Tell me everything about it.

More specifically, what are the main sites (Grand Canyon, Momument Valley etc) and is it ok to park an RV anywhere (within common sense and reason obviosuly) or do you have to park in specific places during the night?

I booked the flights yesterday and im going in 3 weeks, for 11 days. Planning cramming to the max!

Thanks all

follows with interest, planning to do a round trip out of SLC in October…
Prices seemed OK but the couple I saw had everything as an extra (bedding, pans, miles and more)

anyone?

Went from Las Vegas – Moab – Salt Lake City. (But that was car)

I can ask parents in law about RV. They hired one, but I’m sure you get some sort of pack with designated overnight places – on the campsite front.

Four weeks, drove from San Francisco to Vancouver and back in a 30′ RV. Great experience but had some limitations, mainly being able to access places of interest and get parked. Will post more when not on phone.

I am pretty sure you can park for one night free in Wal Mart car parks.

Most State Parks have RV sites with hookups about 40 bucks a night. Just do a lot of surfing/research before you go.

Haven’t rented, but have driven a van round that area. It’s a good area for camping – between National Parks (busy, generally well-featured), State Parks (always have running water, often have shower blocks) and National Forests (much emptier, always have running water, but sometimes only pit toilets) you’re really well set.

The route we took involved staying on Great Antelope Island for a night (fun drive out on the causeway, and some quick biking trails to loosen up on). We then drove over towards Moab, stopping in a Recreation Area en route. A few days in Moab (obvs), then potter on down to the Grand Canyon (north side), spend a night, and carrying on to Vegas, stopping for a night at Coral Pink Sand Dunes park.

All places are set up for RVs, so you should be able to get a hookup, and so on. Really really recommended route, awesome scenery, and just enjoy the drive!

Probably not specific enough for yoy but I hired big wagon in San Francisco and did big loop around mountains (to go skiing at Mamouth Mountain and climbing in Yosemite).

Details wise – dirt cheap to hire the vehicle (hired from airport at last minute), gas cheap, easy to navigate roads and I slept in wagon and booked into motels on a day by day basis. Was very easy to make the road trip.

fabulous fun, toured the states for three months in an old one I bought on ebay and then sold at the end of the trip on ebay. It was a while ago but yes you used to be able to stay in walmarts. Trailer parks were quite easy to find and like camp sites here, there is good bad and ugly. Some have very little facilities so go prepared. Be warned its much a slower than a car, much bigger, I know this states the obvious but it is. ha. I’d include Zion more than monument valley. death valley is worth it just to say you were there but beyond that its just empty, in itself it can be quite eerie. America is huge, dont underestimate mileage and emptiness.

Bryce and Zion are better than the grand canyon IMO. Although Zion has a wicked tight tunnel to get into with yer van. The quiet side of the grand canyon is a long drive from the busy side but is nicer for it. Moab and Fruita if your doing riding. Enjoy, one of my favorite spots.

oh and here for some ideas
http://singletrackworld.com/forum/topic/so-if-you-had-1-week-in-utah

Bookmarked! Looking to do this in the next couple of years.

My Dad did this, but not Salt Lake City > LV. He said they didn’t struggle for anywhere to stay, they stayed at RV sites, anything under 40ft is considered small and can make room. Wishes they had gone “wild camping” a few days, that means not staying at an RV site.

One thing to note is if you fly in, they will not let you take the RV for another 24 hours as you will be sleep deprived/jet lagged/tired. It will take most of the morning for them to show you how to use the RV, water tanks, etc, so bear that in mind when you are booking your first stop.

http://www.roadtripamerica.com/forum/forum.php

Planned two roadtrips through help from the guys on here, I motel’d it as wanted freedom in the parks and off road capability but there’s plenty of RV stuff on there. Enjoy!

