North West- any must see's or travel tips? About This Page:

[B.M.]

Originally Posted by DrDolphin

One correction which will be a large one as far as driving is concerned - Theodore Roosevelt National Park is in North Dakota, not South Dakota - and it about a 4-5 hour drive up there.

Also - since you are right near it in the Badlands - consider Devils Tower National Monument too. We just went to Badlands, Wind Cave, Jewel Cave, Devils Tower and Theodore Roosevelt as well as Mt Rushmore this past September. Really enjoyed the trip. If you have time - take a few hours to drive through Custer State Park and the Needles Highway while in the Black Hills. Beautiful drive!!

We also visited The Minute Man Missile National Historic Monument - about 20 minutes east of Badlands.

How long will your trip take? Wind Cave has some really great tours that you can take down into the caves to see the boxwork. So does Jewel cave national monument, but I don't see it on your list.

Mt Rainer is beautiful - we took an entire day to drive around and hike all over the mountain, and since you are right in the neighborhood - don't forget to visit Mt. St. Helens National Volcanic Monument - the have a great visitor's center and some really nice hiking too.

Mount St. Helens National Volcanic Monument - Home

Devils Tower National Monument (U.S. National Park Service)

Minuteman Missile National Historic Site (U.S. National Park Service)

I did have Theodore Roosevelt NP listed as North Dakota in my itinerary, I must have just mistyped it here...

Thanks for all the great suggestions (and links). They all sound wonderful and they are all right on top of where we will be.... Due to time constraints, I'm going to have to research more and pick and chose....

I'm having a hard time figuring out Mt. Saint Helen's.... It sounds like you are suggesting it is near Mount Rainier.... MapQuest is showing it in Oregon . Any ideas on that??

The trip is currently set to be 40 days long allotting 2 nights in most places... I have a little bit of flexibility, but not much as to the overall amount of days....

Originally Posted by DrDolphin

Oh - another thing - be sure to budget no less than 4 days in Yellowstone (that wasn't even enough for us) and 2-3 days in Grand Teton. There is a great float raft trip down the Snake River in Grand Teton - we saw lots of wildlife.

I currently have the itinerary set with three nights in Yellowstone and two nights in Grand Tetons.... Unfortunately, due to overall time constraints- I don't foresee being able to make those stops any longer...

Originally Posted by jimmymac

In Seattle, do NOOT miss Chihuly Glass & Gardens. It blew me away

I just looked at the website.... It looks beautiful! It will be right next to the Space Needle which we already have plans to visit.... I'm going to "pencil it in" and hope that time allows for it....


Thanks for all the great information everyone! This month, January is the month I plan to get all of my lodging booked which will make the itinerary firm.... I've got a little more research to do, but I'm just about ready to start booking everything

[revral]

Try to do the Space Needle on a nice day as the view is amazing. However, I'd avoid eating in the restaurant as it's expensive and quite frankly the view doesn't make up for the fact that the food just isn't good enough to justify the prices. You're definitely paying a premium for the location and view at the restaurant. Since you'll be in Seattle you should visit the Pike Place Market which is one of the things that Seattle's famous for. There's always a small crowd at one of the fish vendors as they literally throw the fish. There's also a tour of underground Seattle that's interesting. Both the North Cascades & Olympic parks are very large but beautiful and I strongly recommend making sure you have a full tank gas before going in to them as towns and gas stations can be few and far between.

[chezp]

Originally Posted by B.M.

I currently have the itinerary set with three nights in Yellowstone and two nights in Grand Tetons.... Unfortunately, due to overall time constraints- I don't foresee being able to make those stops any longer...

I think you'll be fine with that. We had two nights in Yellowstone and one night in Grand Tetons and, while we don't do any hiking, that was plenty of time for driving around and seeing the main sights.

[manticorjenn]

Originally Posted by B.M.

As for Mount Rushmore.... We plan to camp at Wind Cave NP for two nights and drive over to Mt. Rushmore.... It looks like it will be about a 40 minute drive one way.... Does this sound right? The website says to allow two hours to visit Mount Rushmore... Does this sound right? The hours are listed as 5am-11pm.... I was thinking we would go when they first open and hopefully beat out the crowds...

As for the town of Deadwood, it looks like that would be less than fifteen minutes out of our way between Mount Rushmore and Theodore Roosevelt NP. We almost certainly will not stay the night there, but I'm going to look more into the activities you listed and see if we might want to do one of them as a pit stop...

Thanks for the great information!

You will find that travelling around the Black Hills doesn't take a lot of time and the scenery is wonderful. So, I would say that 40 minutes is probably right. However, if you are like us, we found things to stop and see in between places and thus it took us a little longer to get between places.

For Mount Rushmore 2 hours may be just enough or not close. It all depends on how much of the "museum" type you are. They have a lot of displays and information that can eat up time if you are interested. Or, if you aren't you can just walk up to the viewing section, see the mountain and go away. Depending on the time of year, opening may be too chilly to enjoy yourself. You may want to wait until closer to mid day as the sun will be out to warm things up and give some beautiful views of the mountain.

Deadwood would definitely be a good pit stop.

Enjoy your planning and your trip.