Hi,

A few friends and I (all 30 y/o young professionals from Australia) are planning a 2 week American roadtrip in mid-2010.

We thought we'd seek your wisdom, as this forum has already provided us with lots of great help with initial thinking, but we need a bit more expert insight. Plus, this thread might be helpful to others in the future.

We'll be flying into LA from Australia on a weekend, and flying out 2 weeks later - and it looks like we'll be travelling in August (as this is the only time we can get away from work). Most likely, the first 2 weeks of August.

I'm aware this is both summer (i.e. very hot in deserts), and holiday season (so busy in places), but unless there's an extremely strong reason for travelling in late Aug, or worst case, late July/early Sep, then it'll probably be that first fortnight.

In short, while we could do a simple 2 week loop out of LA (we'll be travelling in a rental car), I'm wondering if we can do something more adventurous.

So, it would be great if you could provide some feedback on the following - which is just a rough idea at this stage:

Day 0 - Fly into LA, then catch a domestic flight to Denver, Colorado
Day 1 - All day scenic driving from Denver to Grand Junction (via Rockies)
Day 2 - Grand Junction to Monument Valley
Day 3 - Monument Valley to Grand Canyon
Day 4 - Grand Canyon to Las Vegas (via Zion)
Day 5 - Day in Las Vegas
Day 6 - Las Vegas to Bishop (via Death Valley)
Day 7 - Bishop to Yosemite
Day 8 - Yosemite
Day 9 - Yosemite to Monterey
Day 10 - 13 Carmel Valley, Ben Sur, Pacific Coast Highway back to LA

I'm aware this is a lot of driving - especially at the start. So if there's a particular place we should add a day's rest (e.g. Zion) then let me know.

Also, where the drives are about 4-5hrs per day up front, I imagine we'd either do these early in the day, or late in the day, depending of how much we need to see where we are, and where we're going.

How does this all sound? Does it look like we're making any silly mistakes? Or could be doing things better?

Thanks greatly in advance

Josh