Planning my Epic All-American Road Trip

“I travel not to go anywhere, but to go. I travel for travel's sake. The great affair is to move.”

― Robert Louis Stevenson

I was invited to go to France for the International Space University's Space Studies Program in 2021 for two weeks. Being super excited for another space summer, I applied for two weeks off work. Amidst the pandemic, I was awaiting my visa to go to France. As the days came closer, I realized that I may not get my visa in time. I was not really happy about the situation, but I started making a backup plan. I started planning an epic all-American road trip.

And as expected, I wasn't able to get my visa on time for my trip to France. Luckily, I had a back up.

I had prepared a google document with the places I was going to visit and the route I should be taking. After several hours of research, I had come up with the best plan ever! My road trip obviously started in Chicago (from home!) and then passed through some really interesting sites to the Yellowstone National Park. I asked my family if they would like to join me and my grandparents were super excited and no one else had two weeks vacation like I did.

Now, since I was travelling with my grandparents, we agreed to not travel to destinations that were over 4 hours drive from the previous place of stay. This was to reduce our tiredness, but this served as the best method to see and experience many places. Though we only travelled to destinations that were 4 hours apart, we drove for over 6-8 hours a day, once even 13 hours to explore nearby parts of each location.

Once I decided our route and our stops, I booked all the accommodations. I was super lucky to have found places to stay inside the national park as well. From my research, I gathered that these are usually booked up a year earlier. I think I might have stumbled upon some cancellations. In any case, it was great for me!

My tip here would be to check the websites for any availability and call the hotel just to make sure, in case you are booking in the last minute and don't see anything available. There's a possibility that it might take some time for the site to be updated.

After booking the accommodations, I looked up things to do, places to see and stops to make before the destination for each location. I also made notes of other people's experience and what they recommended and what they didn't recommend. I had a packing list ready for my trip which I used for shopping and gathering things that we may need. I bought a binder, printed all the related documents and had it ready for the trip.

Now, I intend to write separate blogs for each location with the things to do and places to stop at, this blog however, is going to outline the route we chose to and from Yellowstone, the passes we would need to buy and document all the main points of research I did for over 2 weeks! If you are planning a trip to Yellowstone or any other place, this would be a worthwhile read. (Let me know if otherwise!)

We decided to have at least 3 whole days at the park and after discussing with a few people at work we decided to have at least one day at the Grand Teton National Park. There were other points of interest like the Badlands National Park, Mount Rushmore, Crazy Horse Memorial and the Theodore Roosevelt National Park.

An overview of the places we chose to stay at are below.

En route to Yellowstone National Park

• La Crosse (~ 4hr)

• Sioux Falls (~ 4hr)

• Wall/Badlands National Park (~ 4hr)

• Sundance, WY/Mount Rushmore (~ 2 hr)* 6/Devil’s Tower (~ 3 hr)

• Thermopolis (~5 hr)

• Moran, WY - Grand Teton National Park(~ 4 hr)

• Yellowstone National Park (~1.5 hr)

Return to Chicago

• Miles City (~4.5 hr)

• Bismarck (~ 4 hr)

• Alexandria (~ 4.5 hr)

• Tomah(~ 4.5 hr)

• Chicago (~ 4hr)

Now, I knew we were visiting at least two to three US National Parks (ended up visiting six!) and I came to know that the prices to enter each park or National Monument is around $25-$35 each! Upon further research, I gathered that the annual pass would work out cheaper and since I was travelling with my grandparents I could get the Senior Annual Pass which was only $20 with access to all the parks and monuments. The pass covers one car and three other people with the card holder.

If you are not travelling with senior citizens, you can get the annual pass which will still work out cheaper than getting individual parks to the sites. See below for current rates:

• Annual Pass - $ 80 (Everyone)

• Annual Senior Pass - $20 (US citizen & 62 years or older)

• Lifetime Senior Pass - $80 (US citizen & 62 years or older)

• Military Pass - Free (US military members, veterans and family)

• 4th grade pass - Free (US fourth graders)

• Access pass - Free (US citizens and permanent residents with disabilities)

• Volunteer pass - Free (NPS volunteers with 250 service hours)

You can find the list of sites you can visit with a pass here: PassIssuanceList.pdf (usgs.gov)

You can find more details on the types of passes available here: Entrance Passes (U.S. National Park Service) (nps.gov)

You can buy the pass online, but note it takes about 7-10 days for the pass to reach you. The best way to get it is at a park or site where you are visiting. You can check if the place you want to visit will be able to let you purchase the pass here: Places to Get Interagency Passes (U.S. National Park Service) (nps.gov)

The next tip I have is for you to read as many blogs you can find about the location you are visiting. Read about what other people liked and what they didn't like. This will help you identify and narrow must visit sites and avoid places that may waste your time. Nonetheless, you would like to see certain places another person may not prefer, so read as many opinions as possible to decide!

While I was reading blogs like this, I came across one of the best tool ever- the Gypsy guide: GPS Narrated Audio Driving Tour Apps | GyPSy Guide

I had downloaded several apps relating to Yellowstone, but this was the only one I used a lot. At first, I was reluctant on purchasing the tour, but eventually convinced myself as it wasn't a lot of money. They have around 43 tours for different locations. This is the tour I purchased: Yellowstone and Grand Teton Driving Tour Apps | GyPSy Guide

It was amazing! The best part is that it doesn't need Wi-Fi or internet connection, it uses GPS and this was ideal because it's super hard to find good cellular connection, mobile data or Wi-Fi in the Yellowstone and the Grand Teton National Parks. I wished I had purchased the tour for Mount Rushmore and the Badlands as well and that they had more tours available on every place I went to. I would highly recommend this and if you are on a road trip to any of the location where the Gypsy guide has a tour, you should take it, it's totally worth it and is a fraction of the cost of any tour.

Another tip is to figure out ahead of time what roads will be closed during your trip. This will help you avoid wasting precious time on detours.

I figured out that the roads between the Canyon Village and the Tower-Roosevelt was closed for construction. This helped me plan my trip around that route.

The last tip is to ensure your car or RV or whatever you are travelling in is in good condition and that you have all documents needed.

We luckily didn't have any issues with our car, but this could have been possible with the tire rotation, oil change and maintenance check I got done before our trip. I also got an AAA membership that we could use just in case things didn't go our way. It did give us some discounts on hotels, something you can look into!

That's all I have for this blog! You can read more tips for each destination and what we did in upcoming blogs!