All of a sudden, my family is a roadtrip family.
We always used to be the “Florida for every vacation” family, until I started touring colleges. Don’t get me wrong, there is absolutely nothing wrong with a Florida vacation. This just gave us the perfect opportunity to try to pack many destinations into one trip. Now, it has become a ritual for us to go on a roadtrip for every summer vacation… and I look forward to it all school year.
Our destination(s) of choice last summer all happened to be in the southwest corner of the US, so, my mom being the excellent vacation planner that she is, found the perfect route for us to hit all of the must-see
Now, I should preface this by saying this doesn’t include California. California itself should be its own roadtrip. There’s just too much to see in California (which is why our 2024 roadtrip is entirely a California roadtrip… so if you’re looking for that itinerary, you’ll have to wait a couple months).
This itinerary includes, in my opinion, the best of the best. Everything you could possibly want to see is packed into this list. Of course, you can add to or alter it however you wish. Maybe I’m just biased, but I believe my mom plans the best vacations.
So without further ado, here is the ultimate “Out West” roadtrip itinerary… brought to you by my mom.
(Full Itinerary at bottom of page!)
Day One…
On an early morning in July, my family threw all our bags into the car and headed for the airport. Before you say anything, YES, this is still a road trip even if you have to fly somewhere first. We live near Chicago. That would waste way too much travel time driving out to Arizona.
Instead, we flew into the great city of Phoenix, Arizona. If you’re not from the area, just know when you step off that plane, you are going to be hit with a wave of dry heat. While I’ve grown up with midwest humidity, nothing compares to the dry heat you feel when you step off the plane on a hot summer day in Arizona. My first thought, rightfully so, was “how am I going to hike in this?” but it just takes a little getting used to.
After we picked up our lovely rental car, we drove straight to Sedona.
I could make a whole post about Sedona. If you’ve ever seen anything about the vortexes in Sedona, just know, it is totally true (if not, go look into it… crazy accurate). As soon as you step foot into this city, you are instantly at ease.
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