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Need help with Utah itinerary
Planning a trip in early May 2020, to drive Utah for 7 or 8 days and see the national parks. Can someone suggest an itinerary. We don’t need to see every park. We want to avoid crowds. We are in mid 60s and will do short hikes. We don’t need high end motels. Will be driving in from Sacramento, and need to decide where to fly home from. Las Vegas, slc, or Denver. Thanx |
Please query/search this board--there are a number of posted itineraries that meet you exact specifications. Las Vegas is usually the easiest to fly in/out of for Bryce and Zion. Arches/Canyonlands--search SLC or LV. May will be crowded. The only way to stay away from crowds would be to visit Canyonlands and Capitol Reef--the less visited parks. Add Grand Staircase in there (Escalante) and you would have plenty/more than enough for a week.
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Are you driving a rental car from Sacramento to Utah? You could take the Amtrak California Zephyr from SAC to SLC. The train leaves a little after 11AM and arrives in SLC early in the morning. Eat an early breakfast (Denny's 24 hour) and then go get the rental car. Check to see what the drop fee is if you don't want to return the car where you rented it.
The other way to do it would be to fly from SMF to Las Vegas and rent a car there. Las Vegas rental cars are less expensive than rental cars from California or Salt Lake City in my experience. My DW and I went to Arches, Canyonlands and Capitol Reef in November a few years ago. We took the train from Sacramento to SLC, had breakfast and then headed to Green River. |
Utah train
Originally Posted by tomfuller
(Post 17031866)
Are you driving a rental car from Sacramento to Utah? You could take the Amtrak California Zephyr from SAC to SLC. The train leaves a little after 11AM and arrives in SLC early in the morning. Eat an early breakfast (Denny's 24 hour) and then go get the rental car. Check to see what the drop fee is if you don't want to return the car where you rented it.
The other way to do it would be to fly from SMF to Las Vegas and rent a car there. Las Vegas rental cars are less expensive than rental cars from California or Salt Lake City in my experience. My DW and I went to Arches, Canyonlands and Capitol Reef in November a few years ago. We took the train from Sacramento to SLC, had breakfast and then headed to Green River. Thanks |
Today's eastbound California Zephyr arrived at 2:44AM Mountain Time (about 20 minutes early). The scheduled time is 3:05AM. You might be hoping for delays. We decided to stop at SLC because of the lack of rental cars in Green River. We stayed for 7 nights at the Robbers Roost motel which was a lot cheaper than anyplace in downtown Moab.
There is plenty to see outside of Utah's National Parks. I/we did a few geocaches including Earthcaches. My favorite Earthcaches were Delicate Arch, Chrystal Geyser (rare cold water geyser) and one where there were dinosaur tracks in stone. My favorite physical cache was in Goblin Valley State Park on the way to Capitol Reef. Our last westbound trip on the Zephyr was delayed in eastern Colorado when a large truck crashed on the tracks dumping a load of cattle feed on the tracks. We arrived back at Winnemucca where we had our car parked several hours late but we did make it home in central Oregon on the day we planned to be home. My favorite stop midway between Chicago and Sacramento is Glenwood Springs Colorado. |
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