Plan my 2013 tour of the US

Yeah, I know. This is turning into my planning blog...

I think we're set. We've decided not to wait for any better offers because you guys talked me out of the Chicago-Denver drive and because something as simple as more amenities (like better mattresses) has settled the RV choice. So in order to give my wife peace, I think we're booking the major parts of the trip now - then we can do the detail planning at a more relaxed pace. We'll use a travel agent (even though we could probably save a bit by doing everything online ourselves), because he's helped and deserve our business and because by ordering it as a package deal, we'll be insured so if the airline, rental companies or others fuck up, the travel agent will have to compensate.

We'll land in Denver on the 8th of June. Stay til monday, where we'll pick up the RV. Spend 21 days zig-zagging our way to Las Vegas. There we'll stay for a few days and continue onwards in a midsize SUV. 15 days to tour California. Altogether we'll end up spending almost 6 weeks in the US.

Feel free to offer zigs and zags and 'can't miss'-stuff within that framework.

From Denver to Mt Rushmore is far. And you basically have to go through the worst of the Chicago to Denver drive. I'd advise not going east of Colorado, honestly. It's a big time sink.

I know a few beautiful routes from Denver to Mt. Rushmore/Devil's Tower. The bad part is getting from Devil's Tower to Yellowstone and/or western Montana without wanting desperately to kill yourself.

Absolutely. It's high on the list and one reason we picked California - right now I'm thinking about whether to bring any diving gear along. I certainly need at least one dive off the Californian cost, question is if I'll do more.

Both Mt. Rushmore/Devil's Tower and Yellowstone is on our shortlist, so we kinda have to get from one to the other somehow,

I also highly recommend you stop at either Muir Woods or Redwood National Park. Both are I believe on your itinerary, and they're places that you should visit. I am not sure if Calaveras Big Trees State Park is on your way either (it's more to the east, in the CA Foothills) but it is another of my favorite parks in California.

Muir Woods and Redwood National park showcase the California Coastal Redwoods, some of the tallest trees in the world, while Calaveras showcases the Giant Sequoia, some of the oldest/biggest.

You definitely don't want to miss the Black Hills or Yellowstone. I just hope you won't be headed through the Black Hills during the Sturgis biker rally or Cool Deadwood Nights, because it's cramped enough up there without those events bringing in loads of extra traffic.

I'll put together a recommended route (or two) for you from Denver to the Hills/Tower and then to Yellowstone. I'll also give you some must-see items for your itinerary. There's a lot of cool stuff you'll miss if you stick to the main roads. It sounds like you have plenty of time to meander around, but obviously the stuff farther west (Yellowstone/Tetons/Glacier/Utah) is where you want to spend the bulk of your time as you make your way to Vegas.

What happened to Cedar Pointe, Hanzii? WHAT HAPPENED? ;)

It's your fault really. For having such a huge fucking country to roam in, and then spreading out all the cool stuff - so much I'd like to see, so this has mostly been an exercise in cutting back. But we're already talking about stuff we can do on several subsequent smaller tours... of course there's also a bunch of other countries we'd like to visit, so I'll better stay employed and alive for a lot of years still.

You better post a detailed itinerary with BFer meet-up times if you're willing to inflict that on yourself and your family. I'm pretty sure I owe you a beer when you come through Los Angeles.

Somebody placed it to the east of Chicago and we're driving west :-( - I really wanted to go too...
So I need to be pointed at the best coasters in the west.

I'm certain you don't - but I'd be more than happy to have one with you anyway.

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So, we've begun to nail down details on the first leg of the trip. Stuff like where to go, where to stop and how long to stay each place - while we also want to leave some leeway to change our minds. But also trying to find out, which camp grounds you should reserve ahead and where you can just drop in.

Anybody so inclined feel free to take a look and point out places where missing... or should miss.

Edit: Weird. Before I saved it was one unbroken route. Now, not so much. Google Maps...

So it looks like you're rolling through Lyons, CO.

If the timing works out, I'd suggest a quick stop at Lyons Classic Pinball.

And if you're hungry, a couple of really good food options within a block or two are Oskar Blues Grill & Brew and the Lyons Soda Fountain.

The route you have to the Black Hills takes you through the worst of Wyoming, which is the worst of the planet. If you are not a nihilist now, the road north of Cheyenne will make you one.

This route is much better (relatively speaking), without adding many miles: http://goo.gl/maps/qraC5. It will take you to Carhenge, north of Alliance, and through some pretty scenery south of Chadron before you hit the Hills. For a few more miles (http://goo.gl/maps/tldeF) you can get to Fort Robinson and the Oglala National Grassland on your way to Hot Springs, and both are worth seeing.

