Hello, fellow adventurers! I’m Haley Wilcox. In the past, I’ve worked with Cindy and was excited to pitch her this story, the unforgettable road trip my mom and I took along Route 66 last summer to visit several national parks!
She told me I should share this travel guide and tips I learned from my once-in-a-lifetime trip with you, so here it is!
My dad loved to take us on road trips when I was young. After he passed away last winter, my mom and I decided to plan a trip to spend some time together and honor his memory.
My mom is retired, and I work at a school, so I have lots of time in the summer to travel.
She and I had never been to the Grand Canyon, so we planned the trip around that, and the result was a two-week trip through 12 states!
Planning the Trip
We wanted to strike a balance between planning ahead for our big stops and leaving room for in-the-moment decisions along the way.
The Grand Canyon was our biggest destination of the trip, and I knew we wanted to stay in Grand Canyon Village, which can fill up well in advance. We booked that ahead of time, as well as our hotels in South Dakota to see Mount Rushmore and the Badlands.
We made other hotel reservations on the day of, once we had decided where we would stay for the night. This ended up working very well for us, as it gave us the flexibility to spend more time in unexpected places while still providing enough structure to know where we needed to be and when.
Our trip was split into roughly three parts: the drive there, during which we did our best to stick to Route 66 as much as possible, our time at the Grand Canyon, and the drive back.
📝 A note on booking hotels on the day: I consider myself a planner, especially when it comes to big undertakings like a cross-country road trip. At first, it made me feel a bit anxious not to know exactly where we were staying every night of the trip; however, having made the mistake of over-planning trips in the past (which led to a feeling of rushing and being on a constant time crunch), I decided to give this strategy a try in favor of more flexibility.
I found that, thanks to sites like Expedia and Booking.com, it turned out to be pleasantly manageable and stress-free!
Typically, whenever we stopped for food or gas near the end of our day of travel, I would spend 10-15 minutes on my phone finding an affordable, well-reviewed hotel, and we never ran into any issues!
📝 One last note before jumping into each leg of our trip: If you’re taking a trip where you plan to visit more than one national park, or even if you plan to visit more than one national park in a year, consider buying an America the Beautiful pass.
They’re a great deal that gives you access to unlimited national parks for 12 months! They also offer lifetime passes, discounted passes for seniors or military veterans, and more!
Route 66 Attractions
Route 66 is a fascinating relic of American history and, in many ways, represents mid-20th-century American culture. Although it was officially decommissioned in 1985, it remains prevalent in American culture today, underscoring the lasting mark the Mother Road left on our culture.
Up until about New Mexico (Day 5), we tried to take the original Route 66 as much as possible. There were times we hopped on the interstate to save time, but we tried to get as much of the Route 66 experience as possible.
While planning the trip, I found it much harder to find information and tips for following the original route than I expected. Here are some of the resources I found helpful when planning the Route 66 portion of our trip!
Tools We Used:
This app came in handy for finding classic Route 66 stops in all the cities and towns along the route. The app also offers a paid version that includes turn-by-turn directions to help you stay on the route, but we opted for the free version and still found it very helpful!r the free version and still found it very helpful!
🛜 Information online.
Before the trip, I spent some time searching the internet to find information about where the road is practical to take, and where it might be best to hop on the interstate. I found that it was most helpful to search state by state (e.g., where can I still drive the original Route 66 in Illinois?).
There are also lots of YouTube videos from people who have taken the route with helpful tips!
Spending some time before your trip will save you lots of time (and frustration!) while actually on your Route 66 adventure!
🪧 Road signs.
Old-fashioned, I know. But while navigation apps can get you to the vicinity of the route in different towns, we found that the best way to get onto the route was to look for roadside signs! Most Route 66 towns have clearly marked signs to point you in the right direction. Once you’re on Route 66, it’s generally pretty easy to stay on it (with the exceptions of big cities like St. Louis and Tulsa).
Other Tips for Traveling to Route 66 Attractions
📍 Don’t wait until the day of to make your Route 66 plan. It took quite a bit more planning than I anticipated to figure out where we could/could not stay on the route and how to find the route itself.
📍 Build in a little bit of wiggle room. You may have to rely on finding physical signs pointing you in the direction of the original route, which will more than likely lead to a few detours. This was no problem for us, as we left ourselves enough time to get where we needed to go with lots of wiggle room, but it would have been frustrating if we were in any bit of a hurry.
📍 Talk to locals and other tourists! Most cities along Route 66 are small (with obvious exceptions like Chicago, St. Louis, Oklahoma City, and Amarillo), and they are used to tourists passing through. Very likely, any store/restaurant employees have a list of other local places of interest.
📍 Plan your must-see destinations (such as restaurants, museums, shops, etc.) and cities you’d like to check out to see what’s there. Be open to detours in places you didn’t necessarily plan to stop!
