NY --> to the WEST! Advice on my trip outline needed!

Well in about a week I'll be taking a 3 week road trip. Hopefully the trip of the lifetime. Me and my friends have been planning this for a while, and planning it with budget in mind. The budget is primarily there to make it cheaper for us to budget doing outdoors events. Roughly the trip will be taking us from New York -->South Dakota badlands, custer, rushmore etc--> Wyoming, tetons, yellowstone--> Utah where we'll be camping for a day in zion and bryce--> Arizona, Grand Canyon for 3 days (Enough time?), thenup to 4 corners to mesa verde, and in colorado well be staying in colorado springs for a while and then back to NY.

Now we are going to camp everynight but the first, because we need a night to unwind after about a day of driving. 3 guys, alternating, we plan on doing the first stretch to south dakota in one push. We'll be living out of the cooler and we'll be doing cooking with propane burners.

Any advice on the overal trip? Any tips to save cash? Should i stay in grand canyon or utah longer? Biggest dangers??

Anyway I love these boards, thanks for anything :)

There are many, many posts on traveling economically on this site -- just pick some key words and plug them into the search function.

There is so much to see and do in the southern Utah and northern AZ area, that I'd suggest you devote as large a block of days as possible to the area, and then decide where you want to spend it when you get there. I'd include river rafting over by Moab, and some wandering around in the Canyonlands, Capital Reef and Grand Staircase-Escalante areas at minimum (but DO include Zion and Bryce as well).

At Grand Canyon, you could take a whirlwind tour in as little as two days and get just a taste -- or spend a week and still not see it all (if you ever could see it "all" in even a lifetime). The GC is one of those places that will be dramatically different in the course of several hours, or several days (or weeks); you get the idea. Spend as much time there as you can spare.

Keep the windows down when cooking with propane! (Some people might recommend pulling over & cooking outside, but where's the challenge in that?) Have fun! :-)