Please help me shorten my National Parks trip

[saveme]

Steve -- I think you can do this in Buffalo Bill State Park. Good luck!

Hi. You are almost doing the same loop as us, except we loop back to Denver from Jackson and then fly to Vegas. I am interested in the cliff jumping at Cody. Where can I research this please. Steve

[saveme]

SO SO SO much good info. Thanks everyone. We did some cutting and here is our 21 days:

1. Arrive Denver
2. Awake Denver Hotel
• Drive 4 hours to Lusk, WY
3. Awake Lusk Hotel
• Drive 2.5 hours to Rapid City
• Custer State Park , Rushmore
4. Awake Rapid City
• Day Trip to Badlands (Pinnacle entrance)
5. Awake in Rapid City
• Jewel Cave
• Drive 6 hours to Cody, Rodeo ?
• Hotel OR Tent @ Cody KOA
6. Awake in Cody
• Drive 2 hours to Yellowstone
• Tent @ Norris NP Camping Ground
7. Awake in Yellowstone
8. Awake in Yellowstone
9. Awake in Yellowstone
• Yellowstone/Tetons
• Drive to Jackson, hotel
10. Awake in Jackson
• Grand Teton Mad River Tours
• Jackson Alpine Slide?
• 6pm shootout in Jackson
11. Awake in Jackson
• 5 hours to Salt Lake City, hotel
12. Awake in Salt Lake
• Morning on lake?
• 3.75 hours to Capitol Reef
• Tent at Fruita NP Camping Ground
13. Wake up Capitol Reef
• Explore Capitol Reef
• Drive to Bryce Canyon? Or straight to Grand Canyon
14. Wake up Bryce/Grand Canyon
• Explore GC North Rim
• Tent at NP Camping Ground
15. Awake Grand Canyon
• Drive 3 hours to Lake Powell
• Tour of Dam
• Tent @ Wahweap Camping Ground or Lone Rock Beach
16. Awake in Lake Powell
• Rent Boat
17. Awake in Lake Powell
• Drive 5 hours to Moab
• Explore Canyonlands, tent at Willow Flat or Squaw Flat
18. Awake in Canyonlands
• Explore Canyonlands – boating?
• Head to Arches, Tent @ Devils Garden NP Campground in Arches
19. Awake in Arches
• Explore Arches
20. Awake in Arches
• Drive 5+ hours to Denver
• Hotel TBD
21. Awake in Denver
• Fly home

[Southwest Dave]

You are in for a fantastic adventure ! Generally speaking your trip will work out well for you, even though some of your drive times may be over optimistic [Arches to Denver for example] they are doable in the time you have. As with most roadtrips, you may stay longer in one place and not have time for an activity later in the day/next day, but that's not a bad thing. It's good to have a little spontaniety and rarely do well planned trips go completely to plan, as you will always stumble across a pleasant surprise or two !

I would certainly recommend an overnight stop at Bryce canyon !

Have a great trip and we would much appreciate it if you were to come back and share your trip experience with us !

[saveme]

I will be spending 2 nights in Lake Powell in August and then heading into the Moab area for 2.5 days (3 nights) to explore Canyonlands and Arches with my kids. I wish I could camp out all 5 nights but I think we will need a hotel night in there somewhere or my kids will rebel. Can people offer some suggestions about when/where we should camp vs. when/where we should hit the hotel?

Moderator Note: Please keep all questions about this trip together in the same thread.

[Midwest Michael]

We would be camping all 5 nights - unless maybe there was bad weather - so it's pretty much all a matter of what you are looking for.

I'm not even really sure exactly what you are thinking - do you want to just spend one night in a motel over this 5 day stretch or are you trying to figure out if you should camp in one place and stay in a hotel the other?

[Mark Sedenquist]

but I think we will need a hotel night in there somewhere or my kids will rebel.

What is the appeal of the motel for the kids? Watching TV or swimming in a pool? Both can be accomplished in a RV. Many RV parks have swimming pools for their guests. I'm not sure that one of these RV parks will be in the area you are considering, but perhaps you could tell us what your kids find appealing about the motel that they won't find in a RV?

[saveme]

sorry not to be clear. This is the end of a 3 week trip through many parks. We opted to do camping instead of an rv, with the compromise that every so often we would treat ourselves to an actual bed somewhere for sanity's sake. We are camping in the Grand Canyon for 3 nights before Powell and we're thinking that 8 consecutive nights of camping might try everyone's patience a little too much. But the campgrounds in Lake Powell, Canyonlands and Arches all sound so good, we can't figure out where to compromise. Does that help?

[Lifemagician]

The areas to which you are referring are so ideally suited to camping, I would not consider hotel accommodation at all. If you are out exploring the parks all day and hiking the many magnificent trails, with plenty of food and liquid refreshments packed into their back packs, come nightfall, they will be so tired they'll be asleep before they realise where their beds are.

At least, our five always were.

Lifey

[glc]

Since you have planned your itinerary, something has happened - US-89 is closed between the US-89A junction to Page due to a landslide, with no chance it will be open by August. This is going to add an hour to the time it will take you to get from the GC north rim to Lake Powell, you will have to backtrack to Kanab.

From a cost standpoint, hotels in Page, Kayenta, and Moab are quite expensive. However, if you want to stop for a night in a hotel between Monument Valley and Moab, look in Blanding and Monticello for reasonable options.