If you think you can stand a lot of extra miles, this is the route I recommend: http://goo.gl/maps/UC4fm. That will take you through some of the Sandhills, which few people see but are really beautiful. Then you get to Whiteclay (population 14) on the Nebraska side of the NE/South Dakota border, which is all over the news as it serves millions of cans of beer each year to the dry reservation across the road. Pine Ridge will give you an up-close look at the lot of the Sioux, and the Badlands scenery north of there is not to be missed. You get dumped out in Hermosa, which is a short gorgeous drive away from Mt. Rushmore, and you can strike out in whatever direction you prefer from there.

In the Hills, I recommend seeing a lot of Custer State Park. Here's a PDF map. My guess is that you'll come in from Hot Springs in the south, so Wind Cave and Prairie Dog Town should be on your list of stops. (Evans Plunge in Hot Springs is a famous swimming pool fed by natural spring water, but isn't likely to impress people who have been to swimming pools anywhere else).

You can take the Wildlife Loop Road or go straight north from Prairie Dog Town, but the ultimate goal is to hit the Needles Highway near the Legion Lake Area and take it all the way to Sylvan Lake. There's some good swimming/paddleboating there, or you can keep going and loop around either direction to Mt. Rushmore (I suggest taking the Needles again, but turning off to the north past the Black Hills Playhouse so you can take Iron Mountain Road to Mt. Rushmore.

You can safely skip Custer and the Crazy Horse Memorial. The memorial in particular takes you way out of your way.

I see your route north of Mt. Rushmore takes you past Sheridan Lake and Pactola Reservoir up to Deadwood, and that's a great route. It also avoids Rapid City, which is awesome because that place sucks. The drive from Deadwood up to Spearfish is nice.

I'm less familiar with the remainder of your route, but have to ask why you're swinging way north of the Bighorns to Billings, because Billings is the asshole of the universe and you have to drive through the taint of the universe to get there. I'd go to Sheridan and punch through the park on 14 to Cody, then on to Yellowstone.

Whatever you decide I don't envy you your drive from Devils Tower to Sheridan. Not one bit.

As you get your itinerary hammered out let me know what your plans are for the first part of the trip and I'll give you some more specific recommendations (which will mainly be places to avoid because they are enormous wastes of time).

That is an epically detailed post. Thanks Baker.

The very definition of #firstworldproblems is trying to decide which whale safari operator to go with.

Jesus, don't use Safari, download Firefox or Chrome for OSX.

So, help me out here if you can.

Our California trip is causing us logistics problems.

We pick up our car in Las Vegas on the 3rd of July and we fly out of LA on the 18th.
We want to go to SF, Monterey, LA and San Diego.

Originally our plan was to go from LV to Santa Barbara on the 4th of July to celebrate that near the water. Then swing around to The General Sherman and Yosemite, hit SF for a few days and then drive south along the coast - but we had some long drives early and run out of time late.

Since the first 21 days before California is one magnificient park after the other, we're now talking about cutting out Yosemite. This is our current route.

Any suggestions on where to stop between LV and Kings Canyon - we'll leave the 3rd instead?
And where precisely should we celebrate 4th of july?

Suggestions?

It would be a long ass drive (10 hours minimum) but if you cut Yosemite and the Sherman tree and could make it to SF by July 4 there are usually 2-3 neat fireworks shows in various parts of the bay area. Likewise from Vegas to Monterey.

Now plans are cut one day in Vegas and leave the 3rd, drive to General Sherman and then on to Monterey for 4th of July.

I learned a bunch about hotels.

I was already a seasoned Vegas hotel hunter, but this time I signed up for the MLife player card (MGM) and my weeks stay at Mandalay Bay bumped me up a category - after two months of writing customer service, they finally credited my points and I was anxious to see, what deals I was entitled to... Heh! Their "Best Rate Guaranteed"-deals for the second tier are still worse than what you can get through Hotels.com.
So clearly not worth it unless you gamble a lot.

Instead we booked a Terrace Suite at the Cosmopolitan for two nights.

I also tried Hotwire,com for the first time ever. After doing a bunch of research I took a deal - I was pretty sure that with the range of hotels that macthed the description in the deal, the worst that could happen was that I would end up paying the same as through Hotels.com - instead I got 3 nights at The W Hotel for close to half of what the same would set me back through Hotels.com (or another discount site). Don't think that's the last time.

