Our family (with 2 teenagers) plans to drive from Jackson, WY to San Francisco, CA in July. Can anyone recommend an interesting stop-over mid-route (probably around Elko area)? Or, perhaps, just a place to get a decent night's sleep and a good meal? Thanks.

This is really a tough one. To be honest there really isn't much of anything between Salt Lake City and Reno. It is about a 12 hour drive from Jackson to Reno, but that's where I'd try to head. You could stop in Elko at a standard motel and pretty dismal chain food places, but why? It's a push to get to Reno, and then have a nice easy drive arriving in San Francisco at a really good hour the second day. Interestingly enough we did this once, arriving in Reno about 8 in the evening and got a room at the very nice Hilton for something like $29 a night. The dismal hotels in Elko were more than double that. To top it off I cleared about $300 in the slots that evening, but I can't promise that kind of luck.

If you can rotate the driving so one person isn't behind the wheel for so many hours, I totally agree w/ Patrick. There is nothing in Elko. You would have choices from every price scale and type of accomodation in Reno.

Thanks Patrick and Janis. Your messages were just what we feared. We'll make a push for Reno and appreciate the easy drive to SF the next day.

If you have 2-3 people who can drive, I'd bite the bullet and go for Reno. I've been to Elko and there is nothing interesting there. The highlight of our visit was seeing a business called Lesbo Realty. We took pictures of each other in front of the sign - that's how bored we were - LOL.

Depending on the route you take, it can be anywhere from 1010 miles via Salt Lake City, Utah and 944 miles via Twin Falls, Idaho. I'll use Twin Falls in my examples.

To Elko is 433 miles and that's a pretty easy day drive. Nearby are the Ruby Mountains and Elko is not that bad of a little town.

Winnemucca is 558 miles. It's a pretty big town with gambling and a neat main street. It would be my choice if I was driving a car.

If you push on to Reno for the glitz it's a 725 miles. I'm sorry but who wants to spend that much time in a car! Besides by the time you get there it's going to be to late to do any siteseeing anyways, IMHO.

Utahtea

I agree with Utahtea........too much time in the car! I recently did a similar drive (Colorado to SF) and stopped in Wendover. 9 hours was enough for me! Albiet I was alone so the only driver. Those mile post numbers tick by really slowly! And when you hit the Utah/Nevada border and finally get to "0" it changes to "485"!