Kansas City to San Jose

[hardrockks]

Hi all,

I am moving from Kansas City to Bay Area,CA. I would like to explore the best scenic and stress free places on my way (eg. Grand Canyon), I have enough time like 1-2 weeks so time is not a constraint. I can take I-40, 70 or 80. Planning to start next week.

Please suggest me from your experiences.

Thanks

[Southwest Dave]

Hello and welcome to RTA !

A common theme you will notice on the forums is that there is no one 'best' route or attraction as each person and their trip is unique, but for scenic beauty I would look at I70, possibly cutting down to I40 via US191/163/160/89, which takes you close to Arches and Canyonlands NP's, Monument Valley and the Grand canyon south rim. Before this you could detour to Rocky mountain NP, drive over Loveland Pass and along the rim of the Colorado National Monument. After GC you could visit Vegas, drive through Death valley and into Yosemite NP via Tioga Pass [CA120]

The point being is that this just one route option naming just a few of the possibilities along it and there are hundreds of possible options. What you need to do is a little research and take a look at good maps and see what appeals to you. Once you have a few of your own ideas we can help piece them together and make suggestions. The longer you have the more you can see and the difference between 1 week and 2 weeks is quite a big deal.

[DonnaR57]

Welcome to RTA!

To add a little to what Dave said above, about the longer you have, the more you can see: it's a 4 day drive via the fastest routes available. If you only have a week, that gives you about 2-3 days to play with. If you have two weeks, you can see that it gives you 9-10 days for sightseeing and traveling between sightseeing places.

Are you planning this from paper maps? If not, you should get to your nearest Walmart or bookstore and buy a road atlas, and use it for your planning.


Donna

[hardrockks]

Thank you Dave and Donna, i am doing my research from past one week but like you said there is so much between these two cities. Your suggestions really helped, i think arches, grand canyon and Yosemite shouldn't be missed.

Thank you

[AZBuck]

One basic, but very scenic, route that would link Arches, the Grand Canyon and Yosemite is to take I-70 out of Kansas City through Denver and on to Utah where US-191 would take you south past Arches and down to US-163/US-160/US-89 to the Grand Canyon. After driving along the Rim Road (AZ-64) continue down to Williams AZ and I-40. You then have a choice of taking US-93 up to Las Vegas then through Death Valley to US-395 and over Tioga Pass (CA-120) into Yosemite, or continuing on I-40 to Barstow where you'd use CA-58 to Bakersfield and CA-99/Ca-41 up to Yosemite. Finally, CA-120/I-80 would take you into San Francisco to finish up your move.

Now if you take the above route, you'll also be passing near enough to several other great places that you could visit as time permits, including Rocky Mountain National Park, Colorado National Monument, Canyonlands National Park, Goosenecks State Park (Utah), Monument Valley Navajo Tribal Park, Wupatki National Monument, and either Mojave National Preserve or Death Valley.

AZBuck

[Harry Kline]

AZBuck has a good route, but I want to suggest a few alternates that are right along his route.

Instead of Rocky Mountain NP, Try Mount Evans, a paved and very scenic route out of Idaho Springs, CO. It is higher than Pikes Peak by a few hundred feet, too, and is only twenty miles off I-70. Up 103.

In Utah, get off I-70 at Cisco and drive Ut128 down through Red Canyon to Moab. You'll follow the Colorado River with spectacular scenery, and the entrance to Arches NP is only a mile or so up 191 when you get to Moab.

[hardrockks]

Thanks Harry, probably starting in next 2 days