We are attempting to plan a trip from LA to Denver - via San Francisco, Yosemite and Mount Rushmore - in August. We will be travelling with our almost 8 year old daughter. We have 14 days. Any suggestions?
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We are attempting to plan a trip from LA to Denver - via San Francisco, Yosemite and Mount Rushmore - in August. We will be travelling with our almost 8 year old daughter. We have 14 days. Any suggestions?
Welcome to the Great American RoadTrip Forum! San Francisco and Yosemite are on the logical route to Denver, but Mt. Rushmore is a surprise since that little detour will add about a 1000 miles to the trip. The total trip will be about 2600 miles by the shortest possible route, which will require a little over five days of all-day travel and since you have 14 days, you can spend a couple of days along the way and enjoy yourselves.Quote:
Originally Posted by MEinDublin
Tell us what kinds of things you would like to see and do and we can offer some more ideas about the kinds of places and attractions you can pencil in for this trip.
Mark
LA to Denver is one of the last legs on a round-the-world trip for us so that 1000 miles doesn't seem so vast. We are flying into LA, want to go to San Francisco, have booked 'custom camping' in Yosemite 7 days after arriving in LA and will be flying our second to last leg from Denver to Detroit (my home town so no jokes!) 7 days after Yosemite. Trying to combine scenery and history with things of interest for a 7 year old will be our challenge. We don't mind a couple of long days on the road but we would like to keep the to driving about 5 hours a day. Did I forget to say that I am the only American in the car and Mount Rushmore is the only part of this trip I have not done so it's high on my priorities!
Wow! This the third round-the-world trip I have written to/about today! I don't suppose I could stow along for the ride???Quote:
Originally Posted by MEinDublin
I suppose not, but the restriction of no more than five hours of driving per day. actually makes this detour nearly impossible to achieve. What this means is that on your driving days, you would like to drive no more than 300 miles per day (this assumes that you will be driving 70 mph or more and includes stops for fuel and traffic slowdowns) and so it would require almost eight days to travel from Yosemite to Mt. Rushmore and back to Denver. It is still doable, but you need to cover more ground on a couple of those days! Here is an excellent field report about the Badlands and Mt. Rushmore!Quote:
for us so that 1000 miles doesn't seem so vast.
If you, instead spent some time in Rocky Mountain National Park and explored some of the Colorado Rockies you could still have a uniquely American road trip without that killer extra bunch of miles. I bet the 7 year old would love to ride on steam engine train at Durango!
Mark
Mark