Our First Big Loop
When Mason and I first started talking about visiting National Parks, we both knew we had some that were high on our list to visit. Yellowstone was his and Glacier was mine. The six hour drive in between those National Parks made us have to decide to either fly and rent a car or make a road trip out of it. We were twenty-three years old at the time so that answer was easy - whatever was cheapest…and legal since we couldn’t really rent a car at our age!
Once we began to put together our route from Kansas City, Missouri out to Yellowstone, we realized that we could hit more than just those two National Parks. This is where the addiction to see as much as possible in one single week started for me.
If we added an hour drive south, or a three hour drive this way, and so on we could really make this road trip into a big loop. So we added two more National Parks; Grand Tetons and Badlands. This loop ended up being close to 3,500 miles but somehow only costed us just over $1,000 total for our food, stays, and gas. I should make note that this was in 2021 so give that price some wiggle room for costs today.
Camry is all packed!
What next? Well we packed up our road trip essentials and headed outta town! We had booked all of our stays in advance so we knew we had a place to lay our heads each night as long as the Camry and caffeine could get us there.
Grand Tetons!
Over the next eight days, we hit four major National Parks, tried some popular food spots, and soaked in the mountainous sunsets. I know some are reading this and thinking eight days and four National Parks doesn’t add up but it was doable for us. I created a brief breakdown below to see if this busy week is something for you:
Day One: KCMO - Cheyenne, WY (9 hours driving time)
Day Two: Cheyenne, WY - Grand Tetons NP (6 hours driving time)
Day Three: Grand Tetons NP - Yellowstone NP (1 hour driving time)
Day Four: Yellowstone NP - Bozeman, MT (2 hours driving time)
Day Five: Bozeman, MT - Glacier NP (4 hours driving time)
Day Six: Glacier NP - Billings, MT (6 hours driving time)
Day Seven: Billings, MT - Badlands NP (6 hours driving time)
Day Eight: Badlands NP - KCMO (9 hours driving time)
Hiking the Highline Trail in Glacier!
Day One and Day Eight are the biggest driving days but I’d like to add that as we’ve had more experience with big loop road trips, we’ve gotten better at making our drive time more reasonable. We’ve capped our driving days to 6 hours max! This type of road trip I believe allows you to get a taste of a lot in a small amount of time. It’s helped me narrow down the places I want to revisit and the ones that I’m happy I got to experience!
I hope you feel the urge to get out of your normal routine and get outta town. If you want some help planning, I’ve got our loop itineraries in my store that include in-depth details on how we did it in so little time, the stops we made, and how we managed to keep it within a budget!
