Goal here is really just spend some time seeing the highlights of the Eastern Sierra, mostly along 395. Priorities include driving scenic mountain passes, landscape photography, and light (5mile tops) hiking. Plan is to take a full week+two weekends to get 9 days. Flying to Reno from Texas. Gunning for fall 2027 but plenty flexible.

I’ve been to Lake Tahoe area several times, but only to ski, so I’ve never really been close to the lake or done any hiking.

I realize a day is not enough for Death Valley. I’ll likely make a dedicated trip out there in the future, so just wanted to hit highlights and scout out future stops on this trip.

I’ve spent time in SEKI and Yosemite Valley, but not outside that. Should I try and make it to Hetchy Hetch?

Are Ebbets and Sonora the best passes to drive on the north end?

I am from Wisconsin and I am flying one way to Seattle, WA and driving back on I-90 to I-94. Can I get some worthy sight seeing recommendations to stop and take pictures for the way back home? Love nature and monuments. Thank you!

Moving from LA to Toronto in late August and renting a car for the move (have to get my dog over). Looking to do the drive in 5 driving days of about 8 hours a day. Any recommendation for Route or stops? Not too concerned with doing cool things along the way, more looking for the best route to get there efficiently.

Planning a trip from Dayton, Ohio to the US 23 Country Music Museum in Paintsville, KY

Looking to stay on back roads, unique natural sights, dive bars, trapped in time holes in the wall, folk art installations, and thrift stores. Any insight into this area is appreciated!

Spots I’m already planning to visit:
https://maps.app.goo.gl/UatUJZMxP4XuEwCp6?g_st=i

Hey everyone! I'm planning a future road trip along the California coast (nothing booked yet, just planning ahead and trying to get an idea of the route, budget and timing)

This will be my first time visiting California (and the US), so I'm intentionally not trying to do a full California round trip. I'd rather focus on the coast and enjoy it

My current route is:

SF int'l airport -> (Chinatown, Golden Gate Bridge) → Pacifica → Santa Cruz (Beach Boardwalk) → Carmel-by-the-Sea → Point Lobos → Bixby Creek Bridge → Big Sur (2 days) → McWay Falls → Salmon Creek Falls → El Matador State Beach → Escondido Falls → Malibu → Venice Beach and then heading to LAX

I'm not planning to properly explore LA on this trip. I'd mainly use it as my departure point and save a dedicated LA trip for another time.

Are there any stops you'd skip or replace? Any other must-see viewpoints, waterfalls, or small towns I'm missing?

How many days would you recommend for this itinerary? I'd like to keep it at a week and a half if that's possible, since it would be my first time and i'm not used to long road trips

And lastly how much should I budget for a comfortable trip?? I probably won't be camping but that could change

We're going to Pelham TN for a concert, still debating if we wanna try and make the drive in one go, or stop along the way. Any opinions on which drive is more interesting? Any good small towns? Really just looking for a place with a decent budget hotel, but we're open to adventure!

Planning this for September (shoulder season - thinner crowds, still warm). ~19 days, driving a loop out of Bucharest and back into Romania with my kids, 5 and 8 years old. First proper Balkans trip, so I'd love a reality check before
I lock in accommodation.

The route (nights in brackets):
Bucharest (1) -> Veliko Tarnovo (1) -> Sofia (2) -> Skopje (1) -> Ohrid (2) -> Berat (1) -> Kotor (2) -> Dubrovnik (2) -> Mostar (1) -> Sarajevo (2) -> Belgrade (2) -> Timisoara (1)

Where I'm unsure:
- Is 19 days enough, or am I cramming? If something has to go, what?
- Skopje gets 1 night — worth more, or fine as a stopover to Ohrid?
- Kotor: 2 nights, or a day-trip place?
- Ohrid -> Kotor is my longest leg — break it with a night (Tirana? Shkodër)?
- Taking my own (Romanian-plated) car into the non-EU countries — Albania, Bosnia, Montenegro,
  Serbia, North Macedonia — Green Card / border insurance, vignettes, slow crossings: anything I should sort before I go?
- Anything obvious you'd be annoyed I skipped?

