Annie

My family would like to travel this summer (June) to see the western part of the US. We live in Michigan and only have a week. We thought about flying somewhere and then renting a car. I am looking for ideas on where to start and what are must sees. The kids are 9 and 11.

xxx

You can't go wrong with San Diego for a fun filled family vacation. Fly in and out of San Diego and rent a room near the beach for the week.

GOL

I have 'planned' & researched exactly that same trip a few times. Our goals did not include California, as previous poster suggested. That should be a separate trip. Maybe your and my idea of a "west" trip is Grand Canyon, Yellowstone, etc...

First, decide if you want to rent a camper. You can rent from one place and return in another (travelamerica.com, for example). Otherwise, you can follow a South to North trip; Fly into Phoenix, hit S. Rim of Grand Canyon, Hoover Dam, Southern Parks of Utah, and if you are daring, make you way up to Yellowstone (as a reference, N. Rim of Grand Canyon and Yellowstone are both about 6 hours (+/-) from Salt Lake City.
Or, you could fly into Denver or Salt Lake and hit Yellowstone, Montana and Glacier.. Any way you put it, it will be a driving vacation. Pack it all in and move around.

Make sure your car rental company has no extra fees for dropping off at a different airport. Also, check VERY carefully the fares with an open jaw. Prices can actually be better with open jaw than simply RT.

Tom

You will need to set some targets. Do you want to see the southern CA amusement parks and beaches? How about the northern CA mountains and coast? Seattle also give nice combinations of city, mountains and coast. Maybe the ranches, mountains, and deserts of southern CO, New Mexico, and Arizona.

Lisa

I'm voting for the Grand Canyon and the four corners country, including Mesa Verde, Monument Valley, and maybe into the rockies in SW Colorado. You would experience great variety, from sandy desert to the Rocky Mountains; plus culturally interesting areas, including the Navajo reservation, maybe a Hopi Pueblo, and the ruins of the Anasazi people at Mesa Verde.

I'd strive to avoid wasting time driving, when you can find great geographic diversity and areas of historic and cultural interest in a relatively small area.
You just can't do it all in a week, and will have to plan other trips for other geographic areas.

Carla

We did a fly/drive trip west when our sons were about the same ages as yours to Colorado. They liked Mesa Verde and the pool at Glenwood Springs and throwing snowballs at each other in the summer in Rocky Mt Natl Park. The time spent riding in the car bored them to death. Don't try to give them too much at once, wherever it is you decide to go.

Kathy

I vote for a trip to Yellowstone/Grand Teton National Park. The poster does not state what her and her children's intersts are, but I believe that this is a good trip for 9 and 11 year olds. Flying into Salt Lake City or even into Jackson Wyoming would work.

kkj

Annie, out west emcompasses several thousand square miles. Before anyone can answer your request in an intelligent manner they need more information. What is your idea of west? What is your budget? Do you like natural beauty or do you prefer theme parks? Do you want a resort vacation? What do you consider the west? Is it California, the desert, South Dakota, Texas what? Do you like cities or the country? Do you want to camp or stay in hotels? Do you want to cover a lot of ground or stay in one area? What types of activities have you done on previous vacations that you enjoyed? What kinds of things have you done on previous vacations that you haven't enjoyed? And what is the one thing that made you decide to go out west.

If you can answer that and the other questions than we can help you pick something that will be a great match for your family. Without this information all the answers you get are totally meaningless as they have to do with our likes and not yours.