road trip out West

[Meme]

We are going on a 20 day rv road trip from Florida to Yellowstone. Could use help with the best directions, we would like to go to the Grand Canyon, Colorado, Yellowstone and Mount Rushmore. This is our first road trip so I hope 20 days is enough. Any suggestions on sites to see would be great.

[Mark Sedenquist]

We are going on a 20 day rv road trip from Florida to Yellowstone.

Welcome to the Great American RoadTrip Forum! What size of RV are you driving? Be sure to read Mark's tips about the shakedown cruise for rental RVs and print out his checklist when you pick-up the RV for the first time!

Mark

[Meme]

It is a 30 foot georgie boy class A

[PNW Judy]

The best route is the one that takes you past things you want to see. If you give us an idea of what other things you'd like to see and do, we can advise you better.

And are you experienced with the motorhome, or is this going to be something that you are going to learn on the go?

[Meme]

This is our first road trip so I am up for suggestions on what to see. I know I would like to see the Petrified Forest, Grand Canyon, Yellowstone National Park, Mount Rushmore and my daughter just said she would like to see Colorado. We had motorhomes before but never did a road trip like this. We are taking two teenagers.

[PNW Judy]

A loop for Florida-Mt. Rushmore-Yellowstone-Grand Canyon-Petrified Forest-Florida (I used Orlando as a starting point since I don't know where you're starting from) is 5768 miles. Around here we usually figure that a days travel that would include short, quick stops for gas, bathroom breaks, meals, etc. (with no lingering) and that would account for fast traffic flow and slower flow if you hit construction problems, etc. is 57mph. At that average rate, you would need about 102 hours to make this trip. In 20 days, that averages out to 5 hours of driving per day. I'm assuming that you'll want a few days to just explore your surroundings (1-2 days in Grand Canyon, 1-2 days in Yellowstone, etc.) so I'm figuring that you will want, at the very most, 14 days where you drive. This means you would have to average 7.5 hours of driving per day on the days you drive. If you drove all 20 days, with NO days to stop/rest/explore, you would need to average 5 hours/day driving.

Whew! I'm tired just thinking about it. When you add in the time needed daily to get ready to go, settle in for the night, grocery shop, prep meals, etc., I really don't think you'll have all that much time to do a lot of other sightseeing along the way.

To have a fun, memorable trip, I think you need to either limit your stops (either Yellowstone or Grand Canyon, not both) or add days.