Help me plan this trip

[fairfarmhand]

My dh wants to take the family to Yellowstone this summer. He wants to drive it and make stops along the way. I'm overwhelmed. It feels like a lot to plan. So help me plan this trip. We'll take 10-14 days to do this. I think we'll probably want to see Mt Rushmore and Crazy Horse Monument while we're out that way. And the Gateway Arch park in St. Louis. But that's all I know.  HELLLP!

(My dh says, let's just get in the car and drive, stopping when we see something interesting, and we'll find hotels when we need one. Last time we did that, we ended up in a seedy hotel, sleeping with one eye open and a handgun on the nightstand in dirty beds. I'd prefer not to repeat that.)

[mommyoffive]

Oh wow.  I haven't been to Yellowstone, but have read a lot of people who make reservations way far out.  I think it could be really tough to get it done at this point, depending on where you want to stay. Maybe that would just be inside the park?  I am not a make reservations on the go type of person.  And with summer being such high travel I just couldn't do it. 

 

[Terabith]

If you go to St. Louis, you have to see the Basilica and the City Museum.  The Arch is very cool, but those are absolutely non-negotiables.  There's also a Dungeons and Dragons park in Carbondale, IL, if you go through there that is very neat.  

[Katy]

I mean why not tell him to plan enough that you’re guaranteed no seedy hotels or you’ll be spending their trip in the Bahamas (or wherever you’d rather go) alone instead? 

Also unless someone has some pretty complicated licenses, you DO NOT want to get caught carrying guns into certain states on the way. Unless something’s changed a lot. My dad was a cop with a gun store at one point, so he had all the federal licenses and he didn’t want me driving from college or to visit my mom’s family with a gun, but at one point he drove over 1,000 miles to deliver one himself. This was the same man who insisted I not lay out in the sun in our own backyard without one. I know a lot of restrictions have changed since the 90’s, but I’m pretty sure things are still complicated in some midwest states because DH had a family member borrow some of his guns “for sporting purposes” when we moved across state lines to a more controlled state. 

[fairfarmhand]

2 minutes ago, Katy said:

I mean why not tell him to plan enough that you’re guaranteed no seedy hotels or you’ll be spending their trip in the Bahamas (or wherever you’d rather go) alone instead? 

Also unless someone has some pretty complicated licenses, you DO NOT want to get caught carrying guns into certain states on the way. Unless something’s changed a lot. My dad was a cop with a gun store at one point, so he had all the federal licenses and he didn’t want me driving from college or to visit my mom’s family with a gun, but at one point he drove over 1,000 miles to deliver one himself. This was the same man who insisted I not lay out in the sun in our own backyard without one. I know a lot of restrictions have changed since the 90’s, but I’m pretty sure things are still complicated in some midwest states because DH had a family member borrow some of his guns “for sporting purposes” when we moved across state lines to a more controlled state. 

Thanks for the heads up.

[prairiewindmomma]

A few thoughts:

1. If the US defaults on debt, the national parks will close until funding is allocated again.
 

2. Most people make their reservations for Yellowstone a year in advance. (The portal lets you book 13 months in advance.) If you don’t already have these, try the Hampton Inn in Rexburg and plan to drive in an 1.5h in or pray for an open campsite somewhere in the surrounding areas.

 

[fairfarmhand]

See you guys are definitely making my point about the “hey we’ll just find a hotel room when we feel like it” mindset.

[Faith-manor]

Sadly, Yellowstone is one of the top five visited parks in the nation, and there is limited vacation housing to accommodate the many millions who want to go. I am not certain it is feasible for this summer at such a late date unless you can pay primo primo, like $350-500 a night. I don't think the campgrounds have any openings either. But if you wait until September, the crowds go down, and peak season is over so you might find rooms at a better price.

We do long road trips, and I always plan them out. Last minute hotel reservations or walk ins these days are often met with no vacancies or extreme prices so your fears of seedy establishments is a strong possibility. The way I plan them is to first establish how long we want to be at our desired, main attraction/location. Then extrapolate how much we need to drive each day with the remaining days of vacation. From there, I do a lot of research to determine what a reasonable amount of time is for each side stop we want to make and weed out the ones that would take so long that we can't make it to point X in the time allotted. We then stick close to the itinerary. I do make sure not to run it so tight that we can't enjoy it or linger an hour extra here or there. I make reservations a year in advance or as close as allowed for each overnight stop.

We usually take a lot of our food, and picnic out. Many rest stops and parks have grills which is very nice. This allows more flexibility because we don't have to find restaurants and wait to be seated or stand in lines. This may be a specially good move for visiting National Parks since their remoteness can often mean limited food options around, and some have none (Agate Fossil Beds National Monument), or what they have (South entrance of Yellowstone, Jackson Hole for instance) is very expensive and absolutely packed with people. I have heard of people waiting two hours in line to get into restaurants in Jackson Hole.

If you go to MT Rushmore, depending on your route, you might be passing Badlands National Park, and I highly recommend that journey. You would also be super close to Wind Cave National Park.