Thinking of doing the same for three nights in LA - but since Vegas, Monterey and SF were over budget I'll be shooting for a cheap hotel, which makes guessing the Hotwire deal a lot harder. But I still think I'm giving it a shot.

Where should I stay in LA? (Area, but feel free to suggest hotels)

Where are you going to park the RV?

On the terrace.


Nah, we deliver the RV In Vegas and continue onwards In a small SUV. Don't want the RV in the cities making up the bulk of the last leg of our trip.

Santa Monica, with a view of the ocean. Unless you plan on spending a lot of time in Hollywood -- the west side to Hollywood is an awful drive, there's just no good way to do it just lots of bad ones.

Here's a question.

Does anybody know whether we should order ahead for RV-camping in the big national parks (Yellowstone, Rocky Mountains, Craters of the Moon etc.) or can we just arrive and expect to find a spot?

The national parks will be between 10th of June and 1st of July and we expect to mostly stay in the park owned camping grounds with perhaps a few private thrown in for greater comfort once in a while - not ordering ahead will of course give us much more freedom, but if that means not being able to stay anywhere inside say Yellowstone because everything is sold out, that's not so great.

Call or write the parks to see what they recommend, but based on those dates I would make reservations. Summer in the National Parks is just a river of RVs.

If those parks are even close to as popular as Yosemite you should absolutely order ahead and in fact it may already be too late.

I am on that route. Some suggestions.

It looks like you don't have the Grand Canyon on there. If you can I would take a day for that. Try the North rim from Vegas, as it would be closer. I would skip Sequoia or Kings Canyon and just get over to highway 101 and up to SF as quickly as possible. The valley (Bakersfield-Fresno) will be 100+ degrees by then. When going south from SF take highway 101 but when possible get over to Highway 1. Take a little extra time and drive down the coast on Highway 1 instead of the faster but inland Highway 101. Beautiful drive, Pacific ocean views and you will see some big trees going that way.

The National Parks take reservations 6 or 7 months ahead. You are probably to late to book anywhere popular. Believe me, I have a trailer and know how tough it can be. Look for places like KOA's (google their web site), they are all over the place and we have stayed at several. There is one 20 minutes north of Monterey in a place called Moss Landing. Expensive but good food and right near the water. Also Monterey has no good campgrounds. There is a KOA north of SF in Peteluma that offers a bus into SF everyday for tourists. Most users are from other countries based on the accents I heard. It is also in wine country, so it has that going for it.

There is also a large campground in Buellton (something "Flags" but I don't remember exactly). If you travel through there it is right off the highway, near wineries and there are several California Missions you can visit in the area. It is the area the movie Sideways was filmed.

As for the fourth of July, your route doesn't lend itself to a good spot to spend that. I would just say depending on how far you travel and where you end up that day grab a local paper and see what they have scheduled. Most small towns will have something going on, most coastal towns with piers will do fireworks over the ocean (that's where I will be, at San Simeon Beach just north of Morro Bay).

One other suggestion...Highway 99 is a piece of crap. If possible pick a route that will get you over to either Interstate 5 or Highway 101. California has several N-S freeways but really lacks in E-W freeways.

Reservations can be made on-line at State parks and at national parks.

http://www.reserveamerica.com/

http://www.nps.gov/seki/planyourvisit/campgrounds.htm

http://www.recreation.gov/

http://koa.com/

Thanks for the answers.

The California trip is more or less set by now.

We ditch the RV in Vegas on the 1st of july and check in at the Cosmopolitan.

3rd of July we drive in a SUV to Genral Sherman.
4th of July we head to monterrrey (hotel by the sea with a view).
5th or 6th we drive to SF.
Here we have 3 days in a nice hotel (The W - thanks Hotwire).
Then we take Route 1 to LA and spend 3 days doing that. Only plan off the Route 1 is a visit to Solvang (for obvious reasons).
Then we have 3 days in West Hollywood in what looks to be a decent, not swanky hotel.
Then we head to San Diego where we'll stay at the Sheraton on Harbor Island. I think 4 days.
Then Back to LA for our final night - probably near the airport and then home.

The parks question was regarding the first 21 days from Denver to LV.

Looks like we need to hurry - a quick search showed me that Arches was fully booked, but some of the other parks weren't yet. We'll probably be getting a KOA card, since that was an option too.

Somehow I missed when you were ditching the RV. That is probably better anyway as the SUV will be quicker and with the price of gas in California probably much cheaper. Also hotels are always better in the heat.