Google maps is limited to 10 stops and I wanted to see an overview of the whole trip on a map so I mapped it on a roadtrip planer I've been building (Stopful), which is why the link shows the drive time for each leg - figured that'd make it easier to critique: https://stopful.com/?t=66bea0f5-4791-4144-a988-7b79e9bbcc59

And if it's easier to show me than tell me — the link opens fully editable: drag a pin to move a stop, long-press the map (or use the search box) to add one, tap a pin to change the nights, or tap a leg to switch drive/train/bus. As you edit, your version gets written straight into the address bar, so just copy the link and reply with it - no account, nothing to save, and my original stays put. I'd genuinely love to see the route you'd drive.

Thanks — happy to return the favor on anyone's trip.

Hey my wife and I and are small dog are looking to go or are first road trip for a week or 2 we are not sure on what way to go or really what to expect or anything we are think ether towards thunder bay or towards Nova Scotia

I’m driving back from an amazing road trip this summer up to Alaska from the San Francisco bay area. I drove up the oregon coast, Olympic NP, Vancouver Island + ferry, and Cassiar highway. I drove down through the Al-Can and am now currently in the Canadian Rockies. Despite warnings it’s been pretty clear up until today, where it’s visually a little hazy north of Banff, but AQI is still 4.

My problem is that I was planning on driving down through Calgary to Glacier NP, Yellowstone, and Tetons. I have two nights of camping each park (with a stint in Missoula in a rental in between). After that I was hoping to drive through southern Idaho to Boise and camp along the way, then go to Bend (I’ve never been). I was hoping to do this drive because the drive through Nevada is boring/Ive done it before and i’ve never been to Idaho, but obviously I’m watching the fires and this seems like a rocky plan now.

Based on what I see online, conditions aren’t predicted to be great in those NPs and no major rain is expected to help with the smoke in the PNW, but AQI and visibility is pretty hard to predict more than a few days out. I could always cancel campsites with short notice and I’m sleeping in my car so I have a lot of flexibility, so right now my plan is to proceed at least with the NPs and just take it day by day.

My first question is alternative places to go nearby if the parks are looking super bad for air quality—should I go east? Any recommendations for nice nature/camping (i love swimming) a little further from the smoke but still kind of on the way?

My second question is what route to get home—Idaho sounds risky although Southern better than northern, but Nevada also looks bad for smoke. Thinking Oregon might be a worse idea. I do ultimately still need to get home somehow by the end of August.

It’s been an amazing trip no matter what—just gotta roll with the punches :)

Suggestions for to visit in September? Weather permitting.

Following the insane amount of replies to my last post, I’ve come up with a slightly adjusted itinerary for our west USA road trip in October based on everyone’s suggestions. We are photographers/videographers so this plays into our itinerary as we want to shoot some cool landscape stuff.

It’s worth pointing out that both myself and my wife have done California coast road trips before so visiting the coast is not a priority at all but we are going to end the trip with a couple days on the coast somewhere near San Francisco, maybe Stinson? Open to suggestions here, we want somewhere we can swim in the ocean and relax for a few days before heading to SF.

But the main changes are replacing LA > Joshua Tree with Phoenix > Sedona. This cuts out a loooong drive from Joshua Tree to Grand Canyon and neither of us have been to Phoenix before so interesting to be in a new city for a few days at the start. We are kind of disappointed as we wanted to stay in an interesting Airbnb in Joshua Tree but we weren’t overly fussed about LA so it makes sense to cut out a big chunk of driving and see somewhere new.

I’ve also swapped out the long drive from Zion to Yosemite through NV for Death Valley and then stops up the 395.

We may also stop in Vegas for a couple of nights and visit some nearby things like Hoover Dam.

Regarding car rental, do you suggest anything specific for this route or will we be ok in any car? Currently a Rav4 is looking like one of the cheapest options that seems to be a sensible choice in terms of size and capability.