I am in the planning phase now for two road trips next spring/summer. Let me know if you need more help. I am happy to help you.

[cjzimmer1]

I planned a similar kind of trip earlier this year.  DS was getting married in Vegas which is 25 hours of straight driving from us.  I wasn't going to drive that far without seeing something.  I had hoped to include Yellowstone but it would have added 5 more hours of driving to the trip and we were under a bit of time crunch.  Also we were visiting in March and much of the park was closed.  Things we did do (some of what may be too far south for your plans)

Arches National Park 

Natural Bridges Monument

We very much enjoyed both of the above parks.  Lots of fun climbing and exploring but the "highway" from Bridges to Grand Canyon is brutal if you are afraid of heights (and even if you didn't think you were afraid of heights).  I was so unnerved by the drive that I really didn't enjoy the Grand Canyon the next day. I think I would have if I had been in a better state of mind.

Grand Canyon

Hoover Dam

Mt. Rushmore (we planned to go into the park but honestly, we were underwhelmed when we drove by, I had been told it was better from a far off anyways so we decided to skip going up closer)

Custer State Park (bring carrots or apples and feed the begging burros)

Corn Palace (this is more a of 15-30 minutes stop, create for taking a bathroom/stretch your legs stop but more interesting to look at than most stops)

 

If you are going through St Louis and bringing kids, City Museum is a great place to burn off energy.  But personally I find St. Louis unbearably hot in the summer so I would only do City Museum on Friday or Saturday night when they are open late.  The AC in the place doesn't really keep up.  

 

As far as planning goes, normally I'm a wing it kind of person but I absolutely detest finding hotels on the fly so I planned out every aspect of the trip from what we were eating each day (we didn't have the budget to go out to eat so brought all the food from home with planned refills at Costco), to where we were staying and distances between stops etc.  We hit a few snags (like the drive down the mountain in Denver chewing up our brakes and needing to get replacements) but having everything laid out with times, distances, and addresses made the trip so much more enjoyable and even relaxing for me since I wasn't stuck in the "mom" role of having to figure out every problem and make every decision while traveling.  When kids said "what's for lunch", I told them to look at the chart.  It was all laid out and so no one ever complained about food the entire trip because everyone knew what we were eating when and everyone had okayed those foods before we left home.

 

As to the actually planning, if yellowstone is the "big" attraction, I'd start with a basic google maps of your place to it and back.  Thern start looking at what other attractions are on that route or close enough that it's worth adding the extra drive time.  Once I started filling in things we wanted to do, I started looking at drive times between and finding cities and hotels that fit.  We started with two really long days of driving (because it's still new and fun and doesn't feel like such a drain) and then after that I tried to make sure long driving days were buffered with fun activities.  

 

Even though the upfront planning was a ton of work and yes even overwhelming at times, I was glad I had it all done and could just sit back and enjoy the trop.

[prairiewindmomma]

Fwiw, it used to be much easier to travel as your Dh seems to prefer. I used to do it a lot. You can still do it without a lot of issues during the off season. But, summer, no. The last time I traveled I-80 on fairly short notice there was a  huge 500 mile gap where just nothing was available for a hotel room. We kept driving. I drove for 18.5 hours that day. There’s simply more demand for some places (Yellowstone is a huge draw) and not enough rooms. Beyond that, because I-80 and I-70 really are just through stops for travelers (in many regards), they size their hotels for being profitable in year round demand. They don’t just build rooms to accommodate June-August and then leave them empty October-April.
 

Now, unless I am leaving due to wildfire, I don’t go unless I have a hotel room.

[BeachGal]

59 minutes ago, fairfarmhand said:

My dh wants to take the family to Yellowstone this summer. He wants to drive it and make stops along the way. I'm overwhelmed. It feels like a lot to plan. So help me plan this trip. We'll take 10-14 days to do this. I think we'll probably want to see Mt Rushmore and Crazy Horse Monument while we're out that way. And the Gateway Arch park in St. Louis. But that's all I know.  HELLLP!

(My dh says, let's just get in the car and drive, stopping when we see something interesting, and we'll find hotels when we need one. Last time we did that, we ended up in a seedy hotel, sleeping with one eye open and a handgun on the nightstand in dirty beds. I'd prefer not to repeat that.)

Some things to consider:

Summer will be busy in Yellowstone and you’ll have to deal with crowds and traffic at certain points.

Summer is often Fire Season in all of the states around Yellowstone. It’s usually at its worst in August but sometimes July, too. You will want to check online sites for current fires. All of those states do a good job keeping drivers safe from fires. They will temporarily close roads if necessary and reroute traffic.

As you enter WY after leaving SD on I-90, you’ll start to drive on some desolate stretches. Make sure your tank is full and you have extra water in your car just in case. Your cell phone might not have coverage for stretches, either. If you drive SD to WY and then up to MT, you will go through the Crow Reservation which is also desolate until you get closer to the small city of Billings, MT.

