Visit Date: Spring/Summer 2025
What an incredible 10-week cross-country road trip adventure we’ve had, exploring our wildly diverse country. We drove 13,700 miles, hitting 43 destinations in 25 states. 18 of these destinations were visiting our amazing National Parks. We drove our own SUV and stayed in hotels each night. We left on May 8th and returned July 19th, and we really lucked out with excellent overall weather and reasonable crowds.
We learned a lot on our month-long Midwest Road Trip last year that informed our itinerary plan this time around. Having periodic destinations where we stay 3-4 days goes a long way to break up the driving. When possible, we tried to keep the destinations at a max of 3.5 hours apart – with only a few 4-5 hour drives (unless it’s a scenic drive and thus a feature). We do get burnt out if we do the same things too often, so we try to spread out museums, gardens, shopping, walks/hikes, kayaking, etc. when possible.
The obvious question folks have when asking about such a long trip is, “What were your favorite places?” Thankfully this trip had so many highlights, that we’ve found that a nearly impossible question to answer. But there are categories of highlights for sure:
National Parks
National Parks were a big component of our trip. We visited 18 parks (in this order): Gateway Arch, Theodore Roosevelt, Badlands, Wind Cave, Yellowstone, Grand Tetons, Glacier, North Cascades, Mount Rainier, Olympic, Crater Lake, Lassan Volcanic, Yosemite, Kings Canyon, Sequoia, Death Valley, Mesa Verde, and Mammoth Cave (bringing our grand total to date to 32 parks)! Getting the “America The Beautiful” pass was a no-brainer at $80, when many of the parks are $35 each. ProTip: We found the GuideAlong app very helpful for navigating the big parks, especially Yellowstone, though less useful for the smaller parks. While we visited a few parks (to follow) that particularly stood out, seeing so many parks in one trip, each with very different features, gave us even more appreciation for all the beauty across the country that the National Park Service protects.
Yellowstone
We spent the most time here – 3 days – of any National Park as it’s been on my bucket list the longest. We saw the best animal sightings here in the Lamar Valley – 2 bears plus a bison walking in the road past our car – and the rest of the park had nature highlights galore – Old Faithful Geyser, Grand Canyon of Yellowstone, Upper and Lower Falls, Inspiration Point, Yellowstone Lake, the Grand Prismatic, and Mammoth Hot Springs.
Yosemite
It’s a STUNNER!! We thought the valley was lovely with the impressive waterfalls, flowing river, The Ahwahnee Lodge, and dramatic cliffs, most especially El Capitan. But honestly, seeing the views from above on Glacier Point Road, especially Half Dome, just blew us away.
Olympic National Park
Each area we visited was unique and gorgeous and I feel like we only sampled the highlights of all that’s here. Hurricane Ridge would have been even more special had we not recently seen other majestic snowcapped ranges like the Grand Tetons. Then there’s the bucolic Lake Crescent and Lake Quinault and their impressive lodges. Rialto Beach was unlike anything I’ve ever seen – with its full-grown trees and stumps as driftwood scattered throughout the beach. And the Hoh Rainforest felt like we were entering another world. Looks like this is a must come back destination on a future Alaskan trip.
National Park Surprises
Theodore Roosevelt – we didn’t know much about this park and didn’t have high expectations, but we loved seeing the bison (our first viewings) and wild horses, much closer than expected.
North Cascades had the stunning glacier lakes we expected, but didn’t see, at Glacier NP – so beautiful.
We had no idea what to expect from Death Valley but we were so impressed with its many cool areas (sand dunes, colored cliffs, salt lake flat, nighttime dark skies) and amazing views.
Planned Key Destinations
AsI was plotting out our route and our stops, there were places we knew we wanted to spend 3-4 days, and some that I discovered during the planning had more in the area than I realized. We loved all of these places.
St. Louis, MO
The star of our visit was THE ARCH, and this was National Park #1 of our journey. Especially glad we rode to the top and saw the city from above. Man, St. Louis does green spaces well! Citygarden Sculpture Park was walking distance from the Arch and was such a cute city park to explore. We were totally impressed with all that Forest Park offered. It’s 500 acres larger than Central Park, founded in 1876 and operated by the City of St. Louis. It has an excellent art museum, a zoo, an outdoor theater with $15 tickets, lovely landscaping thruout, and sports fields galore – tennis, racketball, golf, soccer, rugby, boating, baseball & softball. Tom has been a Bud guy since we met in college, so an Anheuser-Busch tour was a must. And we explored a few neighborhoods including the Delmar Loop.
