GRAND CANYON/YELLOWSTONE 3 WEEK TRIP- Suggestions Please

thats barely any of the midwest

Are you driving the whole way or flying somewhere, renting a car and then dropping car off at the end and flying home?

If driving the whole way I would suggest going through Petrified Forest National Park. It is right off of I-40 and can be seen pretty quickly. The painted desert and petrified forest areas are cool and lend themselves to nice pictures.

On the way north from Grand Canyon, stop at Bryce and/or Zion. Bryce is gorgeous, and may actually be prettier than Grand, only because it isn't on such a massive scale.

When leaving Yellowstone, I would suggest heading north to I-90 and then east. That way you can go to Little Bighorn and then staying on 90 takes you to Rapid City (Mt Rushmore) and you can also hit Badlands NP on the way to Sioux Falls. From there, I-29 can take you to Kansas City and head home from there.

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I recommend staying in a cabin on the North Rim if you can get it.

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AGREE. The drive from Jacob Lake to the North Rim is a beautiful 45 miles.

2) All of Hwy 12 is AMAZING. It boasts the last uncharted area in the United States. Wow. website

3) the mountains near Boulder, Monticello, and Moab (Warner Campground) are really cool.

4) Flaming Gorge in northern UT

5) the Tetons deserve a lot of attention. I agree, more than Yellowstone.

6) Glacier NP

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If you can afford to take a detour to see Glacier, do. I would actually do it over the Grand Canyon.

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Yeah, I'd do Glacier over everything else in the continental US.

Beartooth Pass was a good recommendation. When headed south you can probably work in the Medicine Bow range; there is a beautiful highway near Laramie that is worth the extra time.

With three weeks you'll have to prioritize. Including Glacier may be pretty difficult.

I highly recommend the Mighty 5 in Utah. It would be mostly on your route with very few detours.

My Mighty 5 Trip

We thoroughly enjoyed staying a night at high elevation in June at Pleasant Creek Campground, but will have to check out Calf Creek Falls next time!

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will 3 weeks be enough time?

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A lifetime isn’t long enough to see everything in the American West, 3 weeks is about the minimum that I would recommend for a trip like that. I’d start at the North Rim and go to Zion -> Capital Reef -> Arches & Canyonlands (Moab) to see most of Utah, Bryce is cool too but it isnt worth spending a bunch of time at. If you drive past Coral Pink Sand Dunes or Kodachrome Basin State Parks in UT they are worth stopping at too. From there I’d head to Durango to see Mesa Verde and the San Juan Mountains, even though they’re in a National Forest and not a Park I think they’re better Mountains than RMNP. Ouray is a really cool town in the San Juan’s and you can rent a Jeep or side by side to drive some of the iconic passes (black bear, imogene, engineer, & cinnamon) in the area in a day or two. Head up towards Rocky Mountain National Park but stop at Black Canyon of the Gunnison on the way, it’s not big enough to spend days at and you need a permit to do any hiking below the rim but you should at least stop at some of the view points. I think it’s a more impressive Canyon than the GC. It’s about a 7 hour drive through high prairie to get to Jackson from RMNP but it’s not terrible. If you make it to the Dakotas before heading back make sure to stop at Wind Cave NP and there is a cool missle silo just north of the Badlands but make sure to make reservations months in advance if you want to tour it. (Sorry for the scrambled mess, I didn’t have much time to type this out)

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Spend more time in the Tetons, and less time in Yellowstone.

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I see this posted often on this board and can't understand why. Both are great but very different and Yellowstone is a lot bigger. Maybe since I live in the mountains the Tetons don't excite me as much as someone from the south but when I visited the parks last year I spent my time 65-35 Yellowstone. The waterfalls, geothermals, and wildlife are stunning.