You do not want to wing it out there hotel-wise because there just aren’t a lot of hotels. Many of the hotels will be booked and not just in the Yellowstone area. Campsites too. The towns I’d stay in are Rapid City SD, Sheridan or Gillette WY, and between Bozeman MT area to Yellowstone entrance.

[matrips]

We did this trip last summer, and my dh spent months planning it a year in advance.  Hotels are crazy- both for prices and availability.  The one night we had to find a substitute hotel (power outage in the town we were supposed to stay in), it was stressful and expensive.  And we felt lucky to even find a room. Yellowstone in summer is so popular. 

[Ann.without.an.e]

Years ago you used to be able to wing it but national park popularity is at an all time high so you’re not guaranteed entry anymore without reservations. 

So tell him that planning is required or the whole trip could be in vain. That would be a bummer. 

[pinball]

8 hours ago, fairfarmhand said:

My dh wants to take the family to Yellowstone this summer. He wants to drive it and make stops along the way. I'm overwhelmed. It feels like a lot to plan. So help me plan this trip. We'll take 10-14 days to do this. I think we'll probably want to see Mt Rushmore and Crazy Horse Monument while we're out that way. And the Gateway Arch park in St. Louis. But that's all I know.  HELLLP!

(My dh says, let's just get in the car and drive, stopping when we see something interesting, and we'll find hotels when we need one. Last time we did that, we ended up in a seedy hotel, sleeping with one eye open and a handgun on the nightstand in dirty beds. I'd prefer not to repeat that.)

You could start with Wyoming tourism boards…they probably have free planning guides and booklets

as an aside…reading about the handgun on the nightstand was a surprise. I’m sure a less popular board member would have been raked over the coals by now for that.

[history-fan]

You have gotten really great tips so far, I will add that the Sturgis rally is the first 2 weeks of August.

[Faith-manor]

Oh, also, check to see if any of the national sites you want to visit require timed entry passes. Some of the most popular destinations do because the crowd sizes got out of control so they limit the number of people and cars per day. I don't know about Yellowstone for 2023. If memory serves, they did require them for 2022. I know Arches in Utah is requiring them this year.

This is where I am going to make a plug for visiting lesser known National Parks, Forests, and Lakeshores. There are some absolutely stunning places in the National Park Service that receive very few visitors and are ignored because Yellowstone, Great Smoky Mountains, Arches, Yosemite, and Grand Canyon get all the press, and are what people think of when they think "National Park".

It should also be noted that the glaciers are disappearing from Glacier National Park in Montana. There were 150 glaciers counted in the mid-1800's by naturalists. Today there are 25. They will be entirely gone by 2050, and down another significant number by 2030. We have that park on our bucket list, and we are likely making a trip there in summer 2024. We will go to Wind Cave NP on the way there (we have already been to Badlands twice plus Mt. Rushmore and Custer State Park as well as Agate Fossil Beds in Nebraska), and then take a northern route home, and swing through Theodore Roosevelt N.P. for a day, and 2 days at Voyageurs N.P. in Minnesota, drive to Grand Portage MN, take the ferry over to Isle Royal NP in Lake Superior for just one day (very very wild so if not doing back country camping, no need to be there a long time), come through Munising in the U.P. and take a boar cruise around Pictured Rocks National Lake shore (we have been through Munising many times, and kayakers the waters, but have never splurged for the boat cruise which is just wonderful), and then finally make it home the day after. Those Munising boat cruises must be booked months in advance.

This summer we are spending a day at Cuyahoga Valley N.P. in Ohio and taking the train ride through the park, then doing a little kayaking before making our way to Pisgah National Forest and Mt.Mitchell in NC. From there, we will spend one day at Compared NP, getting up early and making the 3 hr 15 min drive, do some of the boardwalk trails, and leave in the evening to go back to our NC vacation rental.

Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore in Michigan is far superior to Indiana Dunes N.P., just to let you all know. I am glad for Indiana to have their new park, but while it is 100% worthy of that land and lakeshore being protected and revered, it doesn't hold a candle (sorry Indiana), and it is on Traverse Bay just south of gorgeous cherry and wine region. Kayaking on the Platte River is something I highly recommend, and swimming at the mouth of the river as it dumps into Lake Michigan is wonderful and especially so with younger kids. It is shallow, protected from the rip tides that plague Lake M, warm, and there is a view of the Dunes from the beach. It is $5 to use the county park at that spot with lovely bathrooms and beach. This is right outside the N.P. campground entrance.

This month we are spending a day in Shenandoah NP, Virginia before we work the American Rocketry Challenge event at Great Meadows.

I am a National Park Service Unit nerd. 😁 I even have a quilt panel with all 63 parks represented, and am cutting out and framing the squares for each park we have visited together.

[fairfarmhand]

1 minute ago, Faith-manor said:

Oh, also, check to see if any of the national sites you want to visit require timed entry passes. Some of the most popular destinations do because the crowd sizes got out of control so they limit the number of people and cars per day. I don't know about Yellowstone for 2023. If memory serves, they did require them for 2022. I know Arches in Utah is requiring them this year.

