Trip West

bwright · 01-31-2016, 05:47 AM

Planning to travel out west this summer for about 4 weeks and want to hit these spots:

1) Black Hills
2) Yellowstone
3) Grand Canyon

Anyone have any favorite campgrounds and/or Things to Do near these areas they would suggest?

jsmith948 · 01-31-2016, 05:55 AM

In the Yellowstone area, we like the Grizzly RV Park in the town of West Yellowstone. About a half mile from thte west park entrance. Large, clean sites with plenty of grass. The staff are beyond friendly/helpful and the cg is walking distance to town where you can dine on Buffalo Burgers.

**JRTJH** · 01-31-2016, 07:02 AM

I'd consider Twin Falls, ID (Shoshone Falls, Pillar Falls, Evil Keievil's jump site), Craters of the Moon National Park, and Atomic City, ID.

In the Black Hills, don't forget Crazy Horse Monument.

CaptnJohn · 01-31-2016, 07:19 AM

Pick up US 160 in St Louis after visiting the Arch. So much is right along 160 ~~ Mesa Verde, Great Sand Dunes Natl Park, 4 Corners, Wolf Creek Pass, Grand Canyon, Hoover Dam and into Las Vegas. Run north to I-80 and the Tabernacle at Salt Lake, Crazy Horse, Black Hills, Ft Laramie, Mt Rushmore, and much more on both legs. The Badlands and the list goes on...

Murphsmom · 01-31-2016, 08:23 AM

Don't forget to plan a day or two in Cody WY on your way to Yellowstone. The Buffalo Bill Center is not to be missed and other attractions around town are interesting.

The Mammoth Site in Hot Springs, SD is well worth a visit while you are in the Black Hills area. We were not very impressed with Deadwood (VERY commercialized), but others say they have enjoyed their visit there.

We stayed at Fort Welikit in Custer City while we explored the southern part of the area. A nice campground in the trees. http://www.blackhillsrv.com. Near Deadwood we stayed at Hidden Valley Campground in one of their creekside spaces. A very nice, clean campground about six miles out of Deadwood. http://www.hiddenvalleydeadwood.com

Since we are big Christmas people, we stopped at Christmas Village on Highway 16 outside of Rapid City. This little shop probably had the largest selection of Christmas ornaments we had ever seen. We also stopped in at the House of Scandanavia, also on Highway 16. This was a very unique little shop with a great variety of Scandanavian gifts.

Laredo291OH · 01-31-2016, 03:58 PM

If you are at Yellowstone, check into the Grand Tetons, they are only a couple of hours south. If you want to do some extra driving, check out Glacier National Park in northern Montana, beautiful country, in fact, my kids were disappointed with Yellowstone because we went to Glacier first.

dhn · 02-01-2016, 10:02 AM

We went to Yellowstone last summer and used this site for information on what to do and see. The site also has a little info on Grand Teton too. The site is not affiliated with NPS but was a help in planning our trip.

http://yellowstone.net/

koko · 02-01-2016, 11:21 AM

You'll need 4 weeks+ to check out all of the amazing sites everyone has mentioned, plus all the side attractions that you'll discover along your way. Lots of things to do that aren't commercialized if you really search. If you go to Mount Rushmore, be sure to see Devil's Tower, too.

kguess · 02-12-2016, 05:45 AM

Koko is correct, you need at least 4 weeks, so much to see and do especially if you're active ( hiking, biking, kayaking, etc. ) As they say ' the west is the best'! Have fun !

**JRTJH** · 02-12-2016, 06:02 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by koko

You'll need 4 weeks+ to check out all of the amazing sites everyone has mentioned, plus all the side attractions that you'll discover along your way. Lots of things to do that aren't commercialized if you really search. If you go to Mount Rushmore, be sure to see Devil's Tower, too.

So true !!! We spent 6 weeks last summer doing a "limited version" that didn't include the Grand Canyon, Las Vegas or southern Utah/southern Colorado and we were "pushed" to get it all in. It would be very easy to make a trip like you propose an "all summer and most of the fall" event and still not see even "most of the good stuff"..... Where to draw the line on what to stop for and what to pass ????? Tough questions.....

For us, a "key consideration" was to not rigidly plan our travel so we had time to "stop for interesting things" that otherwise we'd have been forced to "pass and ignore". Some of those "by the wayside finds" turned out to be the "highlights of the trip".... So, allow some flexibility into your plans...

darrylwt · 02-12-2016, 06:25 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by bwright

Planning to travel out west this summer for about 4 weeks and want to hit these spots:

1) Black Hills
2) Yellowstone
3) Grand Canyon

Anyone have any favorite campgrounds and/or Things to Do near these areas they would suggest?

