7 Weeks across America - Realistic or Delusional?

Hello everybody,

You Guys are the experts. Please help me planning the following trip:

My Starting Point will be Flagstaff near Northern Arizona University, around 1st week of August and i would like to do the following:

Grand Canyon: just the South Rim, not the Skywalk
Monument Valley
Bryce
Zion

Las Vegas (3 full Days)
Hoover Dam

Death Valley
Sequoia & Kings (just for General Sherman - largest tree in the World)
Yosemite
Mono Lake

All this i will be doing in a rental midsize suv and i just want to see the most important things in all the above attractions.

Is all of this possible in 7 Days? 3 Days for Vegas and 4 Days for the Parks...

If Yes, in what order should i visit all of these attractions.

Am I being delusional with just 4 days for all the nature attractions? If Yes, how long is the absolute minimum?

Thanks

Yeah, I'm sorry, but your plan isn't close to possible. Seeing all of these places, and just driving through Vegas would be tough in 7 days, giving up 3 of those days to spend in Vegas makes it just a non-starter. You'd almost need 4 full days on the road just to cover the miles, if all you did was stop to take picture of the park entry signs.

Are you not planning on doing your larger trip anymore?

I'll say this, pretty much all of the National Parks you're looking at really deserve a full day of your time, and it's tough to even see them at all in less than a half day. Sequoia, for example, will take you a few hours just to drive into the park, take a picture of Gen. Sherman, and drive back out.

Just to cover the miles on the shortest possible route - GC, MV, Bryce, Zion, Vegas (do Hoover Dam as a daytrip), Death Valley, Mono Lake (assuming Tioga Pass is open, you didn't say when you're traveling), Yosemite, and Sequoia - is 1500 miles, pretty much all on 2 lane roads. That's 3 hard days of driving by itself, and doesn't include any drive time from Sequoia onto your final destination, be it San Francisco, LA, Vegas, or back to Flagstaff.

So, when you take all the destinations you've listed, plus spending a few days in Vegas, I think you need at least 2 weeks for a quick trip. If you can't do that, then you'll have to start making some big, big cuts.

Yes, with four days all you would be doing is driving straight through those parks, if you wanted to cover all of them. You would barely have time to get out of your vehicle to take a photo. Best you choose just a few of them. Some of those parks, such as Yosemite, it would take a couple of days to explore, and then you would not see all of it.

With four days, you could do a nice loop through the Grand Canyon, Monument Valley, Bryce and Zion, and even that would be rushed.

Lifey

Thanx for your reply Michael.

I am very well going on my larger trip. The Problem is that now even 47 days of total seem to be not enough to do it all :(

This is how i am only left with 7 days for the above mentioned attractions:

Starting mid July in

New York - 5 Days
Niagara Falls USA and Canada - 2 Days
Chicago - 4 Days
Route 66 from Chicago to Flagstaff - 12 Days
above mentioned attractions - 7 days (i hoped atleast)
San Francisco - 5 Days
Route 50 all the way back to Chicago - 12 Days

This sums up the trip to 47 days.

I decided just to ask smaller questions about smaller parts of the trip rather than flooding the same Thread with completely different questions about one huge trip.

no need to confuse the readers or get even more confused myself...

i hope you understand my dilemma.

how would you guys plan such a trip in 47 days?

See, this is the exact reason why we have a policy of 1 thread per trip - and why I've now merged the two threads together.

You can't plan segments of a trip like this in a vacuum. When you say you only have 7 days for a trip (that really requires about 14), but in reality, you've got 7 weeks there's a lot more that can be talked about.

For example, you can get from Chicago to Flagstaff in 4 easy days, so maybe you do that trip in less than 12 and have more time for the SW portion of your trip.

Or, if you're taking US-50 back, the National Parks of Utah you've listed are a relatively short detour and could possibly be used in the 12 days you've got planned for that section.

You've got 2 full weeks planned between NYC, Chicago and SF - you could trim a few days off those cities and be in a much better shape to see the unique natural wonders you can't see anywhere else.

But ultimately, no matter how you look at things, you're either going to have to take some time from other sections of your trip, or cut something out to visit all these great places.

Do you have the paper maps or a road atlas you were advised to get?

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how would you guys plan such a trip in 47 days?