This is where I am going to make a plug for visiting lesser known National Parks, Forests, and Lakeshores. There are some absolutely stunning places in the National Park Service that receive very few visitors and are ignored because Yellowstone, Great Smoky Mountains, Arches, Yosemite, and Grand Canyon get all the press, and are what people think of when they think "National Park".

It should also be noted that the glaciers are disappearing from Glacier National Park in Montana. There were 150 glaciers counted in the mid-1800's by naturalists. Today there are 25. They will be entirely gone by 2050, and down another significant number by 2030. We have that park on our bucket list, and we are likely making a trip there in summer 2024. We will go to Wind Cave NP on the way there (we have already been to Badlands twice plus Mt. Rushmore and Custer State Park as well as Agate Fossil Beds in Nebraska), and then take a northern route home, and swing through Theodore Roosevelt N.P. for a day, and 2 days at Voyageurs N.P. in Minnesota, drive to Grand Portage MN, take the ferry over to Isle Royal NP in Lake Superior for just one day (very very wild so if not doing back country camping, no need to be there a long time), come through Munising in the U.P. and take a boar cruise around Pictured Rocks National Lake shore (we have been through Munising many times, and kayakers the waters, but have never splurged for the boat cruise which is just wonderful), and then finally make it home the day after. Those Munising boat cruises must be booked months in advance.

This summer we are spending a day at Cuyahoga Valley N.P. in Ohio and taking the train ride through the park, then doing a little kayaking before making our way to Pisgah National Forest and Mt.Mitchell in NC. From there, we will spend one day at Compared NP, getting up early and making the 3 hr 15 min drive, do some of the boardwalk trails, and leave in the evening to go back to our NC vacation rental.

Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore in Michigan is far superior to Indiana Dunes N.P., just to let you all know. I am glad for Indiana to have their new park, but while it is 100% worthy of that land and lakeshore being protected and revered, it doesn't hold a candle (sorry Indiana), and it is on Traverse Bay just south of gorgeous cherry and wine region. Kayaking on the Platte River is something I highly recommend, and swimming at the mouth of the river as it dumps into Lake Michigan is wonderful and especially so with younger kids. It is shallow, protected from the rip tides that plague Lake M, warm, and there is a view of the Dunes from the beach. It is $5 to use the county park at that spot with lovely bathrooms and beach. This is right outside the N.P. campground entrance.

This month we are spending a day in Shenandoah NP, Virginia before we work the American Rocketry Challenge event at Great Meadows.

I am a National Park Service Unit nerd. 😁 I even have a quilt panel with all 63 parks represented, and am cutting out and framing the squares for each park we have visited together.

Thanks for this. Have you ever been to big south fork? We went last year and it was wonderful. It was in September and it seems that there was nobody else. We really enjoyed thaf.

[wintermom]

1 hour ago, pinball said:

You could start with Wyoming tourism boards…they probably have free planning guides and booklets

as an aside…reading about the handgun on the nightstand was a surprise. I’m sure a less popular board member would have been raked over the coals by now for that.

I think the gun is for the wild beasties. 😉  A bear horn would be my instrument of choice. 

[Faith-manor]

6 minutes ago, fairfarmhand said:

Thanks for this. Have you ever been to big south fork? We went last year and it was wonderful. It was in September and it seems that there was nobody else. We really enjoyed thaf.

No. We haven't. It is on our bucket list to do with grandson N. We also need to make it to Little Canyon River National Preserve which is not all that far from our house in Alabama. It seems like every time we go down, we are busy with house maintenance and repairs. 

[City Mouse]

It is a great trip, but as everyone else said, it needs to be planned for in advance or you will be staying several hours from those popular destinations. 

If you do take the trip, here are some things we liked in the Black Hills area.

https://www.nps.gov/mimi/index.htm - Miniuteman Missile National Historic Site

Reptile Gardens https://www.reptilegardens.com/

Homestake Gold Mine

1880’s Train

In West Yellowstone area

https://www.grizzlydiscoveryctr.org/

https://yellowstonebearworld.com
 

As you may be able to tell, my DS loved zoos, so we stopped at just about every animal park we saw on every road trip. 

[Faith-manor]

Minuteman Missile National Historic Site was a very important shoot for us. My father was a Minuteman missile engineer in the Air Force and "served time", as he put it, there.

[pinball]

6 minutes ago, wintermom said:

I think the gun is for the wild beasties. 😉  A bear horn would be my instrument of choice. 

You just proved my point

[wintermom]

We've done this exact trip with our 4 dc when they were ages 4 - 10. This was back in August, 2007. We camped in a pop-up tent trailer. We got lucky with availability of camping accommodations just outside the west gate of Yellowstone. Traffic into the park each morning was slow, but our campsite owner did provide us with amazing tips on what to do and see. There's a natural hotsprings near the west gate where you can swim. It's off the main road and there are no change rooms and limited parking, but so worth doing if you enjoy swimming! 

