5 weeks to travel the USA

[mchalmers]

HI
on May 25th 2006 My husband and I and our 9 yr old son and 5yr old daughter will begin our journey from Orlando FL to Seattle Wa. in our 2002 weekender VW van.
We need to make it out there by June 3rd. Great Grandma turns 100yrs old and there will be a huge shing ding for her.We will spend a few days visiting family than we have until July 1st to get home. We are looking for ideas on routes to get out there farly quick (8 days) but allowing for some important stops along the way. Than our route back we have more time to smell the roses and get out and really experience America.Please send us any suggestions,we are planning on camping most of the time. We need to make our money last to go for that long. Looking for your ideas on places of intrests, historical sites, national parks, good camping music festivals etc. Thanks

[Midwest Michael]

Welcome to the RTA Forum.

If you want to get from to Orlando to Seattle in 8 days, you'll want to take the shortest possible route. That appears to be I-75 to Chattanooga, I-24,I-57, and I-64 to St. Louis, I-70 to Kansas City, I-29 to Sioux Falls, and I-90 to Seattle. That's a little over 3100 miles, meaning you'll have to travel about 400 miles a day to get there in 8 days. That will work out to about 7 hours a day on the road. You might have time to stop at some of the major attractions, like the Arch or Mt. Rushmore, but you will have to keep driving pretty hard, particularly if you plan to be camping along the way.

Considering you'll be driving so hard to get to Seattle, I'd probably plan to spend at least a full week there. There is certainly plenty to do in that area, and it will give your kids some more time to decompress before the journey back. That would still give you about 3 weeks to make it back, plenty of time to see a whole lot on the way home.

As far as how and what you should see on the way back, I'd suggest narrowing down some areas you want to focus on. You could head down through California, and head back through the southwest, or maybe you want to head back across the northern states and come back down the atlantic coast. The options are really limitless, and its really too overwhelming to list off all the possibilities of things you could see in the U.S. but once you provide some focus, I'm sure you'll find plenty of help on the forum.

[mchalmers]

We would like to see the Grand Canyon on the way back as one of our maor stops also other national parks. Should we take 84 south through saltlake City15 s through Bryce canyon ect. or should we take the California coast than over on 40 Also I was thinking that on the way over If we were able to take some very long drives in the first few days of the trip than maybe we would have more time to see black hills ,devils tower yellowstone etc. befor we neede to be in Seattle in the 8 day time frame. What do you think. I REALLY WANT TO BE REALISTIC.
Thanks

[Mark Sedenquist]

We would like to see the Grand Canyon on the way back as one of our maor stops also other national parks. Should we take 84 south through saltlake City15 s through Bryce canyon ect. or should we take the California coast than over on 40

I would recommend that you use I-84 and reach the four corner area (Utah, Coloroad, Arizona and New Mexico) as quickly as possible. You could spend years exploring this area and never see it all. Bryce is pretty amazing, and I would also spend time in Capitol Reef, North Rim of the Grand Canyon, Canyon de Chelly (there are lots of posts on this board about visiting our favorite places). Tombstone is pretty fun and Carlsbad is awesome and then zoom home.

Mark

[Midwest Michael]

Regarding your desire to visit the Black Hills area, it is possible to try to compress your drive, but I'm not sure you'd want to. Assuming you spent a day in the Black Hills area, that would basically add an extra hour of each of your other days of driving.

While that doesn't sound like much, you're already going to be making a trip that's 7-8 hours a day in the car every day for a week. That might be ok for you, but I'm not so sure that your kids would find it very enjoyable.

As far as your trip back, the Editor's answer is a very good one. You could also take the Pacific coast. Personally, I think I would follow the coast down to San Francisco, then head over to Yosemite, across Death Valley to Las Vegas before doing a Zion, Bryce, Grand Canyon loop, before heading down to Tucson and back home across I-10. But both options have a lot to offer.