Two Week Family Trip - BR to Grand Canyon

San Antonio and Hill Country area could be a few days by itself.

We did GC a while back. It was the south rim. We did Petrified Forest and Santa Fe also.

If you drive from the north rim to Santa Fe, it’d be pretty cool to do the four corners. I had a 7 and a 10 year old and they still remember that trip from 2006.

As far as road trip advice, we liked to pack a cooler for lunch and stop at rest stops/parks to eat.

I’ve done three big western and one eastern road trip, all were ten plus days. They are an adventure.

Just completed our trip from El Paso to Vegas. Awesome. We did Carlsbad to towns called Atresia n Cloudcroft (park ranger suggestion) via Lincoln Forest. Nice ride. Then White Sands In Alamogordo. Next Las Cruces to Farm n Ranch Museum, San Albino Basillica, old Misillia Village, Road Runner Recycled Sculpture. Next Albuquerque to Petroglyphs, Volcano Park, drove 1.5 hrs to Chaco Culture, but 17 miles of bad roads and 38 mph winds. Drive to Grants to El Malpais n walked Sandstone Bluffs, journeyed to Painted Desert, Petrified Forest. Within 40 minutes at Blue Mesa Pt, experienced front coming in, cloudy, rain, sleet, wind gusting to 80 mph, couldn’t open car door, then sunshine with rainbow from Distance. Wow!! Drove to Holbrook,
toured Walnut Canyon NM, Sunset Crater NM, Wapatki Pueblo NM. Enter Grand Canyon South Rim. Very enjoyable, good food especially make reservations at El Tovar. Walked Rim Trail of Ages, sunset and sunrise tours, but was cloudy and snowy, GC visitor center has Critter Talks, good pizza n wings and craft beer at Maswik Lodge. Did Hermits Rest Tour ( western point). Condors were just coming in, but didn’t see any. Breakfast at both Arizona Lodge n Maswik Lodge were good. We finished last day at Desert View Watchtower. Saw beautiful points, esp Mather Pt, and most views of Colorado River there. Visited Yavapai Geology Museum and a Tusayan Ruins, also. Snowed a little and left that morning and stopped to see those points again. Journeyed to Grand Canyon Caverns and ate in the grotto after tour. Drive down Route 66. Spent last 1 1/2 days in Vegas. Can’t say enough about trip of lifetime, loved it, and even though we missed a few parks we saw more than we expected.

Great point on Walnut Canyon - if you're in the vicinity and miss, you are really missing out. It's a great 3hr or so kid activity and freaking beautiful. Much better than petrified forest and less crowds.

Check out Antelope Canyon

You definitely need to get a cooler to take with you on your trip. Feeding them little rascals is one of your best chances of a normal and somewhat quite trip. One thing that really helped us a LOT when traveling long distances/times with the kids was a smaller cooler, which could store drinks/snacks through the day in an accessible spot in the van. Put the cooler between the front and back. We looked into https://under-the-open-sky.com/best-cheap-coolers/ and decided on purchasing the Coleman Xtreme series portable cooler. We placed this one in the front for us, the "grown-up's cooler." The only thing that really bugs me is the fact that the ice melts really fast on the sun. It’s well above average speed of melting. Other than that I can't say I have any complaints. I mean it's not a cooler that's 300$, it’s just simple and cheap. I hope that helped someone make up their mind.