Oh and from my experience of cycle touring in the States please put the steps into the RV up, I hope that makes sense but the amount of Winnebago’s that went past with a step out about 2.5ft from the body was terrifying. Could do a cyclist or pedestrian a lot of damage.

richteabiscuit – Do you mean that RVs are not allowed in some parks? That would swing it for me i think. I guess Motels are easy to come by?

I drove around New York state and a few others a few years ago, staying in Motels. Im well aware of the scale of the country. One state is like the size of the UK!

Good advice above. RV or camping is definitely the way to go, staying in the Parks. There are loads of RV stops in the main ‘towns’ but if you want to do Canyonlands, Bryce, Grand Canyon, Monument Valley and / or Zion then I would suggest you book in advance. It’s very easy via the national park website and affordable.

One thing to note is, if you want to do any back country hiking other than a day hike, it’s worth applying for a permit now (3 weeks before) i.e. if you want to camp away from the main campsites. Numbers are strictly controlled so if you don’t book beforehand you may find you’re only allowed to do day hikes.

There is too much to see in 11 days anyway, so I would personally concentrate on a few National Parks but that’s just me. For other ideas, if you are in to photography book a tour at Antelope Canyon. If you are in to dinosaurs, there are a number of fossil sites to the east and north of Salt Lake City but they’ll take you 3+ hours drive out of your way.

Sorry can’y help you re the RV, but have done a lot of driving in the area.
The actual distance between the two isn’t great and is easily achievable in a couple of days.
However I suggest you have a couple of options.
The first is to drive directly south i.e. to the east of the Colorado river taking in Bryce and Zion Nat Parks.
The alternative is to come south then take the route of the I70 to the West, you can then include, Canyonlands and Arches whilst staying in or around Moab. All are within short distances of each other and each in its own way is truly awesome. Moab is also the place where you can hire the most exotic of bikes for either a day or part of.
Heading south take in Monument Valley, if you can arrange it, be there for the sunset. You’ll never see anything more beautiful as the sun highlighting the buttes. If you’ve time from MV divert to Paige and go to Antelope canyon. A small slot canyon in the desert. You’ve no option but to get a native guide. It will be busy but worth it.
From there considering you’re heading to LV consider the South Rim of the Canyon. Again sunset and sunrise are the moment to be there; but if you’ve never been before then you’ll find it draw dropping.
Finally the route back to Vegas should be done by the old route 66. Its not as busy as the Interstate and there’s loads of history to see.
Enjoy, I’m envious!

mikewsmith, October may be cheap because it is out of season (both outside of US holiday times and becasue winter will be setting in by then). Park roads in Yellowstone start to close mid-October and a lot of the scenic roads from SLC will be closed by mid-November. You can still visit a lot of areas, in fact they are beautiful, but it requires a bit more planning and tenacity. And probably not an RV!

Unless there are a few of you splitting the cost, renting (specifically 1 way renting) an RV is going to be expensive.
You need to work out mileage (eg you get 100 miles / day allowance and pay about 35c/mile over that), fuel consumption (somewhere between 8-10mpg for an RV and about $3/gal average for Utah at the moment), then a base rental cost of about $2.5k plus $900ish in fees, plus pots and pans cost plus linen, towels, sleeping bags etc.

Compare that to renting a car for the trip (quicker, better mpg etc) and either staying in KOA and park cabins, motels or even buying a $100 tent plus kit and using that for the trip.

You’re hitting the start of the peak holiday season here in the US as many kids finish for the summer around the middle of June.

Canyonlands, Grand Canyon, Bryce, Zion, Monument Valley are all fantastic.

RV hire is eyewateringly expensive. I’ve camped in the area a bit and yes, state/national parks are where it’s at. You can buy a nice tent and a load of quality gear when you’re there that you get to keep and still come out way way ahead of RV rental. Then the RV plots at the parks are often (but not always.. but particularly for the bigger ones) like some kind of car park, whereas the camping plots are nestled in the trees with a fire pit.