We did not pre-plan any campsites, as we had no idea how long we'd take to drive, and we wanted to build in time to explore surprises along the way. We'd roll into a KOA just before sunset (and sometimes after), order pizza sent to our campsite, set up the tent trailer, sleep and then continue on the next day. The accommodations part of the trip wasn't important.

If you have something like a tent or Westfailia to sleep in, and you don't have to rely on hotels, I'd highly recommend it. Much cheaper and you know you can bed down somewhere. 

We did stay in the odd hotel when the weather was fierce or we wanted to see multiple sights in a city. St. Louis has a free zoo and children's museum (or did at the time), so we lived in luxury for a couple days there. 😉 

I guess if you think a seedy motel makes you nervous, you could consider campgrounds a way to weed out the types of people who'd be likely to choose a cheap motel for partying or other annoying things. All the campgrounds we stayed at were clean and quiet (except in special locations on weekends when loud music and tiki bars appeared and the park became one big party). 

 

Edited May 10, 2023 by wintermom

[wintermom]

3 minutes ago, pinball said:

You just proved my point

But I'm from a different country, where the bears are the scariest things I'll encounter. 

[Granny_Weatherwax]

We did an impromptu trip to Mt Rushmore a few years back (pre-Covid). We took the tents and stayed in campgrounds. We were able to find tent spots every night. Those spots had water but did not always have electricity. We were able to use campground shower facilities every night. KOAs had laundry services if needed.

Also pre-COVID, DH and I took our pop-up to Yellowstone. We had to stay in a KOA in Cody and drive to the park. It made for a long day but was worth it. We were able to use the Cody KOA as a homebase and were able to see some neat things but it required driving each day.

Which direction or states will you be traveling through? St Louis is quite a bit south from I-80. Unless you're starting from the south and traveling northward, stopping in St Louis will be a big detour.

If you are up north, going to see Pipestone National Monument in Minnesota is worth a stop.  So is Sioux Falls, South Dakota. As is The Mammoth Site in Hot Springs, SD. The Buffalo Bill Center of the West has wonderful museums. The Buffalo Bill Dam is a quick stop.

 

Edited: Wall Drug (Wall, SD) is an interesting place to stop for a few hours. You can't miss it - there are many many road signs along the highway directing you to Wall Drug. It's like nothing you have ever experienced.

Edited May 10, 2023 by Granny_Weatherwax

[mommyoffive]

10 hours ago, cjzimmer1 said:

I planned a similar kind of trip earlier this year.  DS was getting married in Vegas which is 25 hours of straight driving from us.  I wasn't going to drive that far without seeing something.  I had hoped to include Yellowstone but it would have added 5 more hours of driving to the trip and we were under a bit of time crunch.  Also we were visiting in March and much of the park was closed.  Things we did do (some of what may be too far south for your plans)

Arches National Park 

Natural Bridges Monument

We very much enjoyed both of the above parks.  Lots of fun climbing and exploring but the "highway" from Bridges to Grand Canyon is brutal if you are afraid of heights (and even if you didn't think you were afraid of heights).  I was so unnerved by the drive that I really didn't enjoy the Grand Canyon the next day. I think I would have if I had been in a better state of mind.

Grand Canyon

Hoover Dam

Mt. Rushmore (we planned to go into the park but honestly, we were underwhelmed when we drove by, I had been told it was better from a far off anyways so we decided to skip going up closer)

Custer State Park (bring carrots or apples and feed the begging burros)

Corn Palace (this is more a of 15-30 minutes stop, create for taking a bathroom/stretch your legs stop but more interesting to look at than most stops)

 

If you are going through St Louis and bringing kids, City Museum is a great place to burn off energy.  But personally I find St. Louis unbearably hot in the summer so I would only do City Museum on Friday or Saturday night when they are open late.  The AC in the place doesn't really keep up.  

 

As far as planning goes, normally I'm a wing it kind of person but I absolutely detest finding hotels on the fly so I planned out every aspect of the trip from what we were eating each day (we didn't have the budget to go out to eat so brought all the food from home with planned refills at Costco), to where we were staying and distances between stops etc.  We hit a few snags (like the drive down the mountain in Denver chewing up our brakes and needing to get replacements) but having everything laid out with times, distances, and addresses made the trip so much more enjoyable and even relaxing for me since I wasn't stuck in the "mom" role of having to figure out every problem and make every decision while traveling.  When kids said "what's for lunch", I told them to look at the chart.  It was all laid out and so no one ever complained about food the entire trip because everyone knew what we were eating when and everyone had okayed those foods before we left home.

 

As to the actually planning, if yellowstone is the "big" attraction, I'd start with a basic google maps of your place to it and back.  Thern start looking at what other attractions are on that route or close enough that it's worth adding the extra drive time.  Once I started filling in things we wanted to do, I started looking at drive times between and finding cities and hotels that fit.  We started with two really long days of driving (because it's still new and fun and doesn't feel like such a drain) and then after that I tried to make sure long driving days were buffered with fun activities.  