Day 1 (Chicago, IL to Sullivan, MO)
We kicked off our trip from my mom’s house near Chicago. We knew we had to be at the Grand Canyon by Day 5, but had no other hotels booked until then. We had a general idea of how far we’d like to make it, but were comfortable going farther or stopping sooner depending on the day’s activities.
We loaded up the car and took off around noon.
Our first stop was at the Rock & Roll Museum in Joliet, Illinois, to get our Route 66 passports. Route 66 passports are sold at dozens of stops along the route or can be ordered online. They’re a fun way to track your travels or get ideas for where to stop along the way!
We chose not to buy tickets to the Rock & Roll Museum, but from what we saw, it would have been a cool stop!
Once we bought our passports, we drove a few blocks to an intersection that put us on the original Route 66. It took us a few minutes to navigate the one-way streets and reach our destination, but once we arrived at the intersection, the Route 66 signage was clear, and it was easy to get onto the route.
From Joliet, we took Route 66 to Pontiac, IL, where we stopped for lunch at the Old Log Cabin.
This restaurant looked exactly as the name implied! It was a stand-alone building in a relatively quiet part of town, but it had friendly servers, nostalgic decor, and a great menu!
They also gave us a guest book to sign and write about our Route 66 travels. My mom and I had a great time reading through the guest book, which included many entries from American and international travelers!
There were a few other patrons in the restaurant, including a father and his teenage son from France who were riding their bikes from Chicago all the way to Los Angeles along Route 66!
We didn’t get the chance to talk to them at length about their travels, but for the rest of our trip, we mused about how far they might have gotten (and, at times, about how grateful we were for the luxury of our car)
Pontiac, IL – like some other towns along Route 66 – is known for its murals. We passed a few from our car, but did not go out of our way to look at all of them.
We passed through a few other notable Route 66 towns in Illinois before entering Missouri (like Wilmington, known for its Gemini Giant roadside statue, and Springfield, the state’s capital and home to Route 66 attractions like the Cozy Dog Drive-In and the Giant Muffler Man).
Admittedly, we rushed through Illinois a bit, our reasoning being that it is so close to home, we could easily check out those stops on a day trip in the future. However, in hindsight, I wish we had allowed ourselves a bit more flexibility to see what Route 66 has to offer in Illinois!
We stayed the night in Sullivan, Missouri, at an America’s Best Value Inn motel.
Day 2 (Sullivan, MO to Chandler, OK)
Our first stop on day 2 was Meramac Caverns for a cave tour. I had this on our must-do list, thanks to a very successful (and creative!) advertising campaign dating back to the 1930s. I’d driven through Missouri several times, and I remembered seeing several barns with giant advertisements for Meramac Caverns painted across the roofs or sides.
I had never had the chance to stop, but figured this would be the perfect time!
We stopped in and bought two tickets to their timed guided tours, which run just over an hour and take you over a mile into winding cave systems.
Our tour guide was fantastic, and we learned about the caverns’ geological history, the time Jesse James spent hiding out there, and even that a scene from an episode of Lassie was filmed there!
My mom hadn’t heard of the caverns before and didn’t know what to expect, but if you ask her now, she puts this stop at the top of her list for the trip, right up there with the Grand Canyon!
She was absolutely blown away by the structures we saw on the tour and just how long they’ve been there (hundreds of millions of years!).
Meramec Caverns is open seven days a week, year-round, except for Christmas Day and Thanksgiving.
After we toured the caverns, we browsed the gift shop and bought a few souvenirs. We then explored the outdoor area of this attraction, which sits along the beautiful Meramec River. We made a last-minute decision to take a short boat tour on the river.
The river is lined on one side by a tall bluff, which our tour guide explained is the outside of the caverns we were just inside!
It was a relaxing 20-minute boat trip that was well worth the $12 ticket!
We stopped for lunch after leaving Meramec Caverns, and then we were back on the road.
An unexpected highlight of the day was a trip to Bass Pro Shops in Springfield, MO. I figured it would be a quick stop for us to use the restroom and stretch our legs, but my mom was really delighted by its size and the range of attractions inside, including an aquarium.
We spent the night in Chandler, Oklahoma, at the Lincoln Motel.
Day 3 (Chandler, OK to Amarillo, TX)
Day 3 started with an unexpected stop at a mechanic. A light had come on in my mom’s car, and she was concerned, so we figured it was better to be safe than sorry. The man at Baldwin’s Auto & Lube took a look, assured us it was nothing to worry about, and wished us safe travels.
Once we had our car troubles sorted, we got back on the road and continued west.
One of our favorite stops on Day 3 was the Oklahoma Route 66 Museum in Clinton. I had visited the museum a few years prior and was excited to see it again with my mom, who had never been.
