A grand honeymoon road trip in the US - looking for advice
Hello everyone!
Me and my fiancé, wife this upcoming summer, are planning a grand round trip to the US in about a year. Our travels in the past years have been exclusively to diving destinations in Asia, where travel is cost effective and experiences are priced in tens of monies, not hundreds like back home in Northern Europe. This time for our honeymoon, graduation and 30's crisis (I'm going to be 30 this autumn) we decided to go for something more spectacular, as this is most likely the last time we can both afford it monetarily and time wise, as we do not yet have kids, have ample paid vacation time saved and other more important obligations are still in the future. The time for our trip would be from around boxing day (26th of December) to however it takes, most likely need to be back at work latest starting February.
As a disclaimer we are both used to driving in winter conditions including hazardous weathers such as blizzards, frozen rain and black ice conditions. We are both experienced and skilled drivers, though distances in our small country of Finland are short, a 300 mile drive is considered a long drive. Both of us have driven longer distances in a single day though for our local road trips, so it isn't such an issue. We are also experienced hikers and own suitable clothes and gear to do winter hiking, though there are limitations in what we can fly over to the US. We hope to rent a 4WD car for this.
Our still early plan is a Seattle to Seattle round trip, trying to cover some cool national parks on the way and keeping the driving distances around 300 miles a day, with a few longer drives to offset longer stops at cool places. We figured 300 miles a day would allow for short stops on interesting things on the way without having to step on the pedal too much.
Early plans are as follows numbered by days in the US:
- Fly to Seattle, day for supplying and buying gear
- Seattle - Coeur d'Alene
- Coeur d' Alene - Butte
- Butte - Mammoth Springs, Yellowstone National Park
- Yellowstone
- Yellowstone, New Year's Eve
- Yellowstone - Deadwood, long drive
- Deadwood, see Devils Tooth and surrounding sights
- Deadwood - Keystone, see Mount Rushmore and stuff
- Keystone, day trip to Badlands National Park
- Keystone - Estes Park, longish drive here too
- Estes Park, Rocky Mountain National Park (Emerald lake?)
- Estes Park - Glenwood Springs, stay for the baths
- Glenwood Springs - Moab
- Moab, Arches National Park
- Moab, Canyonlands National Park
- Moab - Bryce
- Bryce - Springdale
- Springdale, Zion National Park
- Springdale - Grand Canyon Village (or around there somewhere)
- Grand Canyon Village
- Grand Canyon Village - Las Vegas
- Las Vegas, to poetically reflect on the neon light national park after the nature national parks we've just seen
- Las Vegas - Carson City, long drive here
- Carson City - Redding
- Redding - Brooking, see Redwoods
- Brooking - Shady Cove, see more Redwoods?
- Shady Cove, Crater Lake National Park
- Shady Cove - Portland
- Portland, readjust to city life
- Portland - Seattle
- Fly home from Seattle
I realize this is a long drive, and have compiled the stops with just google information about the most interesting places to stop by. We are open to suggestions and other information you might be willing to share!
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