hi all

i'm planning my first US roadtrip and would like to share with you the excitement and the ideal route we will follow.

I'm travelling from London , UK, where i live, with two of my mates who will join me at Heathrow from Milan.

The plan is to land in Denver, CO (only direct flight from London) on friday 15th of July. We wanted to land in Salt lake city but we need to get connections in Chicago and this would waste a lot of time and energy, plus the price is more or less the same.

One concern is that we will land in Denver at 650 pm local time, we will take the car and head west across the Rockies towards Utah. We will be tired from the trip i guess, so i would like to know what is the best option for us in terms of accommodation - reading other topics i see Georgetown is suggested, not far from Denver heading west.

Then roughly our trip will include: Arches/Moab, down to Canyonlands, Arizona Grand Canyon, 2 nights in Las Vegas, Death Valley, California skipping LA, some vineyards and some pacific coast trip (Cambria to Monterey), Yosemite and San Francisco, flying back to Europe on August 2nd.

Only 2 things are worrying me:
- the amount of tourist and consequent lack of accommodation at the National Parks and surroundings. I would like to book only the first hotel in Georgetown, the last 3 days in SFO and at Furnace Creek (Death Valley)
- the temperatures in the deserts, it's not the brightest idea to go to death valley at the end of July, but my mates could take holidays only at that time...

Anyway i would like to thank you for all the precious info i'm finding on this website and forum!

Pier