sorry about that.

To be clear-we do plan on taking 3-4 days driving out to La Plata. I don't know where we will overnight, I hadn't worked that out yet. But we will be stopping when necessary and not trying to push things. Thanks for looking out for my kids! That's very considerate.

The point I was trying to make was that my brother-in-law and his family is in NM so we won't be doing any extensive touristy things on the way out in order to maximize time with them.

Also, after spending four days with them at their home in La Plata (and exploring nearby areas like Durango), we are all going to MOAB together (our family and my brother-in-law's family) for a few days. After MOAB, we will have the rest of our time to ourselves which is where my planning started.

We don't have an exact amount of time that we have to be back in Michigan necessarily, three weeks total is our loose goal, it'd be fine if the trip lasted a few days more or less than that.

As far as my itinerary is concerned, I'm really open to suggestions of what order/direction we go in. We are not expert campers but we will be camping at least some nights. But we also are interested in cities/towns, good restaurants, historical and cultural sites/activities, etc.