Road trip for kids who have been sheltered

The vastness of the American West needs to be experienced. I hate that I finally got out there in my old age.

The 5 year old isn’t gonna get much out of it. Leave him with the grandparents and take the 14 year old to the Grand Canyon.

Colorado
Grand Canyon
Michigan
Yellowstone

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but its a shite place for little kids unless you want to worry about them taking a 1,000ft drop to their death all day long

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Yep, not taking them there until we are all older.

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Keep in mind, anything that's open and outdoor is extremely popular and expensive right now.

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So I’ve heard.

Personally I’d like to see the western Great Lakes area and that drive takes you right through a bunch of states without being overly long, so it seems like a good bang for the buck.

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Take them to National parks out west to see the insane diversity of landscape this country has.

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This right here.

My youngest will be 6 in Sept and we're going start taking him and his older brother to national parks every year going forward. I can't wait.

Yellowstone and Grand Teton are places that every American should visit at least once. Eye opening experience

A great thing about this country is that there's always some adventure and beauty to be found no matter where you choose to go.

We've taken our kiddo to 44 states so far, all of them on some form of road trip (whether round trip from our home, fly out and drive back, or fly out, drive and then fly back). We've honestly enjoyed all of them, and the ones that I sort of put off as being less exciting were the ones that pleasantly surprised us the most. (You mentioned Wisconsin, and that was a surprise to us. It has gorgeous picture-perfect farms with lush fields and quintessential red/white farmhouses with white picket fences and pristine yards without a tool or a piece of equipment out of place. Now, my daughter didn't care much about that but enjoyed visiting the dairies, cheese factories. Milwaukee, the lakes and Laura Ingalls' birthplace.)

All that to say, you really can make a fun trip out of any itinerary in any state(s). Go where you'd like to go and then find things to include on the itinerary that will be enjoyable for the kids. Make sure you aren't in the car for too long (especially for too many days in a row) and make sure they get to move some each day (even if it's only to swim at the hotel pool on a day that's otherwise packed with less active events). And I like to include at least one or two "landmarks" each trip so that by the time she finishes high school she'll have seen most of them.

But if I had to pick one itinerary, I'd echo others and pick the national parks in the west.

Like the rest of the posters, I'd suggest going out west, but with kids 5 to 14 there's no way I'd drive there and back. Lots of scenery on the way out to the mountainous west is BO-RING. Plus more than 4 or 5 hours driving a day is tough on kids of that age.

Best idea would be a fly/drive rental combo for a week or so. You don't even have to fly in and out of the same place.

Utah: Fly into Las Vegas rent a car, go see all of the "Mighty Five" national parks in Utah (Zion, Capitol Reef, Bryce Canyon, Canyonlands and Arches), then fly out of SLC or Denver, dropping off the rental there.

Wyoming: Fly in to Jackson Hole; see Grand Teton and Yellowstone; fly out of Bozeman.

Arizona: Fly into Phoenix, see Sedona, Grand Canyon; maybe Lake Mead or Glen Canyon; fly out of Las Vegas.

Pacific Northwest Fly into Seattle; check out Olympic National Park, Mt. Rainier, Mt. St. Helens, Mt. Hood, fly out of Portland.

You get the general idea. A little more expensive with the airfare and rental car, but well worth it in terms of less mental stress.

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The 5 year old isn’t gonna get much out of it

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Disagree. We road trip to and through Colorado every year. She never stops talking about this year.

West is great, but for first real trip I like the idea of driving up the middle of the country. One thing I've found is for kids keeping the driving time to 6 hours a day max and mixing it up helps, one day city sightseeing, one or day outdoors/scenic/camping, then repeat works well.