Black Hills/Rapid City, SD
We saw so many amazing sites in our 3 days. The iconic Mount Rushmore is what initially brought us here. We then saw the Crazy Horse monument-in-progress (not worth it) and stopped along the way at the kitschy Hill City and Custer. We visited the very interesting Mammoth Site, an active paleontological excavation site at an old sinkhole that trapped many mammoths and other creatures. We drove through Wind Cave National Park (NP #3). This wasn’t high enough on our list to book the cave tours in advance, but we drove the full park and saw wildlife, including more bison (terrain was quite similar to the adjacent Custer State Park). We spent a whole day visiting Custer State Park, which we found just as impressive as many National Parks. The Needles Highway, in particular, was a great drive. We also spent a full day at the nearby Badlands National Park (NP #4). We drove “The Loop,” in quotations as it’s not actually a loop but an in-out the same path, and walked a few short trails to get closer to the cool formations we saw from the rim. We stopped in at the ridiculous Wall and then explored downtown Rapid City with its Presidential Statues.
Seattle, WA
We saw SO much in our 3 days in Seattle proper. Top on my list was Chihuly Garden and Glass, which happens to be right next to the Space Needle. Other highlights we enjoyed were Pier 66, seeing street art including the “Greetings from Seattle” sign, Amazon spheres, Waterfront Olympic Sculpture Park, Fremont neighborhood, and Bainbridge Ferry. We had to let go of a number of things I wanted to do that there just wasn’t time for, so we may have to come back.
Las Vegas, NV
I’m always amazed by how much Vegas changes between visits (our last time here was 10+ years ago). The highlight of this visit was seeing the U2 concert movie at the Sphere, but we also spent the first 2 days seeing downtown, checking out the Wynn, and hanging at a pool for the first time this trip – temps over 100 every day so A/C or water were key. Then Megan joined us for a week starting with another pool day and a Lawry’s Prime Rib dinner – delish! – and then we saw the Neon Museum boneyard lit up at night. For our last day we saw the Titanic exhibit at Luxor with actual relics and information on the passengers and ended with the impressive show Awakenings at the Wynn.
Unexpected Delights Along the Way
Prince’s Paisley Palace, MN
Prince’s Paisley Park met my very high expectations – despite intense security and locked phones for much of it (they had to show us how to turn off our watches!) We learned a lot about Prince’s life and motivations that we didn’t know.
Red Lodge, MO and the Bear Tooth Highway
While this was intended as a scenic route to our next destination, we had no idea how spectacular it would be. With a do-over I’d stay in Red Lodge rather than Billings. And we completely lucked out on the Beartooth Highway. We knew it just opened for Memorial Day Friday, but we didn’t realize it almost always SNOWS this weekend (and therefore often stays closed) and we had gorgeous weather.
Spokane, WA
We were so fortunate that my cousin was able to take the day off and show us all around her city. We saw the beautiful gardens of Manito Park, walked along the Centennial trail which follows the bends of the Spokane River, and took the Skyride gondola with its view of the Spokane River Gorge and Riverfront park. We ended with a drive through Gonzaga, and dinner at the excellent Clinkerdagger Restaurant, which sits above the river and has the most amazing food and views. I ended up very impressed with this small city.
Oregon drive through the Columbia River Gorge to Mount Hood
Caitlin joined us for the weekend and we spent this day chasing the most gorgeous waterfalls and mountain tops. Multnomah Falls in particular was stunning and seeing the majestic Mount Hood in the backdrop of both a vineyard and a small lake was beautifully jarring. I can’t imagine having a daily view of Mt. Hood from my home or work!
Oklahoma City, OK
What a delightful surprise! We saw so much in our 1.5 days – in part due to no traffic and easy (and free) weekend parking! And Bank of America’s free museum admissions for the first weekend of the month. Megan flew home after seeing the Myriad Botanical Gardens, and we explored the Bricktown area (including taking the Water Taxi) and crossed the Skydance Pedestrian Bridge. We spent time at the very moving OKC National Memorial & Museum, enjoyed the Ansel Adams and Chihuly exhibits at the OK Museum of Art and checked out the wild Factory Obscura MixTape exhibit. And I loved the art all over the city.
Little Rock, AR
We thoroughly enjoyed our afternoon here. We checked out The Old Mill, which is tucked in an adorable residential area, and appeared in the opening credits of Gone With The Wind! How cool!! And we strolled along the Riverfront Park, which included SUCH an awesome sculpture garden! Finally, we explored a bit of the SOMA area.
