A month tour: Chicago, Wisconsin, Minnesota, South & North Dacota, Chicago in July?

Hello,

I'm new to this forum and also know very little about travel options in nothern part of Midwest. I checked several earlier threads that seemed related. There is lots of good information but I couldn't find exactly what we're looking for.

I'm flying in to Chicago and meeting my travel buddy around the end of June. I've been in Chicago once and we've have made a southwards tour to Memphis and Nashville. Now our plan is to spend about a month exploring places we haven't been at in Wisconsin, Minnesota, South and North Dacota.

Of course, we'll spend some days (at the both ends of the tour) in Chicago too. My friend is quite familiar with American highlights of the city, the only information we might need are Lithuanian shops, restaurants, museums, monuments, exhibitions etc. I know it's strange to ask for Lithuanian points of interest arriving to US but I have personal reasons for that. I know there is a great Lithuanian restaurant in Pier Union but it's on the opposite direction from where we'll go.

As for Wisconsin, Minnesota, South and North Dacota, we'd really appreciate all possible help, suggestions regarding driving tour through these states.

• Best routes- most interesting but also not too difficult to drive?
• What's the situation with rest areas in these states? I know in some states/areas it's quite a long ride till you find one.
• Most worthy or worthless places to visit and spend time at?
• Hotels or camping?
• Places to eat? (Being an American, my friend is used to any cuisine available in US, I would rather prefer less spicy (hot) dishes and no raw meats/fish.)
• Car emergency services, repair shops?
• Any Lithuanian places of interest/ restaurants etc (in Chicago as well)?

Well, anything you would think we might need to know. Thank you.

Sveiki atvyke! Welcome aboard the RoadTrip America Forums!

Much of the upper Midwest was settled by immigrants from the Baltic Sea area, so it should not come as a surprise that there are pockets of current residents who hail from every country in that region, including Vilnius' Sister City Madison WI, and Minnesota. Now, while those aren't restaurants per se, they should certainly be able to direct you to some 'local' cuisine.

As for other highpoints in the general area you'll be driving through, they somewhat depend on how far afield you're willing to go. But a good loop through those states might include Apostle Islands National Lakeshore, the many lakes of Minnesota's north country, Theodore Roosevelt National Park, Badlands National Park, and one or more of the National Wildlife Refuges along the Mississippi.

AZBuck

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Originally Posted by USvisitor

[LIST][*]Best routes- most interesting but also not too difficult to drive?

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The best route is actually the one you WANT to take. I'd get a good map of these states, or an atlas, and see what looks interesting. It may help you plan your route this way.

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What's the situation with rest areas in these states? I know in some states/areas it's quite a long ride till you find one.

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Many states are going through financial woes, and some of them have closed down a few rest areas in the hopes of saving money on maintenance and repair. At one time, the interstate builders tried to have rest areas about an hour apart. Now they aren't always quite that close together, but exits with amenities are usually numerous. You can always use a fast food place for their restroom facilities, though it's polite to purchase a drink or something.

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Most worthy or worthless places to visit and spend time at?

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AZBuck made several suggestions that I totally agree with. A lot of folks really enjoy Wisconsin Dells, while others feel it's very touristy. It depends on your taste. In Chicago, there are MANY wonderful museums - the Art Institute, Museum of Science & Industry (MY favorite!), the Natural History Museum, Adler Planetarium, Shedd Aquarium, and more. I could spend several weeks visiting Chicago, as I'd also try the Museum of Broadcasting that's new there.

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Hotels or camping?

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Once again, your call. Are you comfortable with tent camping? It also means hauling a little bit more equipment!

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Car emergency services, repair shops?

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I heartily recommend having AAA membership, or a similar ERS (Emergency Road Service) membership. It's a great peace-of-mind. They have recommended repair shops. Otherwise, if we have car troubles, we ask locally who is good. Dealerships are usually decent but expensive.

Let us know if we can help further!


Donna

Madison is Vilnius' sister city? WoW1 Really? I didn't know that. I Thought all Lithuanians in that area have settled in Chicago and the area. Good to know I'll be able to find some "local" stuff further West. Putting Madison and Minnesota on my list. Thank you.
Thanks for other links too.

Thanks for your comments Donna.

