Welcome to RTA!

For many of the national parks you listed, you should be on the recreation.gov site when the windows open for your date -- I believe, 6 months out. That would have been early January, especially for the last 5 on your list. However, a few things to note:

* Keep trying back if you don't get your preferred date. Someone may cancel.

* If you don't get your preferred campground within the larger parks, take another one.

* For most of those parks, there are national forest campgrounds just outside the national park boundaries.

* We have a thread in the Camping Road Trips forum, just focused on camping in and around the national parks of the US. The Camping Road Trips forum also has camping along the interstate and US highway systems, when you're trying to go from Point A to Point B.

* Expect it to be hotter-n-Hades in both Death Valley and Joshua Tree, in June. That's why they call them deserts. Carry lots of water. I wouldn't try to camp in either one in summer because it does not cool down at night.

* Going to the Sun Road in Glacier may or may not be open in June. If you can time your arrival to later in the month, you'll have a better chance. The road gets a LOT of snow over the winter and it takes them forever to plow it off. Then expect a very narrow road.

* Other things to do at the national parks: hiking has to be the thing that all of them on your list have. At Crater Lake, maybe the boat out to the island will be running. Lake Tahoe (not a national park) has boating. In Yellowstone and Grand Teton, I believe you can rent kayaks or canoes to do some water-related things. My husband and I are primarily sight-seer's by vehicle, with an occasional 1-3 mile hike away from the crowds, when we are in NP's. So we haven't investigated some of the other things that might be available.


Now, on to the Grand Canyon. No personal experience hiking all the way down, but my brother has, and I've read many books and blogs about others' experiences. (I'm an armchair hiker for long distance and GC trails.) DO NOT, under any circumstances, try to make it down to Phantom Ranch and back up in one day. People have had to be hauled out of there, at great expense, in a helicopter, trying to do that. Bring water, check locally to find out which springs are/are not running, to know just how much water to bring. Remember it's usually cooler on the rim at 6500' elevation than it is down inside the Canyon. Allow a full day down and two days back up. Bring and wear good shoes. Tho a pair of flip flops around camp might be nice, you need good footwear when on the trail. Make sure your hiking shoes/books are already broken in before heading down. Getting permits? Good luck. When we were up at the North Rim last summer, I heard a ranger tell a hiker that he should have applied for his overnight permit a year ago. Yeah, it's THAT popular!


Donna