Road Trip - Florida to Colorado August 2019
 

Since DH and I had to cancel our Baltic Sea cruise at the last minute, we’ve decided to jump in the car and spend a couple weeks driving from our home in Central Florida to Colorado and back, seeing a few sights along the way. Late August seems like a good time for us to do this, but we’re retired and could shift the dates a bit. We have no problem with spending a lot of time driving, and we greatly prefer nature over cities. DH also loves to take pictures so if we’re in a particularly scenic place our progress can be pretty slow with all of the pulling over for picture taking

Any suggestions or comments regarding our plans would be welcome.

Things we’d like to do along the way include:

Florida Panhandle beach. I’ve never been there. I’d be happy to spend a night and a couple of hours playing on the beach, then I’m ready to move on. Maybe Ft Walton Beach?

Ozark Mountains. Again, just someplace I’ve always wanted to see. Won’t have enough time to do it justice but I’d like to stay a night or 2 and look around.

Dont have anything in mind between the Ozarks and Denver. I expect we’ll see something along the way that we have to stop for, but nothing is planned.

In Colorado we just plan to drive around admiring the Rockies. RMNP, of course. Is there anyplace in particular where we’d be most likely to see wildlife? Should we expect lots of crowds in late August?

On on the way back we’re going to stop in Asheville for a social visit and a little shopping.

Then in its back to Florida.

Its totally unlike me to me to not have every detail planned out, but kind of liberating too. No schedules, no limits on luggage, no tickets to prepurchase (yet).

Like me I said, comments and suggestions are welcome!

Road Trip - Florida to Colorado August 2019
 

RMNP highly likely to see large herds of elk up on Trail Ridge Road, along with scattered moose, deer and maybe bighorn sheep if lucky. And marmots and pikas, undoubtedly the cutest high mountain animal.

Crowds? YES!

Ozarks: possibly Eureka Springs

Which interstate are you taking? That can make a difference in recommendations (but that's a lot of driving in the flats).

If you start a little later it will be cooler in the flat parts of the country, but do try to get to Rocky Mountain NP before early October as the spectacular Trail Ridge road through the park closes if it snows, often by mid October.

I'd get a paper map and put pins in it in places that look interesting then plan a loop. Or do the same with one of the mapping programs on the computer.

A possible loop would be to do the panhandle, then Ozarks then head to RMNP. I would probably then want to head to Bandelier National Monument in New Mexico then visit Taos Pueblo and Santa Fe before heading to Asheville and back to Florida.

Once you get an idea of your basic route, people here can give you ideas of things to see (or miss) along the way.

Your two threads have been merged,