I like the Grand Canyon I think it is amazing and you can stay near Williams AZ, you are close to Sedona AZ I think it is worth a trip to see all the red hills and maybe a side trip to Jerome, AZ an old mining town built on the side of a mountain it is a beautiful area. In Sedona they have jeep rides into the back-country to see all the wildlife and landscape.

**chuckster57** · 02-12-2016, 06:34 AM

Don't forget about the painted desert/petrified forest.

Kettleby_Cruiser · 02-12-2016, 03:32 PM

Did a trip to Yellowstone in the summer of 2013 and we stayed in West Yellowstone, Montana at the Grizzly RV Park. Great place to base camp.

Two favorite spots to explore were Yellowstone Canyon Inspiration Point lookout and the hike to the brink of the Lower Falls, just spectacular!

Happy Camping!
...Chuck

JeffS · 02-12-2016, 05:41 PM

The museum in Cody is well worth a day as is Craters of the Moon in Arco ID. As for the Grand Canyon, our preference is the North Rim.

**chuckster57** · 02-12-2016, 06:14 PM

Douglas Wyoming was an interesting stop for us, home of the Jack-a-lope and some old rail cars.

Cabindweller · 02-14-2016, 05:23 AM

We hit Glacier National Park, Bighorn National Forest, Rushmore and Devil's Tower this past summer. All beautiful places. If you go to Glacier, I highly recommend the KOA in St. Mary (east Glacier). Great views and amenities.

We also talked about Yellowstone, but decided on Glacier instead (this time). If we would have gone to Yellowstone, we planned to stay at Grizzly RV park. We also would have definitely spent some time at the Grand Teton.

All beautifull places! You really can't go wrong at any of them.

notanlines · 02-14-2016, 10:56 AM

We have a slightly different view of Glacier and Grand Canyon. Unless you plan on hiking or horseback riding to the bottom of the canyon I'm not sure what you would do there. We have been there with the grandgirls and they were bored to pieces. The oldest (13) said "Okay, it's a big, beautiful hole in the ground. Now what?"
Glacier ended up a flop because we were there the third week of July and the "Road to the Sun" was closed because of snow slides/avalanches. I guess one is supposed to visit the first week of October. We will take Yellowstone/Tetons hands down, along with the Black Hills area. We also agree that the Crazyhorse Monument is great to see. Although our pictures of the monument of eight years ago look exactly the same as our pictures of this year during Sturgis. I don't believe they are actually making any progress.
Even the grandgirls liked the Cody museum. When we headed to Yellowstone from Cody we headed northwest and took the Chief Joseph highway to the north entrance. A long pull with a big trailer, but not bad with a smaller one.

SADLY · 02-15-2016, 03:56 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by notanlines

We have a slightly different view of Glacier and Grand Canyon. Unless you plan on hiking or horseback riding to the bottom of the canyon I'm not sure what you would do there. We have been there with the grandgirls and they were bored to pieces. The oldest (13) said "Okay, it's a big, beautiful hole in the ground. Now what?"...

Went April 2015. Day 1 we did 3 hour jeep tour with a native indian guide.... Was really great to learn about the history/geology as well as his cultural perspective.

Day 2 we did 1 hour helicopter tour. That was $$$$ but WELL worth it imho.

We did not walk down.... We'll save that for trip #2.

koko · 02-15-2016, 07:44 AM

We have felt the same way notanline does about Glacier and Grand Canyon. They're nice, but Yellowstone will always be our #1. Also, as mentioned above, Grand Tetons, Devil's Tower, Mount Rushmore, Black Hills, Cody Museum offer so much. However, we have no regrets that we've been fortunate enough to see all of these amazing areas - really all so different from each other. One hundred people will have one hundred opinions, so you need to see for yourself. Only trouble is that even though it looks like these areas are all "together", they're VERY spread out from each other - you would need way more than a month to do all of them real justice. Better plan two separate trips to the area.

One thing you'll love out here is that there's so much less traffic!!!

spittman · 02-22-2016, 07:45 AM

We stayed at the Grizzly RV Park in West Yellowstone. Very nice and convenient to Yellowstone. The west entrance is less than a mile from the campground. We spent 7 full days there and explored Yellowstone and one day in the Tetons. Yellowstone is HUGE, so even though the RV park is literally less than a mile from the entrance, there are parts of the park that are 80-90 miles away on roads with 45 mph speed limits (don't speed there, you will get a ticket. We didn't, but saw lots of people who did). On the way home, we spent 2 days in South Dakota at the Mt. Rushmore KOA, which was nice and convenient to Mt Rushmore and Crazy Horse.

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