Road trip to Western National Parks..help me plan

[tealady]

Thanks for the continued information. It is for 2012 and not this year. This trip seems overwhelming to plan, so I have decided to start with the South Dakota-Yellowstone portion first and then go forward.

We will plan to leave Racine in order to arrive in Yellowstone just after Labor Day. If we do it this way, will our being in the Mt Rushmore area over Labor Day weekend be a mistake or should be plan to start there after Labor Day?

I am having trouble with a timeline and routing through the South Dakota area to hit all we want to see. Does anyone have a suggestion on a route through there and then on to Yellowstone? Will Rapid City be an okay place for our base for South Dakota? How about the Yellowstone area? Would Cooke City and West Yellowstone work for this park or is it essential to be in the park itself?
Thanks for all the help so far, but please help me work out a route through here.

[Utahtea]

Everyone is going to have their recommendations for how long at each park, and the best thing to do would be study the parks and decide what areas you want to see but as a reference I'll give some ideas.

I love Yellowstone and to really scratch the surface of this park, I'd plan on 3 days minimum and any where from 5 - 7 days if you have them! Our first few visits I wouldn't go unless we had 6 or 7 days to spend in the park. We now go and spend two weeks in just Yellowstone! Five days in Yellowstone will give you enough time to really see all the geyser areas, spend a day at Mammoth Hot Springs, the Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone, Tower Jct, West Thumb, and the Lake area.

Cooke would be a nice place to spend one night after doing the Beartooth Highway and then to get a very early start for Lamar Valley to view wildlife. Cooke is way to far away from the other attractions and areas of the park to make it base camp. Same for Cody, WY.

If you decide to stay outside the park then West Yellowstone, MT is the best location to reach all the areas of the park without having to change lodging locations. If you decide to stay in the park then I'd recommend changing locations at least once, or maybe twice at the most. One location would be at Old Faithful and plan a couple nights there because there are so many geysers and geyser areas to see.

We always camp at either Badlands and/or Custer State Park so can't really be of help with lodging. Rapid City does seem like a reasonable place to do day trips to Mt. Rushmore, Badlands and Custer State Park.

Once you leave Rapid City area you might consider going to Deadwood and I wouldn't do that as a day trip because there's no need to back track but someone else will have to help you with lodging. I'm sure you can find some in Sturgis, SD.

On the way to Yellowstone I'd highly recommend making the detour to see Devils Tower National Monument.

In Sheridan, WY you have some decisions to make. Are you going to come in on the Bearthooth Highway? If so, then you have the quicker route of taking I-90 the scenic mountain route over Alt 14 and then the back roads up to I-90. If you decide against the Beartooth Highway then you have the choice of Hwy 14 or Alt 14 to reach Cody, WY. What ever you do, I'd plan on at least two days to reach the park without entering it if you want to do sightseeing along the way.

Depending on how much hiking you plan to do, I'd spend at least two nights at the Grand Tetons. More if you are into hiking.

[tealady]

Thank you so much. This is the exact kind of help I was looking for. I will take a close look at the map again and try and figure out just which direction we will take.

Any ideas for the best lodging inside Yellowstone if we decide on that?

[Midwest Michael]

I'd very much agree that finding a place inside of Yellowstone would be the best bet - and it seems like all of the accomidations within the park are quite nice. The locations will probably be the most important factor.

Yellowstone is a very big place and it takes a long time to get around. Cooke City is a good 1.5-2 hours away from even the major locations on the North and East sides of the park like the Canyon or Mammoth Hot Springs. Cooke City to Old Faithful would take you nearly 3 hours. West Yellowstone is closer, but even there, you'd be looking at 45 minutes to an hour to get to places like Old Faithful.

BTW, if you are coming in on the Beartooth, make sure to fill up your tank in Red Lodge, which will have the cheapest fuel until you get to Jackson. On my recent trip out west, Cooke City had by far the most expensive gas of any city on my trip - it was actually 25 cents a gallon more than even the gas stations inside of Yellowstone.

[tealady]

I have come up with a rough outline of the trip. We decided we did not want to do long days of driving from one place to the other, so I have spaced out our stops so as to enable us to enjoy the journery as well as destinations. I also planned so as to us some of our many Hilton points whenever possible although the hotels do not have bookings available this far in advance. Here is the proposed itinerary...
1.Louisville Ky to Racine for a family visit.
2.Rochester MN (overnight)
3.Sioux Falls SD (overnight)
4.Rapid City SD (overnight) with a detour through Badlands.
5.Keystone or Hill City (overnight) with sightseeing of Custer State Pk and surrounding areas.
6.Gillette WY (overnight) with more sightseeing before leaving the Black Hills area and a stop at Devils Tower.
7.Cody MT
8. Cooke City MT (overnight) via Red Lodge and Beartooth Hwy
8.Old Faithful Snow Lodge (overnight)
9.Old Faithful Snow Lodge (overnight)
10.West Yellowstone hotel. (overnight)
11. Jackson Hole (overnight) Tetons
12.Jackson Hole (overnight) Tetons
13.Jackson Hole (overnight) Tetons
14.Rawlins WY (overnight)
15.Ft Collins Hotel CO (overnight) with some touring of RMNP
16. Estes Park CO hotel (overnight)RMNP
17. Estes Park CO hotel (overnight)RMNP
18. Gunnison CO hotel (overnight)
19. Gunninson down 550 to Durango hotel (overnight)
20.Durango (overnight) with visit to Mesa Verde
21. Alamosa CO(overnight) with visit to Great Sand Dunes St Pk
22.Taos NM (overnight)
23. Santa Fe NM (overnight)
24.Santa Fe NM (overnight)
25.Santa Fe NM (overnight)
26.Santa Fe NM (overnight)
27.Amarillo Tx some touring Rte 66
28.Oklahoma City OK (overnight) some touring Rte 66
29. Springfield MO (overnight)
30. Ofallon Il (overnight)
31. Back to square one in Louisville Ky

Any comments on the lodging inside Yellowstone? Anyone stayed at the OF Snow Lodge lately?

Please give me feedback on my plans and any tweaking that you feel might be needed. I have no reservations (other than OF Snow Lodge) since they are not yet bookable, so I am completely open to any changes in our itinerary.

And finally, thanks for the help in making this plan come together.

[Midwest Michael]

Welcome to the RTA Forum!

I think you could certainly push a little bit harder in some areas. For example, Racine to Rochester is only 5 hours, and then Rochester to Sioux Falls can be done in 3. That's very much an area where you could simply drive from Racine to Sioux Falls in one longish day.

Similarly, you've got a few areas where you are hotel jumping but not really going anywhere. For example, Rapid City to Keystone is less than a 30 minute drive, and you could find it much more comfortable to just pick one hotel to do all of your exploring from. There are a couple other areas like that where you may want to rethink how you are breaking up your trip.

With Yellowstone, I have only camped and not stayed at any of the lodges, but I will say that it doesn't make a lot of sense to stay in West Yellowstone after Old Faithful, especially when you are planning to go to Jackson afterward since that would involve backtracking. West Yellowstone also isn't really any closer to anything than Old Faithful. If you are simply hoping to save money by staying outside of the park, then you might look at Gardiner MT, which would put you within easy reach of the Mammoth Hot Springs area. I also might look at spending more time at Yellowstone, which you could get back by combining some of those other drives.