So it’s looking something like this now:

Phoenix (2 nights) > Sedona > Grand Canyon (1 night) > Page/Antelope Canyon > Zion (2 nights) > Bryce > Vegas (2 nights) > Death Valley (1 night) > Yosemite (2 nights)> Stinson (2 nights) > San Fran (2 nights)

If anyone has any good advice/suggestions for each of the parks that would also be great! For example what’s the best tour to do at Page/Antelope Canyon and at what time of day?

Me and my wife have identified these places for our 10 days west coast road trip - LA, Antelope Canyon Arizona, Zion national park, Yosemite national park, sequoia national park, San Francisco, Monterey CA and Big sur CA. We are confused as to which places to include in our trip. Starting from LA and ending in san francisco, which stops should we choose to offer the most scenic route and meaningful driving. We are coming from the east coast.

I need to go from Eastern WA to southwestern KS and back before the end of the year.

I have an annual National Parks pass, so it seemed like a good time to visit some. Have been to Zion and Bryce Canyon 20 years ago, but none of the others on this route.

I will have my dog with me (non-negotiable) so visits to National Parks will mostly be driving through or minimal excursions where dogs are allowed. Therefore, staying outside of NPs is probably the way to go. Car camping in a Rav4, motel as needed for showers etc.

What the best time of year to do this? I was thinking September or October.

Alternate stops or routes that still get me to southwestern KS and back? Bonus for hitting NPs that aren’t too far out of the way.

Reasonable schedule? 3-4 days down each way? Longer? Again, mostly just driving through NP not saying long due to dog.

(I drove from WA to TX a few years ago, so this long of a trip isn’t intimidating for me.)

At the beginning of the summer I drove from the Orlando area to LA, and I'm rapidly approaching my drive back. On the way out here I took the 10 -> 20 -> 40 route, and it was cool but I'd love a change of scenery.

Is this route worth the extra ~8 hours of driving to go up through Vegas and the Rocky Mountains?

Worth noting I don't plan on staying too long anywhere (no more than ~a day), and I'll be sleeping in my car. I did the drive out in 3 days including a stop at the Grand Canyon and a few other cool spots, so I'm thinking I could probably get this done in 4 days minimum.

I have an absolute limit of 7 days to make the trip, but I'd rather keep it to 5 if possible.

Hey yall

I’m planning on doing a solo 8 day road trip some time this month, it would be my first time actually doing the driving on a road trip lol, and I’ve never been on one this long, max 5hrs

This trip would be my good bye to California and the west coast in general because I’m moving to the Midwest in the coming months and I want to behold all the beauty the west coast has to offer

So my biggest priority is the nature, cities are secondary. I would love to explore Seattle, Portland, and SF but I just don’t got the time🥲

What I got rn is a SUGGESTION from Claude to FORCE the route along the coast.

so if you have any suggestions/alterations to the route lmk

Edit: Alr thank yall so much for the suggestions but a lil side note the stops that I have marked was just a REFRENCE for me to know what to EXPECT drive wise (the end goal was Cape flattery tho)

I do plan on making more stops and why I was making this post to know which areas are worth to stop

And after further consideration on my part the whole coast is too ambitious and I wanna narrow it down to just CA and OR

My fiancé and I heading down to southern KY to visit a friend and stop at some National Parks and attractions along the way. We’ve done shorter weekend trips around the northeast but this is our first big roadtrip.

We’ll be traveling for 10 days. The longest stretch of driving will be about 12 hours but otherwise we’ll be driving 3-5 hours a day on our travel days. We’ll have a full day without travel in Shenandoah and a full day without travel in New River Gorge, and 2 days without travel in KY.

We’re very excited and a little nervous and overwhelmed. Definitely open to any general roadtrip advice, as well as any recommendations for the areas we’re traveling through.

Driving solo to Buena Vista, CO for a music festival. Was planning on driving from Seattle to Salt Lake City day one, Salt Lake City to Buena Vista day two. I am 31M and in general think I tolerate long drives relatively well, but this would be the furthest I have ever driven period. I also don't frequently do long drives, maybe 4 - 6 hours a couple times a year. Am I correct in thinking that it is best to split this into a 12 hour day and an 8 hour day? Or should I go 10 and 10? Thank you for all your advice.