I don't have much experience camping but I liked it when I did. I'm thinking it would be a nice way to spend some nights while somewhere in "wild" nature. Not all month though. I would certainly miss hot shower or bath :-)

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Originally Posted by AZBuck

As for other highpoints in the general area you'll be driving through, they somewhat depend on how far afield you're willing to go.
AZBuck

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Well, we don't have such a clear plan as I saw other posters giving in this forum but if we had already made our detailed itinerrary would we need to ask for ideas?

We usually start planning early and I usually spend lots of time browsing internet and searching information for our vacation trips. Sure I'll do same thing for this trip too. Your forum is the place where my research starts this time.

There is a good advice-"if you need directions ask the local or more experienced person". That's what I am doing here. I bookmarked pages you gave links to and I hope to get more constructive and informative replies, same as yours, so that we could pick out of them what we want.

I have one more question:

My friend suggested to go even further and see Glacier National park. He says it's a must if we drive that far west. Considering the fact that I live in Lithuania and he lives in Virginia it may certainly be the only time we are driving in that area. Is that doable? As I said- we will have about a month for all travelling with our base city being Chicago but only he will do all the driving. I do have driver's licence in Lithuania (valid in European Union) but I doubt it would be valid in US, would it?

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Originally Posted by USvisitor

I do have driver's licence in Lithuania (valid in European Union) but I doubt it would be valid in US, would it?

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Your Lithuanian License is perfectly valid in the US. However, you may want to get an international drivers permit, which provides a translation of your license.

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Well, we don't have such a clear plan as I saw other posters giving in this forum but if we had already made our detailed itinerrary would we need to ask for ideas?

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Absolutely! In fact the more you know, the more we can help. There are millions of places you can visit, just in the handful of states you want to see. The more places that you've determined that are "must stops" for you, the more we know about what you are interested in, and where you'll be spending your time, and thus can recommend similar ideas in the areas you'll be visiting.

This forum can certainly help you find ideas, as can the other articles you've been looking at, but when it comes to getting information on this or any forum, specifics are very good.

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My friend suggested to go even further and see Glacier National park. He says it's a must if we drive that far west.

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You can certainly get there within a month long trip from Chicago. However, if you're going there, then you might also give some serious consideration to Yellowstone and Grand Teton. However, both of those places are a full day drive west of the edge of the Dakotas (and a full day drive from each other.) and really start getting into much more of the West/Rocky Mountain region than the Upper Midwest, which you'd listed as your focus. Doing a trip that loops out to those places would likely be a very different kind of trip than one where you focus on exploring just WI, MN, and the Dakotas. I'm certainly not saying one is better than the other, because that depends upon how you like to travel and what you want to get out of the trip.

Thank you Midwest Michael,

your comment is great as always (I noticed your constructive style while reading other topics).

I'll check about international drivers permit. Gootr to know I can be useful during the long drive. Sure I should start from some minor roads with little traffic :-) Some US roads are too crazy for me, not to talk about the cities! That's one reason I was aking about best routes, meaning ways by that- driving conditions. I don't think one can decide about that just looking at the road atlas as I was told above.

Now back to the drawing board as people say.

I love the idea of getting more of the mountains... I know we have quite a lot of time but distances are BIG too.

We'd probably leave aside Yellowstone because it's easier doable from San Francisco, and we certainly will go to CA once more one day. So, there are 2 out of 3 left- Glacier NP and Grand Teton. Both are breathtaking as far as I know. I'd really love to visit both... This would mean quite a stright trip through states I mentioed innitially... Am I correct?

I don't know how I happened to post same twice. Where is the "delete" button in this forum?

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We'd probably leave aside Yellowstone because it's easier doable from San Francisco, and we certainly will go to CA once more one day. So, there are 2 out of 3 left- Glacier NP and Grand Teton. Both are breathtaking as far as I know. I'd really love to visit both...

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I think you are getting your 'Yellowstone NP' mixed up with 'Yosemite NP'. From Glacier to the Tetons would put you right in the Yellowstone area.

Oh, darn... you're right, I confused names. Thanks for correcting.

I did my homework: put some of the offered places to google maps.

Looks good to me. Now we can start looking into things along this road and counting time...

