Alternative 30 days south west roadtrip route! Opinions please!

[Skymaster10]

Hello everybody! I'm new on this forum hence I need some advice for my roadtrip. In July 2014 we will be going on a roadtrip (me and two friends). I'm 21 and my friends 22! Our budget is like 4000 euro's (+- 5400$). This budget is 4000 for every individual! And it includes the spending for the group (car rent, gasoline) and the individual spending (shopping, hotel's, restaurants etc.)

Our discussion point is the route, almost everybody does the well known southwest trip. This is like: SF, yosemite, sequioa, la, death valley, las vegas, zion, bryce, grand canyon and after that all the way back again. Now we came up with the idea to go to the rocky mountain national park, to salt lake city, and after that back to bryce national park. From bryce we go back to Las vegas - Death valley - Bakersfield - Route 1 along the coast etc.

To give you a perspective I made a route on google maps. The only problem is that my google maps didn't work on the way back from Las Vegas. But i also made a description of the route including the km's.

And the route:

Alternative route:
Alternative route
Dag 1: San francisco landing (night out in SF)
Dag 2: San francisco – Yosemite national park (320 km) (drive in the morning)
Dag 3: Yosemite national park (all day)
Dag 4: Yosemite national park (all day
Dag 5: Yosemite national park – Kings canyon national park (190 km)
Dag 6: Kings canyon national park – Sequioa national park (short visit) – Bakersfield (230 km)
Dag 7: Bakersfield – Las vegas (450 km) leave in the morning (night out in Las Vegas)
Dag 8: Las vegas – zion (265 km)
Dag 9: Zion (all day)
Dag 10: Zion – Antelope canyon (200 km)
Dag 11: Antelope canyon – Grand canyon (176 km)
Dag 12: Grand canyon all day
Dag 13 grand canyon – Monument valley (250 km)
Dag 14: Monument valley – arches national park (254 km)
Dag 15: Arches national park – Rocky mountain national park (630 km) Travel day!
Dag 16: Rocky mountain national park (all day in the park)
Dag 17: Rocky mountain national park (all day in the park))
Dag 18: Rocky mountain national park leave around 14:00 – via trail ridge road – Laramie (290 km) ETA in the evening.
Dag 19: Laramie – Salt lake city (630 km) Travel day
Dag 20: Salt lake city – panguitch (400km) drive across route 89
Dag 21: Panguitch – Bryce national park (40km)
Dag 22: Bryce national park – Mesquite (290 km)
Dag 23: Mesquite – Valley of fire - Las vegas (180 km)
Dag 24: Whole day Las Vegas (casino, gambling etc.)
Dag 25: Las vegas – Death valley national park – Bakersfield (580 km) Purely driving trough Death Valley just a touring day.
Dag 26: Bakersfield – baywood los-osos (route 1) (230 km)
Dag 27: Day on the beach at baywood
Dag 28: Baywood – Monterey (via route 1) ( 235 km)
Dag 29: Monterey – San Francisco (190 km)
Dag 30: San Francisco
DAG 31: VERTREK 6000KM TOTAL

Now my only question is, what do you think of the route we will take on this trip? Is it to long, is it ok? We don't mind driving because we like it. Especially in America's nature!!

So what do you guys think of the route!!

[Southwest Dave]

Hello and welcome to the RTA forums !

Your route is certainly doable with lots of great things to see and if it's the one that suits you and your friends then that's all that matters. Sure there are popular routes that people tend to follow when they have a certain amount of time, but our philosophy here is is that the only 'best' route is that one chosen by each individual/group.

You don't say where you are flying from or make it clear if that is your total budget for all of you or not, but car rental will not be cheap as every named driver under 25 years of age will pay a young drivers fee and over a month it will be significant.

Edit] I see you mention Euros and to include flights, so I now presume it's a per person budget.

[AZBuck]

Welcome aboard the RoadTrip America Forums!

Edit: Unlike Dave, I assumed that your budget ("Our budget") is the grand total for everyone for everything.

I'm sorry to have to tell you this, but here's the reality. Three round trip tickets from somewhere(?) in Europe to the west coast of the United states are going to cost a minimum of $3,300. If you shop around a bit and forego a couple of days with the car, you can rent one (big enough for three adults) for four weeks for around $1,000, assuming you can get out of any extra driver and/or underage driver fees. Gas for even your shorter itinerary is likely to run $400+. So that's pretty much your entire budget used up, under the best of circumstances, and you still have to feed and house yourselves for a month, and pay to get in to any national parks or other attractions. Your current budget is simply not up to the task you've set for it.

AZBuck

[Skymaster10]

Hi Dave,

We are flying to and from SF. A retour tickets costs around 800 euro. We are from the Netherlands but we fly from Düsseldorf because it's a lot cheaper! We will do the car rent with www.usa-reisen.de this is a german website. They have special offers where renters under 25 years pay a little extra for the car but don't have to pay extra underage fees. We will rent a ford escape, which costs 1750 for 30 days including a gps.

And yes it's a per person budget, you could say are total budget is 12000 euro or 16500 dollars!

[Skymaster10]

I'm sorry that I didn't explain this right. Maybe it's my English :P. We individually have about 4000 to 4500 euro's to spend. It's not a group budget!

[Southwest Dave]

That's good !

You are not normally guaranteed an actual make of car, only a car in that class and this is usually clarified when the advert states 'Or similar'. A normal family car would do the same job for less rental costs and in many cases, lower fuel costs. If you want an SUV that's fine, but it is not necessary. Again, the cost difference over 30 days could be quite significant.

Dave.

[Skymaster10]

Thanks for the advice, we may rethink that choice ;-)