one way drive trip to Dallas
Am moving from bay area to Dallas in july. Instead of shipping van, plan to drive from Bay area to Dallas
I already went through the map wizard on this page and prepared the plan. But want to run it with Gurus on this site so as not to miss.
Plan is start on july 1st and want to by reach july 4th evening(total of ~4 full days)
1. On first day take hwy 5 and then 40 and visit Red rock canyon, Mojave, Go through hwy 66 for some distance and get onto hwy 40 to reach Grand canyon, south entrance and stay for the night
2. Day 2, (go for sunrise from south entrance early in the morning and back home to relax) - planning to drive 6-8hrs only. will be starting late and visit walnut canyon, meteor crater, petrified forest . Anything else? Please suggest place to stay. Also any good camping site?
3. Day 3, if nothing important is there to see, drive and reach dallas by evening.
Am a big fan of national parks and already have Grand canyon in my list. am regular visitor to Sierra's so don't want to add to the list. Could you please suggest any other national park, not-to-miss places which can make the trip more enjoyable.
one of my friend might come with me but high probability of me driving alone.
Ohh forgot, I like stargazing and prefer to camp if possible.
You will need 4 days to do anything other than drive.
Hello and welcome to the RTA forums !
I am a little confused as you talk of having 4 days, but say you want to reach Dallas on night 3. Well first of all it's a solid 3 days of driving from the Bay area to Dallas without any diversions or sight seeing. Even if you were to drive direct with no sightseeing , the GC is too much of a drive as a start to a multi day trip. Kingman is the furthest point you should head for and that would be driving direct. From the GC area it is a 2 day drive to Dallas. So if you have 4 days, you could visit GC and a couple of spots from Kingman and perhaps stop in Flagstaff for a 2 day journey to Dallas.
Quote:
(go for sunrise from south entrance early in the morning and back home to relax)
I'm not sure what you mean here but I am pretty sure you don't mean going back to the Bay area !
Definitely Needs a Rethink
Welcome aboard the RoadTrip America Forums!
You are really getting off on the wrong foot with a first day that is simply impossible. What you've laid out is a 750 mile drive that would be far more than safe or reasonable even if you hopped out of bed and immediately got on a practically deserted Interstate with a 75 mph speed limit. But you've also got to clear a major metropolitan area during rush hour on the Friday morning of a major holiday weekend and drive a significant portion on surface roads through a fair sized city and take a little-used and poorly maintained 'historic' roadbed and find lodging in or near a major national park at its busiest time of the year. That's simply not going to happen.
Day 3 is even worse. As near as I can tell from your description, you plan to drive over 950 miles from your last stated stopping point (Walnut Canyon) to Dallas. None of what you've described is even remotely possible, let alone taking extra time to set up camp each night and strike it in the morning. You can certainly make the drive from the Bay Area to Dallas in four days (not three!), but not if you plan to take major detours or spend more than a couple of hours a day on detours and sight-seeing. As you re-plan, keep in mind that you need to cover about 450 miles each and every day and that you can not make up a sight-seeing day by covering 900 miles the next. 550 miles should be your maximum on any given day.
AZBuck
Reservations are only the start.
I'd go further. Not only do you need reservations at and near a major NP on public holidays, you need a LOT of patience. Only once did I visit the GC on a public holiday. Long queues to enter the park and at all services within the park, not to mention the time it took to find a parking spot. Since I had been there several times I decided to drive down Desert View Drive, and head on to my next destination.
Lifey
With All Due Respect - No
Quote:
Originally Posted by glc
It's only an extra hour from Needles to Kingman...
Such thinking gets people killed every day on American highways. As has been pointed out by myself and others, there are several things working against you on your first day. You will be departing a major metropolitan area at rush hour on the Friday of a long national holiday (Traffic). You will be driving on non-Interstate, non-freeway roads (CA-58 from I-5 to Barstow) for roughly 150 miles of your first day's drive. You will have to negotiate the city streets of Bakersfield with all the traffic and all the stop lights that that entails. By the time you reach Needles, you will have already covered about 550 miles, which is about as much as we normally recommend. Under the aforementioned difficult conditions that will mean that you will have been behind the wheel for far more than eight hours plus whatever time you have spent stopping for gas, meals, and bathroom breaks (and hopefully an occasional short walk to keep you alert). If you entertain even the notion of continuing on to Kingman you will be setting up the possibility of trying to drive long past the point of being too tired to be safe. You will be assuming that you are better than those who drive long distances for a living and who are prohibited by law from trying such extended drives. And if you wait until you get to Needles to make the decision you are going to be forcing yourself to make that decision when your mental acuity is already compromised, and if you decide to go on to Kingman you are going to be committing to continuing on for another 60 miles with no chance to find decent lodging if you get tired on the way, and you will, especially if you've had short sleep the night before because you got up early to try to beat rush hour traffic out of the Bay Area.
I urge you to make the safe decision now, and make your lodging reservations in Needles and enjoy an 'early' evening of relaxation before trying to get some much needed sleep. Pushing on for another hour just for the chance at possibly better accommodations simply isn't worth it.
AZBuck