 

Even though the upfront planning was a ton of work and yes even overwhelming at times, I was glad I had it all done and could just sit back and enjoy the trop.

Yay, that you had a great trip!!  Congratulations to your ds!

[fairfarmhand]

1 hour ago, Granny_Weatherwax said:

We did an impromptu trip to Mt Rushmore a few years back (pre-Covid). We took the tents and stayed in campgrounds. We were able to find tent spots every night. Those spots had water but did not always have electricity. We were able to use campground shower facilities every night. KOAs had laundry services if needed.

Also pre-COVID, DH and I took our pop-up to Yellowstone. We had to stay in a KOA in Cody and drive to the park. It made for a long day but was worth it. We were able to use the Cody KOA as a homebase and were able to see some neat things but it required driving each day.

Which direction or states will you be traveling through? St Louis is quite a bit south from I-80. Unless you're starting from the south and traveling northward, stopping in St Louis will be a big detour.

If you are up north, going to see Pipestone National Monument in Minnesota is worth a stop.  So is Sioux Falls, South Dakota. As is The Mammoth Site in Hot Springs, SD. The Buffalo Bill Center of the West has wonderful museums. The Buffalo Bill Dam is a quick stop.

 

Edited: Wall Drug (Wall, SD) is an interesting place to stop for a few hours. You can't miss it - there are many many road signs along the highway directing you to Wall Drug. It's like nothing you have ever experienced.

We're coming out of Nashville.

[Faith-manor]

Fairfarmhand, coming out of Nashville, you are definitely swinging through St. Louis. I have never been to Gateway Arch NP, but my impression has been that it is a short stop, not an all day kind of thing. The "trails" are of course urban so they are boardwalk or sidewalk. There is a tram ride to the top, but the old courthouse is closed this year for renovations. The gardens are very pretty. I think you could do some walking, see the gardens, climb the steps, and take a one or two mile walk all in 2 - 2.5 hrs. It is only 4.5 hrs to St. Louis, so my suggestion would be for the first day of your trip, get them out of the house as early as is feasible (LOL, I have a butts in seat 6:00 am rule for my family when leaving for a long road trip which means that my kids - even now as adults - are responsibly in the car, duffle bags in the car carrier, buckled up, and snoozing with pillows at 6:00 am, but it is 6:30 before Mark meanders out to the car because he simply cannot remember all the things he wants the night before! The kids and I roll our eyes very hard about it. He is a dear man and so good to all of us, so it is an annoyance we keep to ourselves.)

If you did that, you would be there before noon, could picnic lunch and spend a couple hours and be back on the road. Then calculate how long you want to drive after that, set that stop in stone, and get a hotel reserved now. Stay on the reaches of cities and towns because the closer you get to city center, the higher the prices. I tend to use Expedia and read reviews. For just an overnight stay, clean and safe, decent reputation and no pattern of angry or disappointed travel reviews will do. However, when we travel with our eldest ds, we pay extra for every stop over to get an indoor pool and jacuzzi. Ds has a titanium rod in his keg (crushed femur from our car accident in 2014), and it has arthritis. He gets very achy. The way he tolerates road trips is that he gets into the Jacuzzi and soaks for a while in the evening, then jumps in the pool and swims for a little bit. In the morning he takes a hot bath before we leave. Doing this has allowed him to continue long distance traveling with his family. So if you have anyone on the trip who has back, hip, or leg issues, that is definitely something to consider. You could drive another 250 miles after the nice 2 or 3 hour break in St. Louis, halfway to Kansas City, stop for a picnic supper at Boonville or Concordia, and then drive the north side of KC which will probably be cheaper, maybe staying somewhere between KC and St. Jo.

You can make it all the way to Rapid City, SD the next day - 10 hrs driving - so you can spend the 3rd day at Mt. Rushmore. That said, unless you drive to Hill City and take the train ride through the Black Hills and Mt. Rushmore, you simply do not need more than a couple of hours there. So my suggestion would be to either drive the short distance to Wind Cave National Park, Custer State Park, or the 90 minutes back to Badlands National Park. Staying in Rapid City is your best option probably for being closely located to all these things. We have stayed in Rapid City 3 times, and there are tons of options.

Yellowstone (the north entrance) is just under 8 hrs. from Rapid City. Along the way, Devils Tower and Nez Perce National Historical Park could be good stretch your legs and have a picnic stops. The prairie dog cities in the last few miles leading into Devil's Tower are epic, even more so than at Badlands.

Bozeman, MT has more lodging options than Cody. It takes about an hour to get from Bozeman to Yellowstone. 360 Mountain Views on Expedia still had some dates open in July at $135.00 a night apartment in Belgrade, 1 bedroom 1 bath plus kitchen and living. It was the best price I found with hotels closer in going anywhere from $268-500. Bozeman was almost entirely booked for hotel groups we have used before "Best Western, Baymont, Comfort Inn, Wyndham Gardens, La Quinta).

