Planning a Trip II

~Deciding destination~

Based on your goal for the trip, now you can think about your travel destination. Now on, your decision on destination, travel and stay will be like an algorithm, influenced by multiple factors- big and small- and will require thinking back and forth multiple times, especially if you are planning to explore a national park.

With limited amount of vacation and budget, for us, reaching a final, well informed and optimal itinerary is time demanding process. For two to four weeks of long/road trips, I usually start to think about a possible itinerary two- three months in advance.

Important information to have on hand is

a. Duration

•   how many days you have or can allot

b. Destination

•  do you have a bucket list/priority list of places to visit?
•  which places you can visit in available days for decided purpose?
•  if you do not have such list, you can explore National Park Service website: www.nps.gov to search parks around you or in a particular state or on you route. The site is great to get park specific information, especially park maps and hiking trail list/map which are not available in such detail on any other site. It is even hard to find printed version of these particular maps outside of park. Most of the time paved, drive-able roads situated inside the parks and all the park entrences are not shown in Google maps. So you would not know existence of a road passing through, connecting major roads outside the park till you study the park map given on the website. Park maps are absolutely essential in planning if you going to explore. You will definitely get a park map (printed version in a brochure form) when you visit the park- either at the entrance or at the visitor centers. These maps are usually free and, in my opinion, the best souvenirs.

I encounter this one issue often.For me, it is hard to corroborate and judge location and directions of places and roads given in the park map with the generic online road maps. My mind gets sluggish when it comes to assessing and matching scales of online park and road maps unless I print them and then compare.

c. Mode of travel

• what is time and cost effective- driving or flying?
• based on the number and location of destinations, you can map out if you will need multi-city   flight tickets and car rental according to that.

At this point you should have a tentative route of your travel ready. Once the lodging is decided you should have detail idea about how much time you have to explore the park.

d. Type of stay

      1. Within the parks

National parks, created to preserve and care for America's wilderness and environment, are not bound to provide any lodging, that way limiting human impact. However, many parks offer variable range of lodging options starting from back-country camping, primitive camping, RV-camping, cabins, inns and lodges. Most famous and large parks offer all these options but availability are limited especially in summer season. Most of these inns and lodges are historic and carry old country charm. They offer closest accommodation (i.e. within the park itself) and a unique perspective to the place. They are not designed for luxury but staying within the park is an enhanced experience. It saves time of commuting in and out and allows easy planning for hike/rest and activities like sunrise/sunset watching, and ranger programs. For these reasons, reservation at last minute..no sometimes even within 3-4 months before starting date...is extremely hard to find. Limited walk-in campsites sites are often kept aside for RV-campers and occasionally available for inns and lodges. We have not tried back-country camping, it is a bit beyond my comfort zone, but I know that for some parks you also need to have a back-country permit in advance which may also go as fast as lodge rooms.

Old Faithful geyser and Inn, Yellowstone Nat Park, WY

Majority of parks situated in northern USA, although stay open throughout, close down their lodging/camping and some other visitor facilities in winter. You must check www.nps.gov for closing/opening dates, weather trends, road closures, park maps, hiking trails, ranger-led activities and other important updates, instructions and suggestions before finalizing your plans and reservation  methods. Although we know that America is so vast and different areas of the country experience such a wide range of weather simultaneously, it comes as an epiphany that when most parks (e.g Yellowstone, Yosemite Nat Parks etc) start experiencing peak visitor rush, some other (e.g Death Valley Nat Park) are preparing to close for the season.

•  Hotel/ Lodge/ Inn

Considering a small window of opportunity to stay inside a park and summer rush, it is advisable to reserve the accommodation well in advance (5 months or more) for next summer season or to be extremely lucky. We were lucky enough to get a reservation, although just for one night, in Old Faithful Inn at Yellowstone Nat Park a month or two before our trip, for rest of the stay we camped. However, we might have got a better room and longer stay at the inn if we had tried to reserve 6-7 months earlier. Reservation becomes available almost year in advance for most of these lodges. Majorities of these lodges/inns are managed by a concession company Xanterra which handles reservations also.

