In the Summer of 2022, we embarked on the greatest, most epic Summer Road Trip yet! We journeyed over 5,000 miles. That’s 67 hours of driving time, all together in the car. No personal devices. (We don’t judge you if you have them, we just chose not to… we like a 1980s road trip style: with sticky, hot seats and large paper maps!) However, Jen took the last Road Map Atlas book that the Pilot Travel Center had in stock. The clerk said, “No one uses these any more with GPS…” Well worth the $40 laminated travel maps for the entire United States of America.

You can watch the condensed, 27 minutes of our 16-day road trip: HERE

You can watch the overview of what we decided to pack in our trusty, Honda Odyssey: HERE

Our itinerary was to see The Grand Canyon and to do it within our budget. As these things go, we went a little over budget staying a few extra days in places! Oops! Sure, we could have done it cheaper by boondocking (tent camping on public lands), but we didn’t want to spend more money renting a camper to do that. Tent camping in July in the desert with 100*F temperatures didn’t sound fun to us. Here is the travel log of our journey:

Day 1- Rock Hill, South Carolina to Pigeon Forge, Tennessee (207 miles) We stayed at the Jellystone Family Campground in a cabin. Cabins were minimal, yet functional and perfect for a family. The campground has a playground, jump pad, laundry facilities and is located right behind Dollywood. We could hear the fireworks at night. To see what our cabin looked like, click HERE to watch the video!

Day 2 – Spent a day at Dollywood (Pigeon Forge). In nine hours, we rode eight rides. Spent most of the time in the kiddie section of the park. We did not pay for “fast-pass” tickets or for the Dollywood Splash Country. Still felt like we did everything that our small kids in our group of friends wanted to do. Must ride the Black Bear Trail ride! Costumed characters walk around for photo opportunities. The kiddie section also has an indoor playground with dimmed lighting (to simulate playing at sunset, catching lightning bugs in the woods), which is easily our favorite park of the park. Dollywood is very clean and pretty to look at with art installations, live bluegrass music and entertainment, tons of food options and plenty of shade in the park to rest/take breaks with small kids. There is even a steam-locomotive, “The Klondike Katie” that you must ride at least once that takes you around the park! Click HERE to watch our Dollywood adventure!

Day 3 – Gatlinburg/Greenbriar Swimming Holes with friends. This nearby, FREE recreation area is available for day-use. Swim or fish (with a state of Tennessee fishing license and a daily trout-permit. Children under 12 do not need a license.) Wade in the rapids, swim at your own risk as this is a primitive recreation area. Pack out your trash. We used this as a rest day to recover in the shade and relax before the next part of our trip. To get a closer look at this local spot: click HERE

Day 4 – Pigeon Forge, TN to Starkville, Mississippi (434 miles) We drove through Alabama and visited the University of Alabama. We also drove through Mississippi State (once we arrived in Starkville and ate dinner).

Day 5 – Starkville, MS to Weatherford, Texas (583 miles) Rode the Natchez Trace Parkway in Mississippi, near Jackson. Drove through Jackson (the capitol). Visited the first Buc-ee’s we came to in Terrell, Texas for dinner. Weatherford is located on the west side of Dallas/Fort Worth (we wanted to avoid traffic the next morning).

Day 6 – Weatherford TX to Roswell, New Mexico (422 miles). Rode through tiny Texas towns and oil fields, rode through the NM desert and drove through Bottomless State Park and downtown Roswell. We visited the UFO Spacewalk Museum/Art Installation. Cheap and great for kids in the air conditioning.

Day 7 – Roswell NM to Flagstaff, Arizona (521 miles) We stopped to see Petrified Forest National Park and Meteor Crater in Winslow, AZ. Made it to Flagstaff and stayed in 2 different AirBnBs.

Day 8 – REST DAY (close to zero miles). We took time to restock groceries, toured the Lowell Observatory, Wheeler Park and downtown Flagstaff and Northern Arizona University.

Day 9 – Flagstaff to Grand Canyon National Park and then to Moab, Utah (404 miles). On the way to Moab, we drove through Tuba City, Arizona and the iconic Monument Valley Navajo Tribal Park. It was surreal to be driving through the Arizona desert! You see it in movies and shows, but to see it in person is indescribably beautiful!

Day 10 – REST DAY in Moab, Utah (near zero miles of driving). We played in our AirBnB’s neighborhood pool and restocked groceries and did laundry. We spent most of our day in pyjamas watching movies and then at night, when the temperatures cooled to 102*F, we went after dinner to watch the sunset at Arches National Park. Driving through Arches was incredible and even though it was a hot walk to see Turret Arch and Double Window Arches and the Delicate Arch, it is definitely my favorite highlight of this trip. It’s a short, half a mile walk to see those from your car. After taking in the views at Panoramic Viewpoint, we headed down the road, in between Arches National Park and Moab is Potash Road Dinosaur Tracks and the Petroglyphs of “Wall Street” If you follow Potash Road towards the Poison Spider Jeep Trail, there is a parking area where you can walk 1/4 mile and see actual dinosaur footprints that are highlighted in the rocks. Also, if you are leaving the dinosaur tracks and headed back towards Wall Street, a popular rock climbing pitch, your headlights will easily spot the native petroglyphs, located about 7-9 feet up on the wall. We missed them the first time, as we drove past it in the twilight.

Day 11 – Moab, UT to Colorado Springs, Colorado (411 miles). We drove past Black Canyon of the Gunnison National Park, in Montrose Colorado, before continuing on past the Blue Mesa Reservoir and driving over the Colorado Rockies into Colorado Springs.