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Speaking just for myself, I would take at least one day from each city, and devote it to the parks. Once you've seen a couple of cities they all start to look the same, but the natural wonders of the west are unique. You will never see them anywhere else. When you get to the west, you may well regret having spent so much time in the concrete jungles.

You can drive from Chicago to Flagstaff in a much more efficient way than trying to follow a route which really no longer exists. Not only that, but you will end up seeing a lot more spectacular country. Check out the route from Chicago to Denver on I-80 to I-76 and then I-70 - the most scenic interstate in the country - to UT. You will then already be in the midst of the parks, and would be able to include Arches, Canyonlands and much more.

Rather than take 12 days, it would take about a third of the time.... freeing up at least 8 more days to spend in the parks.

From San Francisco to Chicago will not take you anywhere near 12 days, even if you follow part of US50, which does not go all the way to Chicago. That could free up even more time to spend in the south west.

Lifey

I think part of the problem here is that the vastness of the United States is difficult for Europeans to grasp. When you say "four easy days from Chicago to Flagstaff" that means at least 8 hours each day of just driving, and longer if you hit construction or rush-hour traffic. If you want to spend time stopping to sightsee and sit in restaurants for meals, you need to add those hours which then become another day or two or three.

If I were you, I would fly into either San Francisco or New York and then go across, not back and forth.

Burgh

With 7 weeks you can have a really relaxed trip seeing the places you want and by doing a loop, you just need to tweak things so that you are not rushing in places and taking to long in others. To visit a number of places a loop often works out better than zig zagging up and down the country and best of all, you won't have a one way drop off fee on your rental. I too would chop time from the city, but even with allowing 8 days each way you would add 8 sight seeing days to your trip, plus you could be building in the attractions while heading east to west and west to east saving even more time. For example you can see MV and GC on the way to SF (as well as other attractions along the way) and then afterwards head to Yosemite, Mono Lake, Death valley, LV, Zion, Bryce and possibly Capitol Reef, Arches, Canyonlands on the way east, as well as attractions in Colorado. You would have the option of visiting Vegas and Yosemite on route to SF if you wanted to pick up US50 earlier.

Just to refresh, I have read your whole plan again, along with all the changes. I am glad Michael merged them.

Your plan is full of routes cities and parks. I think you need to decide which is your top priority, what exactly is it you want to get out of this trip. If it is the two routes, then drop some time in the cities, and do only those parks near the routes. (As one who has Jamie Jensen's book, I would suggest you not blindly follow it. He lists many attractions which may not necessarily be to your taste, on the other hand you may pass spots where you would rather spend time. Best design your own trip.)

If the priority is cities, then pick up your preferred routes when convenient, and skip the rest and visit which ever parks fit in time wise. And if the parks are top priority then adjust the other two to visit as many of the parks for as long as you can.

But you can't necessarily do it all, as I am sure you are beginning to see. However, as in previous posts, you have quite a lot of time swinging, which could be moved.

I would also suggest that you forget about the train to Chicago. Look at renting a car in Newark NJ. From what I have heard on the road from other visitors, it is cheaper to rent from Newark. Since you won't need a car in NY, you can pick it up and drop it off on your way out of and back into the city. There is a train between the two cities.

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my goal is to prepare a complete google map of my roadtrip, convert it into a format my gps software would understand so that i can just follow it.

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This comment worries me more than a little. Be sure to travel with good paper maps, which on the road should be your primary navigational tool. Don't be tempted to rely solely on technology. Some have done so at their peril. By all means use a gps as a back up, but make sure you choose the roads, not the gps. Make sure you have those maps, and that you know how to read them.

Lifey

Thank You so much for your input!

I am having a very difficult time planning this trip. Glad you guys are helping me.

From New York to Niagara and then from Niagara to Chicago i will be booking flights. They are not very time consuming and also not soo expensive. i checked. they are affordable. definitly cheaper then renting a car already in new york or newark and keeping it for one extra week.

After i am done with chicago sightseeing, i will rent the car and then begin with route66.

i planned 12 days because of all the road has to offer. i now have the ez66 guide and other route66 books. they show pretty nice attractions to visit...

the only cuts i can make are from the 2 routes. i don't really want to cut time from the cities.

How does 8 days per route sound?

That gives me 12 Days for the Parks.

I will be having the Rand McNally Large Scale Atlas for Navigation but i still would like to have google maps as a backup. that is why i am still working on the kml file. And i promise it is just a backup.