I would recommend watching 'Great Lodges of the National Parks' to get more information on history and architecture. After watching it, it will be hard to avoid lure of these lodges. Individual park webpage on nps.gov will give more information on availability of lodge/inn and reservation procedure.

If staying at these historic hotels is on your (uncompromisable) wishlist, I would advise you to reserve even if you do not have any concrete itinerary planned. Once you get a desired reservation you can plan your itinerary around it. Usually, I first design an itinerary and then reserve accommodations accordingly. But, I so want to stay at Crater Lake lodge- in a room overlooking blue waters of the deepest lake of US that this year I have reserved a room even without any schedule or itinerary. Even then, I found almost all of the dates in summer for lake-view rooms were gone in early February itself.

Many Glacier Hotel, on the bank of Swiftcurrent lake, Glacier Nat Park, MT

Furnace Creek Inn, Death Valley Nat Park, CA

• Cabins/ Chalets

Many large national parks also have smaller, specialized accommodations like cabins and chalets. Just like lodges they are offered directly or through a concessionaire or occasionally through private companies. Some of these require hiking for quite a distance to reach there. Glacier national park has a couple of such, well-known chalets- Sperry, and Granite park which provide unparalleled vista at the heart of the park. They open only in summer seasons and by the fact that they are remote, groceries, fuel and other items to run the facilities are supplied on horses. 

Granite Park Chalet, Glacier Nat. Park, MT

• Camping

Camping is an adventure, well not as intense as kayaking through Colorado or rock-climbing the El Capitan or summeting Mt. Rainier or hiking Pacific Crest/Apalachian trail, but it is, for people who are new to the idea of unaided stay and self planned exploration. For me it is an adventure.  

Our tent at Colter Bay Campground, Grand Teton Nat Park, WY

Camping is like initial stages of love- starts with a bit of hesitation, fear of heartbreak, anticipation of sweet moments but once you enter into it fully, euphoria takes over. Thought of sleeping just surrounded by a thin layer of polyester material in wilderness, in dark, is crazy...crazy adventurous?!! Coming from India, I had no idea parks here facilitate camping and I can manage it by purchasing tools (oh...and from so many options for individual need) myself. I am amazed at technology, product designing and huge market specifically for each sports, recreational activities.

Most camping reservations withing the parks are available through Recreation.gov. This site also provides reservation platform for picnic shelters, permits and tours.

 More on camping is posted here.

•  Recreational Vehicle- RV campintg

RV is a motor vehicle or trailer which contains essential facilities and living area like a home. In India, we call it Caravan. When I saw American RVs initially, I was amazed at how well they were designed to accommodate so many facilities in a small area. Wherever we are on the road, we wish, we had an RV. With it you are completely free from worries to find accommodation ever again. You can also manage cooking/ preparing your food. However, some drawbacks, we think, are fuel efficiency and accessibility to remote/high altitude areas which often prohibit a large vehicle like an RV to drive up on narrow, windy roads. I feel, RV is for the time when you want to stay and relax at one place for longer time. A person like me, who creates a long list of places to see and activities to do would like swiftness of a car.

      2. Outside the parks

In a peak season, it is equally hard to find lodging in hotels/inns within nearest areas outside of a national park entrances.

Besides these commercial hotels, motels etc which one can reserve through common travel websites, one can also camp in privately owned RV-campsites. Among a couple of such nationwide RV-campsite providers, we have stayed at KOA's sites during our road-trip. Their network is convenient enough while you are travelling on highways and need a campsite for a night or two. We have found that, they are often not situated very near to the national parks and require as much or more commuting to and from the park as an nearby outside hotel accommodation. In these instances, staying at KOA may not be an time effective option. Additionally, their locations on highways are most frequently near railway tracks and sometimes crowded and noisy. Unlike, those within the most national parks, these campgrounds provide shower and coin operated laundry facilities.

It is advisable to keep looking for flight and lodging options simultaneously to avoid trip scheduling issues.