Day 12 – We decided to spend one more night in Colorado and wanted to see more of this beautiful state. I wouldn’t call it a rest day per se, because it involved hiking 2-3 miles in the heat, but it was worth it to spend time with our friends at Roxborough State Park in Littleton (which, upon their recommendation was “better than over populated Garden of the Gods.”) We agreed. We pretty much had the whole hike to ourselves. Make sure you bring plenty of water for the hike to the summit!

Day 13 – Denver Colorado to Hays, Kansas (347 miles). We didn’t think the trip across Kansas was going to really be much, but the differences between Western Kansas and Eastern Kansas are significant! The warm wind is always blowing here and it was neat to check out a wind turbine. Unbeknownst to us, Hays Kansas is in the middle of “Tornado Alley” and we got to experience one 20 miles away from our hotel (but you could see it since it’s so flat here!) We celebrated Jen’s birthday with Billy Simm’s BBQ and a tornado warning. You can see our Kansas adventures HERE.

Day 14 – Hays, Kansas to St. Louis, Missouri (514 miles). We wanted to get far away from tornadoes. So we hauled it to St. Louis Missouri and took a trip to the FREE St. Louis Zoo. We paid $15 for daily parking and some of the exhibits, like the robotic dinosaurs cost extra, but this is the prettiest zoo we have been in thus far! Our favorites were the dinosaur exhibit, the penguin house and butterfly enclosure! St. Louis is a very cool, industrial city. We said if we get a free weekend and could fly here for cheap, we want to come back for a Chiefs game and free aquarium visit. We skipped the Gateway Arch National Park and Museum this time, since we stopped by on our Arkansas trip the summer before this one.

Day 15-16 – St. Louis to Rock Hill, South Carolina (712 miles). We got home in the early morning hours so I’m counting it as two days. We didn’t film a lot this day because we really wanted to push ourselves to get home. We stopped for lunch at Frutta Bowls in Paducah, Kentucky. We stopped for dinner in Waynesville, North Carolina. With three hours left and feeling at home in The Smokies, we decided to make it home around 1am. We slept in our own beds and needed the next full day to recover.

Q & As

What types of accommodations did we stay in?

We were fortunate to have friends to stay with in Colorado Springs (thanks Carrie and Mark!). Although we experienced Days 1-3 in Pigeon Forge with friends, each family booked their own cabin at Jellystone Family Campground. We stayed in several Hilton Holiday Inn Expresses (perfectly functional and comfortable) in Starkville and St. Louis. We stayed one night closer to Denver, Colorado in a Home2 Suites (nicer!) because it was located in the parking lot where we were having gelato with our friends after hiking. We stayed in a La Quinta hotel in Weatherford, which we liked that it was right off the interstate. We liked the family hotels because David could take the kids to the pool while I made dinner and washed laundry. Most hotels have laundry facilities, so we didn’t need to travel with trash bags of dirty clothes. We stayed in a total of 3 AirBnBs, but they were a mixed bag. The two in Flagstaff were adequate, but one experienced a septic issue and the other was very hot at night to sleep in. In hindsight, we could have stayed at hotels. The one in Moab was very nice and allowed us to really take a much needed respite. Also, we stayed in the charming and affordable, Roswell Inn. Keep in mind, that one is a motel. We were pleasantly surprised that even if you don’t have a reservation months in advance, in all the places we traveled you could get a room as a walk-up guest, or call them a few hours away and there was availability.

This trip was so much fun and we packed so much into each day, but really we drove too much, for too many straight days. There was so much we wanted to do: Arizona and New Mexico you could easily spend a month in each of those states, but driving for seven to eight hours a day turns into ten to twelve hours with small kids! We would have liked to have only driven three to four hours in a day, but our time was also limited to the number of days for this vacation.

If we could do this trip over, what would we do differently?

If we had a do-over, we would have done everything that we wanted to do on the first leg of our trip. Once we hit the pinnacle of The Grand Canyon and Arches National Parks, we were ready to be home. It was hard to be motivated to see or do anything except drive non-stop on the way home.

We wish we could have seen Oklahoma. Because we were leaving from the Denver side, we took I-70 through Kansas, instead of I-40 (through Oklahoma) so we missed that state completely. We did see Kansas though.

Next time we want to go to the desert, we will fly 🙂

If you didn’t have screens for your kids, what on God’s green Earth did you do?

What did you do in the 80’s kid? We listened to a lot of music and audiobooks in the car. You can find some of the songs on our road trip playlist HERE. We listened to the Wingfeather series audiobooks 1, 2 and 3. We listened to a read aloud of The Hobbit. We got out of the car every two hours or so to stretch our legs. We let each kid take a turn with the road map atlas and “tell us where to go.” We played car games: Find a Car Rainbow (every color of the rainbow passing by), the License Plate Game, I Spy…you name it.

How much does a trip like this cost?

For our family, we had a starting off budget of $5,000 USD. We tried to make this trip as affordable as possible, to fit our family’s needs. I don’t mind cooking, so we bought a lot of groceries and snacks for the road. For us, it made sense to take our already paid for car, compared to the cost of flying for five people or renting a camper and driving it. The purpose of this trip was that we wanted to see things along the way of interest. We also wanted to stop wherever and whenever we wanted to. In actuality, we went over our initial budget and had to spend closer to $6,000 USD on the whole 16 day trip. We underestimated the cost of fuel and the number of hotels we would need, when needing an extra night or needing to switch out accommodations. There are cheaper options to travel (such as a bus or train, but we declined with small kids.) Also, after the good BBQ in Kansas, we ate out more fast food on the way home. A lot more Taco Bell, a lot less groceries. It adds up.

If you have further questions or discussions, or are thinking of doing this road trip with your own family, please write to us at: teamcarterfamilyadventures@gmail.com or comment below. Thanks for coming along with us!