Monterrey should have a big fireworks show on the fourth of July. Expect big crowds by the way. The Aquarium is very popular and gets crowded even on normal weekends.

Harbor Island in SD is a good choice. Near Sea World, downtown and restaurants.

Personally I hate LA and so can't recommend anything to anybody for that area, except to maybe skip it. :)

KOA's cost more but you do get full hook ups and most have pools and laundry facilities, just in case.

We did stay one of the KOA's in Williams, Arizona on a trip to the Grand Canyon. It was okay. The Grand Canyon should be a very crowded place that time of year and I would imagine the campgrounds near the park are booked. It should be pretty damn hot that time of year in much of that area.

One place you could save a day would be to pass up Lake Havusu and go straight from the Grand Canyon to Las Vegas. Lake Havasu will be 100+ degrees with mosquitos the size of hummingbirds (at least it did the one trip I went through there in late May).

When driving from the Grand Canyon to Las Vegas take the highway that crosses the Colorado River at Hoover Dam. You can then see the dam and travel to Las Vegas. Supposed to be a cool bridge as well, just opened recently.

I'd love to do that.
Lake Havasu really doesn't do anything for me, but my wife it set on it - and since she used to live in NY and has visited 33 of the states we need to do something that isn't a repeat for her.

But I'll pass along the suggestion. If we want mosquitos we can always go to Sweden in the summer. It's cheaper.

So, took the advice and booked the major parks ahead.

We've booked 2/3 of our stay ahead, but left some spots open - either where park camping is first come first serve or just to give us some flexibility, so we don't need to be in a certain spot every day.

Rocky Mountains National Park is booked in the park proper.
From there we head to MT Rushmore with the first night booked at a KOA.
from there to Devils Tower - the KOA had a spot with direct view of the mountain and nightly showings of First Encounters... how could I resist?
From there through Deadwood to Cody, where have no set plans. Perhaps Little Bighorn...
In Yellowstone we've booked three nights at three different campgrounds.
Craters of the Moon National Park couldn't be booked, so we'll find something. Same goes for Shoeshone Falls.
Then we hit Salt Lake City for a few days with nothing planned.
Onwards to Arches National Park where everything was booked solid, so we made do with a KOA in Moab.
And then another private camping ground in Monument Valley.
From here we go to spend three days in the National Park campgrounds on the South rim of the Grand Canyon (only two spots left, everything else was booked).
Then it's something private at Lake Havasu (6 RV parks, none with functional online booking...) and from there to LV and the car switch.

The more I look at Lake Havasu, the less I want to go there (we're skipping a foray back acros the Colorado border to the Dinosaur national Monument - between Salt Lake City and Arches - which I'd much rather do). But the wife is set on it.
If anybody has any alternate suggestions for the last days in Arizona before we hit Nevada, do let me know. Perhaps I can yet convince her.

I'm curious as to why this is? I've never been and from what little I do know Lake Havasu is nothing special, it's notoriety is purely from it being a raunchy Spring Break destination isn't it?

If you want to see some dinosaur stuff but can't make it to the full park you could visit Dinosaur Ridge on your way in or out of Rocky Mountain. It's obviously not as extensive as the park (you'll probably spend 2 hours there and see everything) but it's still super cool.

Meteor Crater..just east of Flagstaff is an awesome thing to see.
Sedona just south of Flagstaff is very pretty and very trendy. Nice to drive through and have lunch.
North of Flagstaff is Sunset Crater Park...a volcanic park.
I don't know if you mentioned how old your kids were but there is a really cool petting zoo near Williams. Several kinds of deer and other animals.
South of Flagstaff on the freeway is Montezuma's Castle. An Indian village built into the side of a canyon wall.

My daughters liked all these locations.

It is the home of the London Bridge. It also is hotter than hell. It has a quaint little English village thing going on around the bridge but unless you like water sports or golfing there is nothing there.

Thanks for the info. With that in hand I managed to get my wife to explain/consider what it was about that lake that intrigued her so - it was basically just the damn bridge.
Looking into it, she agreed that there perhaps wasn't much more to see or do there. So we went from a two night stay, to just a quick drivethrough, and now we're considering skipping it alltogether. Victory!
Plan B is to insert Lake Powell before the Grand Canyon.

I have never been to Lake Powell. As I kid we used to play in Lake Mead so I assume it is like that.

I thought maybe the London Bridge was the thing in Lake Havusu. Tell your wife it is not a very impressive thing to see because of the surroundings. You just can't see that bridge in your mind having ever been in London.