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Travel the USA and Canada

The author at Monument Valley in 1997

March 19, 2002-October 15, 2002

These are some notes I put together for my aunt about traveling in the US and Canada. There are many more things that I would like to note, but I just haven't had time to put it all together yet. But here are several thoughts...

First, please see my Seattle log and my Yellowstone log if you have high-speed access. I plan to put some photos up that I shot in Maine this past weekend (October 12, 2002). That will probably be in another week or two.

Second, think about getting a Visit USA Ticket. For Canadian Rail Travel, take a look at Via Rail

Third, my favorite places in the USA are: (Yellowstone National Park or Yellowstone National Park), Bryce Canyon National Park, the Grand Canyon National Park, the Kenai Penninsula of Alaska, Monument Valley. You can get a brief overview of many of the parks at the National Park Service. Unfortunately, I have yet to find any really good sites that show off the various parks. The National Park Service websites show very little. Perhaps it is because they already get so many visitors!

What America has to offer that is truly unique are the things like Yellowstone (the world's first national park, home to 60% of the world's geo-thermal features and North America's best safari), Yosemite (2nd tallest waterfall in the world, etc.), the Grand Canyon (deepest? and second broadest canyon? in the world), Bryce, Zion, the Arches, Escalante, the Grand Tetons, etc.

You could hit a lot of those by flying to either Las Vegas or Salt Lake City.

Also San Antonio, near Austin, is beautiful. And not quite so near, but probably within striking distance by rental car are Carlsbad Caverns (923 feet deep), Big Bend National Park and the Battleship Texas (in Houston).

The cities are spectacular too, but other countries have great cities. New York never stops! Chicago is beautiful, but frequently chilly. Los Angeles doesn't do anything for my soul. San Francisco is beautiful. Atlanta is slow, but a great place to live.

The biggest problem that I see is actually getting to the parks that are so incredible for the casual voyager who doesn't have a car or an RV. Such travelers really have to go by car or by an arranged tour, like a bus tour.

The natural beauty that is similar to Switzerland is in Alaska. In fact, Gateway of the Arctic, the largest national park in the US, is larger than Switzerland! If you wish to see beautiful cities, then you should go to Washington.

One thing that would be relatively easy for the carless traveler to do would be to take a train trip across Canada, and then take side trips by bus from different cities. For example, you could go from Quebec to Victoria (coast to coast). Both of those towns are beautiful and easily accessible on foot. From Calgary you can get to Banff and Jasper National Parks. Actually, I think that the train even goes directly to Banff. This way you get the natural beauty and beautiful towns and all within a relatively easily accessible package.

On a tangent and just for fun... If I had just one week to see as much of the US as I wanted to, what would be my itinerary? Here are the conditions for such an itinerary...

1. Not going to visit your relatives.
2. Use any mode of public travel, such as taxis, buses, ferries, trains and aircraft.
3. Not spend more than two days in any one city or park, etc.
4. Not go back to the same place more than once, except to change planes, etc.

In one week, I would do the following mad dash:

1. Day 1: Fly from Atlanta to Salt Lake City to West Yellowstone. From there, rent an RV and head east into Yellowstone National Park, the grandest place in the entire world that I've seen so far. California is very, very beautiful, and may be the most beautiful state. But the most beautiful and diverse scenery has to be in Yellowstone National Park. And Wyoming, for that matter, gives good competition to California as a state. So do Alaska and Washington.
2. Day 2-3: From Yellowstone, head south to and then through the Grand Tetons on to Salt Lake. From Salt Lake City, go south-east to the Arches National Park. I would kick myself for skipping Glen Canyon/Lake Powell.
3. Day 4: Depart Arches National Park. Then go further south to Valley of the Gods, Monument Valley and Canyon de Chelley and maybe hit Four Corners if I was really bored.
4. Day 5: Then I would go back north-west to the Grand Canyon. I would kick myself yet again for skipping Glen Canyon/Lake Powell.
5. Day 6: And then further north to and through Zion National Park. Finally I would hit Bryce Canyon, which is also phenomenally beautiful and scenic.
6. Day 7: At this point, I would be in grave danger of missing my return flight. The nearest airport would be either Las Vegas or Salt Lake. So I would head back there and fly home.

Of course with this agenda, I would spend more time seeing things from the RV then actually visiting them or sleeping! A one week trip seems ludicrous, but with life the way it is today, it's sometimes a reality. I once did do a similar mad dash from Albuquerque to Petroglyphs to El Mal Pais to Chaco Canyon (closed) to Aztec to Four Corners to Valley of the Gods to Monument Valley to Canyon de Chelley and back to Albuquerque in 48 hours several years ago. It was definitely a sampler package, but it was wonderful. I drove a heck of a lot from sun up to well beyond sunset, and almost missed my flight back to Atlanta!