I think you will find both KC and Rapid City fine for getting rooms so long as you book very soon.The place to start is definitely figuring out dates and accommodations for Yellowstone first, and just plan to have to drive a ways every day to get to the park because you won't find anything available close in this late in the reservation season, and even if you did, I think you would need to mortgage your children to stay there! 😁

Also, going at peak season, you are not likely to find an open picnic table at lunch in Yellowstone. So prep stuff you can eat in the car or take a portable picnic table. We used to have a little one that folded up into a suitcase size with handles that we used for trips when we had young kids. Now a days, with just two of us, we tend to take a blanket and sit in the shade.

Edited May 10, 2023 by Faith-manor

[fairfarmhand]

13 minutes ago, Faith-manor said:

Fairfarmhand, coming out of Nashville, you are definitely swinging through St. Louis. I have never been to Gateway Arch NP, but my impression has been that it is a short stop, not an all day kind of thing. The "trails" are of course urban so they are boardwalk or sidewalk. There is a tram ride to the top, but the old courthouse is closed this year for renovations. The gardens are very pretty. I think you could do some walking, see the gardens, climb the steps, and take a one or two mile walk all in 2 - 2.5 hrs. It is only 4.5 hrs to St. Louis, so my suggestion would be for the first day of your trip, get them out of the house as early as is feasible (LOL, I have a butts in seat 6:00 am rule for my family when leaving for a long road trip which means that my kids - even now as adults - are responsibly in the car, duffle bags in the car carrier, buckled up, and snoozing with pillows at 6:00 am, but it is 6:30 before Mark meanders out to the car because he simply cannot remember all the things he wants the night before! The kids and I roll our eyes very hard about it. He is a dear man and so good to all of us, so it is an annoyance we keep to ourselves.)

If you did that, you would be there before noon, could picnic lunch and spend a couple hours and be back on the road. Then calculate how long you want to drive after that, set that stop in stone, and get a hotel reserved now. Stay on the reaches of cities and towns because the closer you get to city center, the higher the prices. I tend to use Expedia and read reviews. For just an overnight stay, clean and safe, decent reputation and no pattern of  angry or disappointed travel reviews will do. However, when we travel with our eldest ds, we pay extra for every stop over to get an indoor pool and jacuzzi. Ds has a titanium rod in his keg (crushed femur from our car accident in 2014), and it has arthritis. He gets very achy. The way he tolerates road trips is that he gets into the Jacuzzi and soaks for a while in the evening, then jumps in the pool and swims for a little bit. In the morning he takes a hot bath before we leave. Doing this has allowed him to continue long distance traveling with his family. So if you have anyone on the trip who has back, hip, or leg issues, that is definitely something to consider. You could drive another 250miles after the nice 2 or 3 hour break in St. Louis, halfway to Kansas City, stop for a picnic supper at Boonville or Concordia, and then drive the north side of KC which will probably be cheaper, maybe staying somewhere between KC and St. Jo.

You can make it all the way to Rapid City, SD the next day - 10 hrs driving - so you can spend the 3rd day at Mt. Rushmore. That said, unless you drive to Hill City and take the train ride through the Black Hills and Mt. Rushmore, you simply do not need more than a couple of hours there. So my suggestion would be to either drive the short distance to Wind Cave National Park, Custer State Park, or the 90 minutes back to Bad lands National Park. Staying in Rapid City is your best option probably for being closely located to all these things. We have stayed in Rapid City 3 times, and there are tons of options.

Yellowstone (the north entrance) is just under 8 hrs. from Rapid City. Along the way, Devils Tower and Nez Perce National Historical Park could be good stretch your legs and have a picnic stops. The prairie dog cities in the last few miles leading into Devil's Tower are epic, even more so than at Badlands.

Bozeman, MT has more lodging options than Cody. It takes about an hour to get from Bozeman to Yellowstone. 360 Mountain Views on Expedia still and some dates open in July at $135.00 a night apartment in Belgrade, 1 bedroom 1 bath plus kitchen and living..it was the best price I found with hotels closer in going anywhere from $268-500. Bozeman was almost entirely booked for hotel groups we have used before "Best Western, Baymont, Comfort Inn, Wyndham Gardens, La Quinta).

I think you will find broth of KC fine for finding rooms, and Rapid City as well. The place to start is definitely figuring out dates and accommodations for Yellowstone first, and just plan to have to drive a ways every day to get to the park because you won't find anything available close in this late in the reservation season, and even if you did, I think you would need to mortgage your children to stay there! 😁

Also, going at peak season, you are not likely to find an open picnic table at lunch in Yellowstone. So prep stuff you can eat in the car or take a portable picnic table. We used to have a little one that folded up into a suitcase size with handles that we used for trips when we had young kids. Now a days, with just two of us, we tend to take a blanket and sit in the shade.

