Monument Valley & Great Basin NP

[AZBuck]

Welcome aboard the RoadTrip America Forums!

The good part about your propose journey is that the basic loop, Chicago-Yellowstone-Grand Canyon-Chicago, can be driven in seven days leaving you time for visits to the places you've mentioned. The bad part is that there's so much to see that even seven days worth of 'free time' is not enough to do an in-depth visit to any of them. If you'll be happy with a 'sampler' trip that will be as much about the drive as the places you drive to, then this should work very well for you.

What you can look at as you plan your RoadTrip is a mix of driving and sight-seeing each day. Some days will be mostly about driving, with only a few short stops. Other days will be major stops such as Yellowstone and the Grand Canyon. Unfortunately, while a day at either will be a glorious day, you could easily spend even more. On the routes between your major destinations there are other great places that you can spend a half day or so at, depending on your interests and time available. These include Badlands National Park, Mount Rushmore, Devils Tower, Little Bighorn Battlefield, the Grand Tetons, the Great Salt Lake, Bryce Canyon, Cedar Breaks, Zion, Monument Valley, Arches National Park, Rocky Mountain National Park, and the landmarks of the old Oregon Trail.

AZBuck

[Jennifircone]

Thanks guys. I probabaly should have been clearer though; I was thinking of doing Chicago as a separate entity so, fly into Chicago for a couple of days and then fly out; the question really can we fly to somewhere near e.g. Yellowstone? Spend a couple of days here and then fly again further south and do a loop (driving) from Vegas maybe? Is this too much flying? Would it better to attempt the drive from Yellowstone down?

[Southwest Dave]

As mentioned before, you could do a complete loop using SLC or Vegas as your start finish point. If you have a full 2 weeks for the loop trip [Chicago aside] then this would be possible, but much will depend on how long you would like to spend in any one place and how much time you are prepared to spend in the car.

A trip from SLC that took you down to Bryce canyon, Zion NP to the south rim of the GC, through Monument Valley to Moab [Arches and Canyonlands] and up through Rock Springs [Flaming Gorge Res, possibly Colorado NM and Dinosaur NM] and through the Grand Tetons to Yellowstone before heading back to SLC could be driven [just driving] in 4 comfortable days. That would leave you with a nice amount of time to juggle your sight seeing. You would add a little over 200 miles to include a visit to Vegas, or by starting and finishing from there.

One possible itinerary.

Day 1 to Bryce.
Day 2 explore Bryce to Zion [Springdale]
Day 3 Zion NP
Day 4 Grand canyon
Day 5 GC to Monument valley.
Day 6 To Moab
Day 7 Continue to explore Arches/Canyonlands.
Day 8 Towards Yellowstone [Rock Springs ?]
Day 9 To Tetons
Day 10 Tetons to Yellowstone
Day 11/12. Yellowstone
Day 13 To SLC.

[Jennifircone]

Hi Guys,
Thanks so much for all your help. So getting down to the finer detail, here's what we have so far:
Fly to Chicago: 3 nights
Fly to Bozeman: 4 nights at Yellowstone
Fly to Salt Lake City & hire a car
Then we have maybe 6 or 7 nights to get to Las Vegas for flight home. We definitely want to visit Monument Valley and Grand Canyon (how long is sufficient for each of these - 1 day/2 days?) The question is what route would you suggest? Looking at the map it looks like we could drive to Moab from SLC
and stay there to do Arches & Canyonlands (how long would we need?) then on to MV & GC. Anything else to see on this route?

Or is there a better route, and what towns could we look at staying in, or can you stay in the parks?

Thank you for all your advice!!

[Southwest Dave]

You could quite comfortably drive to Moab and spend a couple of days visiting Arches and Canyonlands, followed by a day in Monument valley and a couple of days at the Grand canyon before continuing to Vegas, possibly via Seligman [route 66] and Hoover Dam.

How long to spend in any one place is immeasurable really, you could spend a few hours getting an overview, or a week at any of the National parks and still not get to see it all, so it's a case of travelling at a pace you are comfortable with. Another option would be to head to Zion and Bryce canyon and then through Page AZ [Antelope canyon, Lake Powell] to Monument valley and Grand canyon, and although it would be possible to do Zion, Bryce, Arches, Canyonlands, MV and Grand canyon, it might feel a little rushed. [?]

You can stay in the National parks but you usually pay a premium. If your budget can manage it there is nothing quite like 'being there'. Having said that, if you were to go to Zion and Bryce the lovely town of Springdale UT and the Rubys Inn complex make great places to stop respectively, and Moab is a good base for Arches. Monument valley has lodgings available, [Gouldings lodge] or you could stay in Kayenta, or nearer to the east entrance of the GC you will find the Cameron Trading post. If you can, treat yourself to a night at the south rim, but if not the nearest town is Tusayan with Flagstaff and Williams offering budget friendly options.

[Midwest Michael]

The plan you've laid out looks like it would work, although it will be very, very expensive. Multiple one-way flights along with one-way car rentals are going to almost certainly put your travel expenses well over the $1000 mark. As had been previously mentioned, it would be dramatically cheaper to do a loop out of Salt Lake City. Even if you kept the flight to Yellowstone, doing the final leg as a loop out of Vegas would likely be quite a bit cheaper than driving from SLC to Vegas.

Having said that, if money is no object, there are some other airports I might look at before Bozeman for flights to Yellowstone. Jackson WY's airport is basically right within Grand Teton National Park, there is some service right into West Yellowstone, and Cody WY would also be a bit closer than Bozeman.

Spending about a day each in Arches/Canyonlands/MV/GC would seem about right with the time you have. Moab works as a base for both Arches and Canyonlands. There are lodging options right within both MV and GC.