Google tells this route is only 2 days 17 hrs drive. Of course I know it's not quite so. Stops, traffic, etc. And no time for siteseeing, camping or anything given. All of that must be added little by little to get the full image.

Before adding Badlands NP, I had Parks in this order: Glacier, Yellowstone, Grand Teton, so Google led us along more southern road across Nebraska and Iowa. Is there anything out there to trade for Badlands and SD?

Attachment 3096
(Edit: your image was apparently a screen capture?) If you have the URL from Google maps, you can add the larger image here. Or use the RTA Maps URL...

It seems I can't get how things work here. First I posted double post , now there are 2 images attached, instead one... Sorry.

Hope this is not too bad.

Your attached images are a little small to show detail. Have you checked out the RTA Map Wizard or Map centre where you can create custom routes ? Place your cursor over the 'Maps' link in the green tool bar above and you will see both options. In the Wizard you create an 'A to B' route and find attractions like below, or follow instructions in the Map centre to creater your own route using 'Way points.

A quick example.



You can zoom in and out and click on the flags for more info on the 113 attractions already listed between Yellowstone and Chicago.

Thank you very much, Southwest Dave.

My picture is larger on computer but became smaller when posted.

No, I haven't explored this tool yet. I saw similar map in someone's post but didn't know how to use it.

It's a great one.I sure will try it.

Thanks again.

All these auto appearing flags are very cool but I don't see an option to add more than 1 destination and compose a round trip route like the one in my picture.
If I save several maps for each "leg" of the trip, will I be able to see all of them at the same time?

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All these auto appearing flags are very cool but I don't see an option to add more than 1 destination and compose a round trip route like the one in my picture.

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We make round trip maps all of the time. The issue is that you can only add 8 waypoints (beyond the start and finish points) so to see a total map, you'd need to limit the number of points.

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If I save several maps for each "leg" of the trip, will I be able to see all of them at the same time?

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Not at the current time, we are limited by the vendor's requirements. Here is a thread that discusses how to add waypoints and create routes.

Mark

Thank you very much Mark. You did a great job putting together that tutorial. Too bad I didn't know about it before wasting so much time earlier this afternoon. It's too late now and I'll have to try again the other day.
For now I just have 3 separate parts of my circle. Good enough for exploring places of interest and making more decisions on what to add and what to skip.

I made a map of our imaginery trip. It looks like this now: http://www.roadtripamerica.com/maps/...%20tour%202012

The pins in the map mark the most important stops we thought of so far:
Chicago, Minneapolis, Bismark, Glacier National Park, Yellowstone, Grand Teton, Mt. Rushmore, Badlands National Park, Madison, back to Chicago.



Google maps calculated that it's nabout 65 hrs of driving, it would make about 13 days w/ about 5 hrs of driving each day. I've seen people telling they are ready to drive much longer but we don't think it's the way vacation should be. We want to give time for rest and food stops as well as some poits of interest along the road.

Speaking about POI, there are so many marked around our route! We'll sure have to take lots of them off but it'll be a long lasting process. We both need to check all of them and decide what to leave. Which places along our route, besides of a few mentioned above, would you name as a must to visit?

So, driving+ rest/food/POI stops will take about 2 weeks, plus, 2-3 days in Glacier, and 2-3 Days in Yellowstone, and 2 days in Tetons- would make 3 weeks, plus Chicago time- that's most of the month. Sure I read comments in other threads saying that Yellowstone deserves 3-4 days at least... means we hardly fit into the whole month! Wow! I thought we've got lots of time.

I do the same thing when I plan my own RoadTrips. I find many more places than I will ever have time to visit, and look into them enough to know a bit about what they have to offer, when they're open, directions, that sort of thing. I then pick my spots on the fly as I drive depending on how well I'm doing at getting down the road, what the weather's like, what I feel like. I'd certainly rather have to drop a few sites (I will never get to see everything in any area I visit) than to know that I had time but missed something worthwhile because I hadn't done my homework. With as much time as you have at your disposal, don't worry about which are the 'must sees'. Just hit the places that intrigue you from your research, and spend what extra time you have at the ones that really speak to you when you're there. You've got a great trip lined 'up. Now is the time to start to relax and enjoy.

AZBuck

Good morning again, I see
my above post became nicer!
Thank you, Dave, for adding the map into it. I didn't know how to do that.
AZBuck, thanks for your kind and encouraging comment.

