Considering an American road trip

[Joe Bagadonuts]

Sure, but I'm not driving there from Salt Lake.

You're not driving where? Zions, Arches, Moab, Park City, Jackson, Yellowstone, the Uintas and literally a million more great places to go within easy driving distance, and driving is the only convenient option to get to most of them.

 

[Miggs]

Pitt is awesome and possibly the best sports city in America. The stadiums are fantastic (I love the location) and the fans are even better. Geography is awesome, totally unexpected, and the approach from the airport through the tunnel is the perfect way to see it for the first time. Also, it's made an extremely impressive transition from a steel town to a high-tech hub. No other city in the region has pulled that off half as well.

I can't understand how anyone wouldn't like Philly, though. I've been there many times and I find something else to love every time.

Philly is a complete sty imo. There are parts that are nice. By the Art Museum, Boathouse Row, etc. But in general, I find it to be a dirty, boring, miserable town.

 

[infection]

You're not driving where? Zions, Arches, Moab, Park City, Jackson, Yellowstone, the Uintas and literally a million more great places to go within easy driving distance, and driving is the only convenient option to get to most of them.

I'm talking road trips >6 hours.

 

[infection]

Philly is a complete sty imo. There are parts that are nice. By the Art Museum, Boathouse Row, etc. But in general, I find it to be a dirty, boring, miserable town.

A few years ago I spent a couple weeks in Philly and it was badass. I catalogued most of it here:

https://jazzfanz.com/showthread.php?16662-My-recent-travels-across-the-country

 

[Joe Bagadonuts]

Philly is a complete sty imo. There are parts that are nice. By the Art Museum, Boathouse Row, etc. But in general, I find it to be a dirty, boring, miserable town.

Wow. I guess I've been lucky because the Philly you're describing is nothing at all like the Philly that I've experienced.

 

[Joe Bagadonuts]

I'm talking road trips >6 hours.

I picked destinations that were too close? There are plenty of great places that are more than 6 hours away. Banff, Seattle, Santa Fe, Grand Canyon, San Francisco, Lake Powell, Phoenix and a million more. Your sentence in post #1 now makes even less sense to me than the first time I read it. I think it's cool that you like to get out a discover new places with your family. Based on your comments I think you're going to be blown away by the number of places there are to be discovered around SLC (and you can get a hell of a lot farther in 6 hours in this half of the country than in the other half).

 

[infection]

I picked destinations that were too close? There are plenty of great places that are more than 6 hours away. Banff, Seattle, Santa Fe, Grand Canyon, San Francisco, Lake Powell, Phoenix and a million more. Your sentence in post #1 now makes even less sense to me than the first time I read it. I think it's cool that you like to get out a discover new places with your family. Based on your comments I think you're going to be blown away by the number of places there are to be discovered around SLC (and you can get a hell of a lot farther in 6 hours in this half of the country than in the other half).

There is one exception to this that my wife and I are going to go from SLC to Calgary (speaking of Banf), over to Vancouver, down through Seattle and back. Also, places like Reno and Tahoe we will drive. Or if we have some reason to go to Vegas. Other than that, we're not driving to AZ or any other locale. Sure, you can get places from SLC in 9 hours, but there ain't much between there. At least not that we haven't seen. So what I mean to say is we're not taking a car trip for the leisure of taking a car trip.

 

[bigb]

What's at the top? I'm curious.

Civil war battle sites. Revolutionary era sites. European castles and WWII sites.

 

[Joe Bagadonuts]

There is one exception to this that my wife and I are going to go from SLC to Calgary (speaking of Banf), over to Vancouver, down through Seattle and back. Also, places like Reno and Tahoe we will drive. Or if we have some reason to go to Vegas. Other than that, we're not driving to AZ or any other locale. Sure, you can get places from SLC in 9 hours, but there ain't much between there. At least not that we haven't seen. So what I mean to say is we're not taking a car trip for the leisure of taking a car trip.

I took a very similar trip once, only in the opposite direction. We also included San Francisco, the Redwoods and Glacier National Park. Give yourself enough time because there's a lot to see. I think there's a ton between here and there in any 9 hour trip from the Wasatch Front as well. Get off the interstate. Take the state highways and back roads. You'll be amazed at how much you've missed. There's an awesome turn of the century malt shop in Roosevelt, a hot spring that the community has turned into a very unique free public soaking pool near Monroe, Skyline Drive with it's drop dead gorgeous scenery, Highway 89 and the chain of quaint towns along it, Mount Nebo, Simpson Springs bird refuge in the west desert on the Pony Express Trail, Butterfly Lake on the Mirror Lake Highway, Highway 6 (which some call the most beautiful highway in America), Coyote Gulch off the Hole in the Rock Trail and that's just a fraction of the great places I know about on Utah byways. Take a tent along and you can find a beautiful place to pitch it near practically any attraction that catches your attention.