The final itinerary

The cross country road trip

Here is the final result of all my work during the past couple of months. As you can see from the map (click for a larger view) the final route doesn’t really follow US-50, the original inspiration for this trip. Essentially this route is designed to focus the attention on the South West, starting from the amazing “Million Dollar Highway” that crosses the Rocky Mountains in Colorado, to the Monument Valley in the desert of Arizona, then moving north to visit the three most beautiful National Parks in Utah, the Arches, Bryce Canyon and Zion. Then back south to the breathtaking Antelope Canyon in Arizona and to the Grand Canyon, of course. From there we will follow historic route 66 heading then up north in Nevada to spend a couple of days in Las Vegas.

From Las Vegas the final part of the trip will start with a long drive in the Death Valley up to the amazing Mono Lake, in California. We will spend a couple of days in the magnificent Yosemite Park and then, after that, we will drive to the Pacific half-way between LA and SF. The last two days of the trip we’ll drive north on Highway 1 along the Big Sur, one of the most beautiful coastlines in the world, ending the trip in San Francisco as originally planned.

I decided to skip Washington mostly because for us, living in New York, Washington is a destination that can be easily reached. Also, as you can see from the map, in which every day is marked with a different color, we will be driving through pretty quickly through the first half of the US, slowing down only for a couple of detours. If during this trip we will find some areas that deserve further exploration we can always plan shorter trips in the near future directly from where we live.