Advice for 4 day road trip from Denver to Yellowstone and back

[tamara]

From July 6-9, my husband and I are renting a car to travel from Denver to go through Grand Tetons National Park, Yellowstone, Cody, and maybe Hot Springs State Park. Is it too much to fit in? I was thinking we could drive to Rock Springs the first day. But since there's nothing around there we're interested in, perhaps we should go further towards Jackson Hole? We can't leave Denver until 10:00 am.

[AZBuck]

Welcome aboard the RoadTrip America Forums!

Just driving from Denver to Yellowstone and back is going to chew up three of your four days, especially considering you can't leave Denver until mid-day. Throw in the Tetons, the traffic in Yellowstone, Cody and Thermopolis, and you won't have time to leave the car other than to get gas, eat and go to the bathroom.

AZBuck

[glc]

If you only have 4 days and you want to see all that, you may want to fly into Jackson Hole and rent the car there. Round trip from DEN to JAC is about $200 per person if you book now on Frontier. Flight leaves DEN at 12:15pm on 7/6 and leaves JAC on 7/9 at 2:20pm. The flight takes about an hour and a half.

[Southwest Dave]

It's not clear whether you are based in Denver or if it's part of your holiday, but you could consider something a little closer to Denver, as there is plenty to see and do.

A loop could include Colorado NM near Grand junction, Black canyon of the Gunnison and Currecanti rec. area, the Royal gorge ,Canon city along US 50 and near to Colorado springs is Garden of the gods and Wind of the caves. A little further South is the Great sand dunes NP, and of course close to Denver [and most likely already included in your plans] is Rocky mountain NP.

These are just a few of the options closer to your "base" and would mean a lot less miles. For Yellowstone [as you may have already realised now] you really need to have some more time available, of fly as pointed out earlier.

[tamara]

Thanks for the suggestion, Dave. However, we had an alternate trip which also involves some distance driving, but not as much. Do you think driving to Badlands NP and the Black Hills area are doable? I figure on 1 day to drive up and 1 day to drive back. 1 day at Badlands and 1 day in the Black Hills. That way we can see something we've always wanted to see (Mt. Rushmore). We've seen a lot of Colorado already.

[glc]

That's a LOT more doable. Denver to Rapid City is about an 8 hour drive, easily drivable in 1 day each way.