I consider myself a pretty good trip planner, but my primary experience with kids is either international travel to well-populated areas (think Bangkok, Paris, Normandy) or places within a couple hours of our house.
Camping-driven road trips intimidate me. There, I said it. We have two young kids who don’t love long car rides and aren’t capable of entertaining and feeding themselves the way an older child can. I worry about days with 4+ hours of driving (not including stops!), and setting up camp at the end of a long day.
That’s why every time I’ve looked into road tripping to some of the big national parks, I’ve given up and thought “maybe when the kids are older.” This never-ending pandemic is driving me to new adventures though! This summer we’re going to drive from Seattle through Idaho to Grand Teton, Yellowstone and Glacier National Parks before heading back through Spokane to get home.
I started with a Google Map (they used to call it MyMaps..) and every time I saw a random spot to visit in a Google search or blog post (like the American Field Trip’s delightful series), I threw it on the map. It didn’t need to be comprehensive, just enough to narrow down where we needed to concentrate time. I also used Oalley to test out where we could reasonably drive within 4-5 hours and then tried to look at accommodation in that area.
I waffled back and forth between driving our car and camping, staying in AirBnBs/lodges or renting an RV. We’re ending up renting a camper van through GoCamp for about 16 days and here’s why:
- Food – Peter has several food allergies (corn, soy and peanuts are the biggest) that make it challenging to just stop somewhere and grab food if we’ve had a long day. We want somewhere we can make our own food, but not necessarily have to set up a full camp kitchen.
- Drive length – some of our days are going to have 4-5 hour drives, plus we’ll want to stop and check out scenery along the way. I’d be okay with camping at some stops, but on those long days I want to just pull out the sleeping bags and hit the hay.
- Distance from activities – these national parks are tricky. The lodges don’t typically have cooking facilities (I didn’t see any in the parks we’re visiting), but choosing an AirBnB would likely mean adding at least an hour’s commute in and out of the park every time we want to go hike.
- Vehicle size – many of the campsites in the national parks have strict (and short) vehicle requirements and no hook-ups. The most famous is probably the 21′ long x 10′ high x 8′ wide requirement for Going to the Sun road in Glacier National Park, but spots for large RVs are extremely limited or non-existent. As a result, we wanted something shorter to make it more likely we can (literally) fit in.
At this point, almost all our camping reservations are complete (I still need to figure out Coeur d’Alene, ID), so now I need to nail down the activities in a detailed itinerary and that’s where you come in!
If you have a blog, Instagram post or other resource that you love for the nitty gritty details of your favorite stops along our route (as seen in the header image), could you please comment here or DM me on Instagram (@suitcasesinseattle)?
Suitcases In Seattle 