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Travel the USA and Canada

The author at Monument Valley in 1997

March 19, 2002-October 15, 2002 (revised a bit 6/4/2009)

These are some notes I put together for my aunt about traveling in the US and Canada. There are many more things that I would like to note, but I just haven't had time to put it all together yet. But here are several thoughts...

First, please see my Seattle log and my Yellowstone log. And consider a Visit USA Ticket. For Canadian Rail Travel, take a look at Via Rail.

Third, my favorite places in the USA are: (Yellowstone National Park or Yellowstone National Park), Bryce Canyon National Park, the Grand Canyon National Park, the Kenai Penninsula of Alaska, Monument Valley. You can get a brief overview of many of the parks at the National Park Service. Unfortunately, I have yet to find any really good sites that show off the various parks. The National Park Service websites show very little. Perhaps it is because they already get so many visitors!

What America has to offer that is truly unique are the things like Yellowstone (the world's first national park, home to 60% of the world's geo-thermal features and North America's best safari), Yosemite (2nd tallest waterfall in the world, etc.), the Grand Canyon (deepest? and second broadest canyon? in the world), Bryce, Zion, the Arches, Escalante, the Grand Tetons, etc.

You could hit a lot of those by flying to either Las Vegas or Salt Lake City.

Also San Antonio, near Austin, is beautiful. And not quite so near, but probably within striking distance by rental car are Carlsbad Caverns (923 feet deep), Big Bend National Park and the Battleship Texas (in Houston).

The cities are spectacular too, but other countries have great cities. New York never stops! Chicago is beautiful, but frequently chilly. Los Angeles doesn't do anything for my soul. San Francisco is beautiful. Atlanta is slow, but a great place to live.

The biggest problem that I see is actually getting to the parks that are so incredible for the casual voyager who doesn't have a car or an RV. Such travelers really have to go by car or by an arranged tour, like a bus tour.

The natural beauty that is similar to Switzerland is in Alaska. In fact, Gateway of the Arctic, the largest national park in the US, is larger than Switzerland! If you wish to see beautiful cities, then you should go to Washington.

One thing that would be relatively easy for the carless traveler to do would be to take a train trip across Canada, and then take side trips by bus from different cities. For example, you could go from Quebec to Victoria (coast to coast). Both of those towns are beautiful and easily accessible on foot. From Calgary you can get to Banff and Jasper National Parks. Actually, I think that the train even goes directly to Banff. This way you get the natural beauty and beautiful towns and all within a relatively easily accessible package.

On a tangent and just for fun... If I had just one week to see as much of the US as I wanted to, what would be my itinerary? Here are the conditions for such an itinerary...

1. Not going to visit your relatives.
2. Use any mode of public travel, such as taxis, buses, ferries, trains and aircraft.
3. Not spend more than two days in any one city or park, etc.
4. Not go back to the same place more than once, except to change planes, etc.

In one week, I would do the following mad dash:

1. Day 1: Fly from Atlanta to Salt Lake City to West Yellowstone. From there, rent an RV and head east into Yellowstone National Park, the grandest place in the entire world that I've seen so far. California is very, very beautiful, and may be the most beautiful state. But the most beautiful and diverse scenery has to be in Yellowstone National Park. And Wyoming, for that matter, gives good competition to California as a state. So do Alaska and Washington.
2. Day 2-3: Stay at Yellowstone National Park. Then from Yellowstone, head south to and then through the Grand Tetons on to Salt Lake on Day 3. From Salt Lake City, go south-east to the Arches National Park. I would kick myself for skipping Glen Canyon/Lake Powell.
3. Day 4: Depart Arches National Park. Then go further south to Valley of the Gods, Monument Valley and Canyon de Chelley and maybe hit Four Corners if I was really bored.
4. Day 5: Then I would go back north-west to the Grand Canyon. Drive to the North Rim. Stay at Jacob's Lake Inn. Reservations: (928) 643-7232 or (928) 643-7898. From there it's 46 minutes to the Grand Canyon's North Rim entrance, 2 hours and 25 minutes to Bryce Canyon. The North Rim also has an amazing dining room at the North Rim Lodge. The North Rim Lodge is perched dramatically near the edge of the Grand Canyon. Get there early (say 5 pm) to get a window table to be able to have one of the most beautiful dinning experiences ever. I would kick myself yet again for skipping Glen Canyon/Lake Powell, but would have to on such a short trip.
5. Day 6: From the Grand Canyon, I would head further north to and through Zion National Park. Finally I would hit Bryce Canyon (photos by QT Luong), which is also phenomenally beautiful and scenic. You absolutely have to go to Bryce!
6. Day 7: At this point, I would be in grave danger of missing my return flight. The nearest airport would be either Las Vegas or Salt Lake. So I would head back there and fly home.