THANK YOU FOR THIS!  This is so helpful.

[elegantlion]

If you're heading through Missouri from St. Louis, I would suggest skipping I-70 and head up to US-36, which runs from Hannibal all the way across the state. I hate driving on 70, but 36 is almost relaxing. It's a peaceful 4 lane highway with towns interspered enough that it's not desolate. You could then go north on I-35 (which runs through Cameron to Des Moines) or I-29, which runs through St. Joseph to Omaha. 

[Terabith]

14 hours ago, cjzimmer1 said:

Corn Palace (this is more a of 15-30 minutes stop, create for taking a bathroom/stretch your legs stop but more interesting to look at than most stops)

 

I graduated from high school in the Corn Palace!

[BeachGal]

5 minutes ago, Terabith said:

I graduated from high school in the Corn Palace!

That's cool!

[BeachGal]

1 hour ago, Faith-manor said:

Bozeman, MT has more lodging options than Cody. It takes about an hour to get from Bozeman to Yellowstone. 360 Mountain Views on Expedia still and some dates open in July at $135.00 a night apartment in Belgrade, 1 bedroom 1 bath plus kitchen and living..it was the best price I found with hotels closer in going anywhere from $268-500. Bozeman was almost entirely booked for hotel groups we have used before "Best Western, Baymont, Comfort Inn, Wyndham Gardens, La Quinta).

I think you will find broth of KC fine for finding rooms, and Rapid City as well. The place to start is definitely figuring out dates and accommodations for Yellowstone first, and just plan to have to drive a ways every day to get to the park because you won't find anything available close in this late in the reservation season, and even if you did, I think you would need to mortgage your children to stay there! 😁

If there is still a place near Bozeman/Belgrade around $135 per night, I would highly recommend reserving it especially if they have good cancellation policies. Bozeman in summer tends to be expensive. We will be there in June and made reservations downtown back in February. Even then many of the summer dates at other vacation rentals and hotels were taken and prices were high.

The drive from Belgrade to YNP is a bit of a drive. You'd want to get an early start to avoid sitting in the entrance line. If you drive from Belgrade to YNP, pack food from there and take it along. YNP is, imo, underwhelming.

We usually go to YNP with a former neighbor who was a forest ranger there. He's now a spry, active man in his 90s and still knows a lot of the hidden areas but you'd have to really know the park to see them or pay to see them. It's a great way to see the area, though.

Bozeman has a lot to offer itself, hiking-wise, even right through town. Nearby Hyalite Canyon is beautiful. Thursday and Sunday evenings, Bozeman Hot Springs has musicians play by the outside pools. It's not cheap but is definitely relaxing. You could also check to see if any of their cabins are available for rent. We've stayed in them before and thought they were comfy, and you get into the Hot Springs for free. Restaurants around Bozeman are pretty good too. Montana Grizzly Encounter, mentioned above, is well worth the money. It's run by a family we know and they have some funny stories about a rescued grizzly bear (caged) one of them would drive around in the back of this truck. You'll learn a lot about bears in general such as how to be safe. Bears occasionally do run through some of the towns such as Bozeman.

[prairiewindmomma]

We were last in Yellowstone in 2019. The dust was really thick in places. In addition to wearing tennis shoes (not even hiking sandals because of the way they laid gravel in places), I recommend considering bringing a buff or a cheap surgical mask. A lot of the visitors there don’t know hiking culture (stick to the right, yield to those going uphill, leave no trace) and so it’s kind of an open trompling getting to Prismatic Springs and some of the other places you walk a bit to experience. Youngest nearly got shoved off trail at Fountain Paint Pots, which could have burned her, thankfully she was with her brother who snatched her before she fell. 
 

I am glad we went, and hope it works out for you to go, but as I am packing my hiking bag for the weekend I thought of this and wanted to mention it.

[Faith-manor]

22 minutes ago, prairiewindmomma said:

We were last in Yellowstone in 2019. The dust was really thick in places. In addition to wearing tennis shoes (not even hiking sandals because of the way they laid gravel in places), I recommend considering bringing a buff or a cheap surgical mask. A lot of the visitors there don’t know hiking culture (stick to the right, yield to those going uphill, leave no trace) and so it’s kind of an open trompling getting to Prismatic Springs and some of the other places you walk a bit to experience. Youngest nearly got shoved off trail at Fountain Paint Pots, which could have burned her, thankfully she was with her brother who snatched her before she fell. 
 

I am glad we went, and hope it works out for you to go, but as I am packing my hiking bag for the weekend I thought of this and wanted to mention it.

Excellent advice.  I have not been there in the last twenty years, and when we went it was not so dry because we were moving in the spring and made our trek through there after the snow melt was done. Take note, Fairfarmhand!

[Faith-manor]

2 hours ago, fairfarmhand said:

THANK YOU FOR THIS!  This is so helpful.

Really happy to help. I love to travel and talk about traveling! 😁

If you want more help, just say so in this thread or send me a message.