The big move from PA to Wa

[Woogie's mom]

My family (My husband, almost 3 year old son, and myself) will be moving from Phila vicinity to Seattle this summer and we thought we would take the opportunity to spend about a month seeing the America.
The problem is we don't know how we should plan this!! Too many places to go and obviously not enough time. We are definitely more of an outdoor, scenic type rather than museums and metropolitan type.

We would like to hit most of the national parks.
Any suggestions??

[Woogie's mom]

My family (My husband, almost 3 year old son, and myself) will be moving from Phila vicinity to Seattle this summer and we thought we would take the opportunity to spend about a month seeing the America.
The problem is we don't know how we should plan this!! Too many places to go and obviously not enough time. We are definitely more of an outdoor, scenic type rather than museums and metropolitan type.

We would like to hit most of the national parks.
Any suggestions??

[PNW Judy]

I would suggest starting by picking the national parks and other attractions that you most want to see that are located between Philly and Seattle. Paper maps work best for this.

Then you can run a route that includes these places and see what you come up with. You can tweak it until you come up with something that appears to work for you. The Road Trip Planning tab on this website lists various websites with routing capabilities for you to do this. Or you could purchase an inexpensive mapping software like MS Streets & Trips.

With a month you can really see a lot. It should be a great trip.

You might want to whizz through most of Oregon or Idaho (whichever state you enter Washington through) until you get to Seattle. You'll be able to spend time exploring WA/OR/ID once you live up this way.

If you want hints on what to see in the Great PNW in the future, let me know.

Anyway, once you get some specific ideas nailed down, then come back here for more hints. It's hard to give you an answer when everything is so general.

[Chuck Anderson]

Be sure at the first National Park you go to get a Golden Eagle Pass (I believe that is the name for it). This pass is $50 and will get your family into all the National Parks for that one price.

[imported_Ann]

Two summer ago I took my three kids on a 33 day road trip from Seattle to North Carolina and back. Going out we took the upper states and coming back we took the lower states. We stayed at KOA Kabins (you bring your bedding). They're cheaper and lots of fun. Plus almost all of them have pools. You can get a KOA card and get a 10% discount everytime you stay. Also, on their web site I think you can get their catalog which lists all their locations. We visited every Nat. Park, Nat. Monument, & Nat. Historic Site we could find. We also hit some other interesting places like Laura Ingels' childhood home in De Smit, SD and the Corn Palace in Mitchell, SD, as well as many on our return trip in the lower states. We kept a daily diary and collected magnets from all the different places we visited! I'm in the process of making a scrapbook of all the pictures we took. This was such a memorable experience -- I'm ready to do it again!!!!