Notes:

Yellowstone is quite possibly my favorite place on earth. It's North America's greatest safari and the first national park in the world. It has about 60% of the world's geo-thermal features, the largest mountain lake in North America, is on top of a 30 mile wide volcano (not that you can really tell), has 300+ waterfalls though only about four are easily accessible, mountains, wonderful valleys, and the beautiful Old Faithful Inn lodge. The only thing is that I'm not sure if the park is open to cars at this part of May. www.nps.gov should have information about if it is open yet. But it might not open until about a week or two later. If you fly here, Salt Lake City to Yellowstone is about a 5.5 hour to 7 hour drive (via Jackson Hole, Wyoming and the Grand Teton National Park). If you can fly to Jackson Hole, then that is best, but that's usually more expensive by $200/person. The drive from Jackson Hole to Yellowstone is gorgeous. Watch Yogi Bear reruns before visiting.

If you can stay at Yellowstone's Old Faithful Inn, then I recommend it. The log walls are, quite paradoxically, paper thin. Anyone making loud noises in the corridor will awaken you in the middle of the night. But at the time of the year you are going, there will be almost no one there and few kids since they are all in school, or supposed to be at least. The hotel itself is billed as America's largest log cabin. Walk in and be amazed at the seven story atrium, giant stone chimney and great pendulum clock. It's actually not that expensive for the oldest rooms (probably about $70-80/night). the rooms are primitive - primitive funishings, primitive bed, no TV, a simple sink, no bathroom. The bathrooms are down the hall and are shared. There are far more expensive rooms too, but none with the charm or rusticness.

There are several places to fly in to to visit Yellowstone National Park. West Yellowstone, MO (adjacent to park), Bozeman, MO (90 miles), and Idaho Falls, ID (110 miles) are pretty close, but I don't know how easy it is to get flights in and out of those locations. After that of the bigger airports I can think of off hand, Jackson Hole is closest at 125 miles. Billings, Montana is next closest. Salt Lake City is a distant third, but you can make a scenic drive from there. Again, I think that Yellowstone is really spectacular, but I don't think that any place on earth could live up to my hyping it. So please keep that in mind. But if someone gave me a week to visit the US and said that I could only visit one park, I would pick Yellowstone. If someone said I could visit Yellowstone or New York, Yellowstone or San Francisco, then I would pick Yellowstone. But I prefer parks to the cities anyway. The only city which might make me hesitate is Washington, D.C. Washington is really a beautiful city. I appreciate it more and more each time I see it. With its large neoclassical buildings, busy streets and sometimes pleasantly wide boulevards, it will remind you quite a bit of Paris, London, and other great capitals. The museums - meaning the Smithsonian - are free though parking will set you back some. But perhaps only Paris and maybe Rome and London have better a better collection of museums.

If you can't see Yellowstone due to it not being open, I would recommend you allocate the extra time to the other parks near the Grand Canyon. Bryce Canyon is stunning, but easy to see in half a day because it's very small. But save yourself an hour for the short 3/4 mile trail that takes you down through the Hoodoos. Glenn Canyon/Lake Powell is recognizable from Planet of the Apes (the one back in the 1960s). Imagine the Grand Canyon flooded halfway... that's what Glenn Canyon/Lake Powell looks like. See Monument Valley and Zion National Park too. They are all relatively close by though we're still talking 1.5 to 4 hours between each. Also the North Rim of the Grand Canyon is further from Las Vegas than the South Rim, but it's higher up, more dramatic and has only 10% of the visitors that the South Rim has. The more I think about it based on when you're coming, I would almost recommend that you fly from Orlando straight to Las Vegas and skip Yellowstone. Keep in mind that it breaks my heart to recommend this... But if so, you could arrive on the 15th and stay through the 19th. Arrive by about 11 am, get a rental mini-van, drive to main (southern) portion Zion National Park. As I recall, that's about three hours. The drive through Zion is stunning... Keep driving and go to Jacob's Lake. There is a little lodge with small cabins. The cabins a small queen bed and a bathroom, with no TV (hoorah!) that my family and I used a few years back. They are reasonable in price though they are about as big as a small suburban house's bedroom. The next morning drive to the North Rim of the Grand Canyon possibly in time for sun rise. Have a buffet breakfast at the North Rim lodge that dangles precariously on massive stone cliffs that stare down into the abyss. Spend all day exploring the canyon and even plan to walk down 1/4 of the way on the North Kaibab Trail. Stay for sunset dinner at the lodge and then drive back to Jacob's Lake. The next day, drive north 90 miles of Jacob's Lake and visit Bryce Canyon. The day after that, head to Monument Valley. The 19th can be an extra day for whatever...

Of course with this agenda, I would spend more time seeing things from the RV then actually visiting them or sleeping! A one week trip seems ludicrous, but with life the way it is today, such 'sampler' trips are sometimes an unfortunate reality. I once did do a similar mad dash from Albuquerque to Petroglyphs to El Mal Pais to Chaco Canyon (closed) to Aztec to Four Corners to Valley of the Gods to Monument Valley to Canyon de Chelley and back to Albuquerque in 48 hours several years ago. It was definitely a sampler package, but it was wonderful. I drove a heck of a lot from sun up to well beyond sunset, and almost missed my flight back to Atlanta!