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Originally Posted by AZBuck

You've got a great trip lined 'up. Now is the time to start to relax and enjoy.

AZBuck

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Yes, we could just relax and enjoy but I visited your thread with atractions A-Z this morning and it gave me a few new ideas. I discovered that destination of my dreams- Oshkosh is almost around the corner from our route. My friend I I taked about it and we think we could add the next year's show to our itinerary. Timing fits well and it's not that far. We'd gladly change the days we intended for Chicago to days in Oshkosh. We'll come to Chicago again and again in the future.

What do you think?

I also edited locations of some Custom points to move the blue route line through flagged areas POI system sugested.

Here is the updated map:

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Mark Sedenquist Edit: If you use the RTAMap Icon (instead of the URL tags) and change the word custom to display in the URL, you can post your map here too. But nice work on the map!

And you don't need to include all of the RTA RoadTrip Attraction Flags -- just choose the ones you're interested in!

Oshkosh is known for two things: The children's clothing manufacturer Oshkosh B'gosh, and the Experimental Aircraft Association. I'm just curious as to which is the draw for you. Also in the area let me suggest that you stop in Fond du Lac (at the southern end of Lake Winnebego) and have a meal at Gilles Frozen Custard Drive-In on S. Main St., a hamburger and ice cream joint straight out of the 50's where you pull up to a parking space, flash your lights, and a real honest-to-goodness carhop comes and takes your order. And then in Appleton, at the north end of the lake, there's Harry Houdini's boyhood home. You see what I mean by there are more things than you can ever get to in any small area of the country. Good luck paring down your to Do list.

AZBuck

Hi AZBuck,

thank you very much for your comment and suggestion. It sounds very interesting. I sure would like to experience 50's America. More things to think about...

As for Oshkosh I have just 1 word and it is AIRSHOW. I love airshows, airplanes, flights (as traveller). Been dreaming to see the best museum of Aviation (as it was described to me) since 2002, as well as see the great flying fest with my own eyes. If someone would tell me- you can't go to both- choose Mountains (Glacier park etc) or Oshkosh I'm pretty sure I'd say- Oshkosh :-D

I've enabled the map to display in your post above -- You can do this too! You can also edit the map to show only the RTA "Flags" that you're interested in.

Mark

Thank you Mark.

My friend and I decided to keep all flags for now till both review all places.

As for maps, I don't know how to put them in the posts as you do. I've been studying RTA a lot but not enough probably to find any explanation how to do that.
Advice or link to necessary topic would be very appreciated.

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As for maps, I don't know how to put them in the posts as you do

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1] Select appropriate saved map from 'My Maps'.. 2] Below the map display select 'View and share saved map'. 3] Under the map copy the URL. 4] When posting in the forum, select 'Go Advanced' under the bottom right of post box. 5] Select 'RTA MAP' icon and paste the URL.
6] You need to delete the word 'custom' in the URL and enter 'display' in it's place. 7] Submit reply.

It's not as bad as it seems once you have done it once. ;-)

Here is the official version.http://www.roadtripamerica.com/forum...in-Forum-Posts [It might make more sense !

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Originally Posted by USvisitor

My friend and I decided to keep all flags for now till both review all places

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. USVisitor also created a helpful step-by-step field report about creating maps using waypoints, others might find this helpful. There is a recurring bug with the Custom Places program, which unfortunately he found... but still a useful post!

Mark

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Originally Posted by Southwest Dave

It's not as bad as it seems once you have done it once. ;-)

Here is the official version.http://www.roadtripamerica.com/forum...in-Forum-Posts [It might make more sense !

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Thank you Dave. I'm sure it's easy once you try and master that. I will try. Thanks for the link.

MArk, I'm glad to hear that you think my post about mapping might be helpful :-)

I know this will be off topic for this thread but I've got a question.

If I find some spare time may I write about our past trips and add maps showing where we went? If yes, where it has to be done: as a discussion thread or there is some place like traveler's blog or something on this site?

We always enjoy reading about other members road tripping adventures !! You can't beat first hand information/experiences from the road !!

We have the Roadtrip Field reports section for that right here. You can also add photos to the posts which we also like, a LOT !!

Dave.