The other thing you can do out West if you aren’t RVing is rent a 4×4 and drive the dirt roads.

If you can’t get a park then look for a KOA – they are bog standard camp sites with facilities, cheap, and you can get road atlases with their locations on.

Motels are ubiquitous. It’s how the locals get around. Every interstate exit near any kind of town (and sometimes not) will have a couple.

Oh yeah and +1 backcountry camping. We went to Zion canyon which is full of lodges and leisure facilities in the bottom. We parked up and walked up an old logger’s trail to the plateau at the top where you can camp wherever you want. No water though, so take it with you. Didn’t see another person, although it was May.

If you don’t want to drive a mobile house around look these guys up : http://www.lostcampersusa.com/

They rent out of SFO, LAX and SLC. I’m sure there are other companies do the same . . .

Only 2 of us so we don’t need a big van (or want one) and we’ve toured vast amounts of the US in small vans like this over the years . . . always use camping pitches or just park up . . .

Sedona last year, very much worth a visit . . .

We hired an RV a couple of years ago, travelling around New England.
It was great fun (2 adults, four kids), but it wasn’t cheap; I reckon you could do cheaper in motels, but it wouldn’t be half as much fun. You have ‘adventures’ in an RV that you just don’t get in Motels. I’m thinking bears around the RV, the joys of emptying the ‘dirty’ tank, getting to know other campers etc.

We only steyed at campsites, some varied (Niagara Falls) from full on holiday parks, to state parks, which were pretty much clearings in trees. I wouldn’t recommend just stopping and staying the night. Except for some supermarket car parks, where the security guards will keep an eye on you.

Bear in mind that the air conditioning unit ( used when stationary, the usual cab a/c is used on the move) is roof mounted, noisey and will be used a lot on the route you’re planning.
Had a great time, glad we did it

Did 3 weeks in a rented RV round California last October. We rented from Cruise America, it was about $1300 total for a one-way rental (SF to LA).

Nice thing about the RV is staying in the basic campsites in smaller national parks for about 10 bucks per night. They’ve no power hookups and only one central water/dump station, but the water/waste tank only needed filling/emtpying about every 3 days, same for battery. There was an on-board generator but we never used it.

The ‘RV parks’ with full hookups are pretty characterless carparks costing 40-60 a night – but wifi/pool etc are normal.

It probably would have been cheaper to rent a car and motel it, but there’s no motels in national park, and it’s less fun! We didn’t bring any camping gear with us.

Driving gets some getting used to but is fine. It’s certainly more tiring than a car – rattly and noisy over 50mph. We tended not to do longer (3hrs plus) distances because of this. Parking in cities is near impossible due to the length & height. We dropped ours back a few days earlier than planned because of this when we got to LA.

I don’t think that thing about Walmart is true anymore, in California anyway. You aren’t supposed to park up overnight anywhere.

Overall I’d recommend it.

Oh, all the above relates to a 30 footer with shower, gas cooker. You’ve to rent bed linen and dining set. Buying the bed linen in Walmart cost about half what they were looking to rent it for. Fuel consumption is terrible too, petrol only.

Was going to comment more but prontomoto had called it exactly as I saw it! The only thing I would add is that I found myself looking forward to the end of each driving day so I could relax, which probably meant we were overly focused on the destination rather than the sights en route, which was a shame. That said, we had our ten month daughter with us which might have had something to do with it!

RV Parking at Walmart

California was weird when going to HikerBiker sites, just south of Santa Cruz I had to sign a waiver saying I would leave by 10 in the morning and not return for 3 days. It was to stop homeless people filling up the Park apparently. This was 4 years ago so may have changed.

Some really useful comments here. Thanks people

Other ideas, if you decide to head to the south rim of the Grand Canyon, are Wupatki (prehistoric pueblos), Sunset Crater (volcanic landscape and crater) and Walnut Canyon (cliff dwellings) along around Flagstaff.