The museum takes you through the route’s history, from its inception to its glory days to its eventual decommissioning and enduring legacy. It’s packed with photos, information, and cultural relics. It was as much fun for me the second time around, and my mom loved taking the trip down memory lane to decades past.
We spent the night in Amarillo, TX, at the Big Texan Steak Ranch, which is a destination in and of itself. The Big Texan is best known for its 72 oz steak challenge, which gives brave (and hungry) guests the chance to finish a huge steak and sides; if they complete it in one hour, it’s free.
Other standout features of this restaurant include games, a large outdoor area featuring a stage for live music, and musicians who go table to table singing songs by request! There is also a motel on the grounds, where we stayed for the night.
Day 4 (Amarillo, TX to Gallup, NM):
We left from Texas on Day 4 and headed west toward New Mexico. Our destination for the day was Albuquerque, where my nephew and his wife live. It had been years since I’d had a chance to see my nephew, so this was a major highlight of the trip for me! We stopped at his house, met his dogs, and headed out for lunch.
We ate at Tin Can Alley Food Hall, which offers a wide variety of food and drink. It was a beautiful day, so we ate on the rooftop patio.
After we’d finished eating, my nephew asked if we had time to take a trip up the nearby Sandia Mountains. We agreed to take the impromptu trip, happy we had built enough flexibility into our itinerary.
The scenic drive took about 30 to 45 minutes to reach the top of the mountain, giving us plenty of time to catch up. On our trip up the mountain, there is a stretch of road featuring rumble strips that, when driven over with your tires, plays the tune of America the Beautiful! It was a small but truly one-of-a-kind and unforgettable detail!
At the scenic overlook, we were treated to stunning views of the area surrounding Albuquerque. We spent some time admiring the views, took a few pictures, and enjoyed a relaxing drive back down the mountain.
We said goodbye to my nephew and drove a few hours west to Gallup, NM, where we spent the night at the Red Roof Inn.
Day 5 (Gallup, NM to Grand Canyon):
When we woke up on Day 5, it was with the excitement that by sundown, we’d be at Grand Canyon National Park! It would be my mom’s and my first time there, and it was a destination we were both excited to check off the bucket list!
Before reaching our hotel to check in, we stopped at the South Rim Visitor Center. They had a theater with a video on a loop, so we strolled around the visitor center for a few minutes before the next showing began. The video was about 15 minutes long and was the perfect introduction to the park! It oriented us to the national park, taught us about the canyon itself, and told of conservation success stories like the reintroduction of the California Condor to the region!
From the visitor center, we took a short hike (~0.25 miles) to get our first view of the canyon.
The beauty and vastness of the canyon left us in a state of total awe. As anyone lucky enough to visit the Grand Canyon can attest, words cannot do it justice, but suffice it to say, it was absolutely breathtaking.
We reluctantly headed back to the car and continued to our hotel.
We had three nights booked at the Maswik Lodge, part of Grand Canyon Village, the national park visitor hub on the south rim of the canyon.
Grand Canyon Village contains several lodging and dining options, a visitor center, gift shops, museums, and more! It puts you a short walk away from the rim of the canyon and a shuttle station that takes you all around the national park.
In contrast to our “play-it-by-ear” approach to other hotels along the way, we booked our room at the Maswik Lodge months in advance, and I would recommend the same to anyone hoping to stay!
There are, of course, other lodging options outside of the national park, but the experience of staying so close to the canyon was, to us, well worth the price and planning required.
(Our total for three nights in the lodge was about $620, which included a discount for booking three or more nights. This was, by far, our most expensive stay of the trip, but we found that it was well worth it!)
After unloading the car, we lounged in the A/C for an hour or so to unwind.
As the day came to a close, we decided to hop on the shuttle bus and go to a scenic overlook to catch the sunset. The bus stop was about a 5-minute walk from our room and was a stop on several shuttle bus routes.
The one we took – the Hermit’s Rest Route (red) – travels west out of Grand Canyon Village to several overlooks and trailheads along the rim.
Another popular shuttle is the Village Route (blue), which serves stops throughout Grand Canyon Village.
You can learn more about the different shuttle routes here. (Make sure to check when each shuttle runs, as some only run seasonally.)
We caught a beautiful sunset at Hopi Point, where my mom scolded me (as did other moms to their children, respectively), for being too close to the edge for their comfort.
We made it safely back onto the shuttle bus, walked back to our hotel, and called it an early night.
Day 6 (Grand Canyon):
When I booked our room at the Maswik Lodge months prior, I also booked us a four-hour coach bus tour that took us around to a variety of scenic points along the rim that would not be accessible by shuttle.
Several different guided bus tours were offered, and we opted for the Desert View Tour, which took us to the East Rim of the canyon.
The most memorable stop was the Watchtower, designed almost 100 years ago by architect Mary Ann Colter and designated a National Historic Monument. Heavily influenced by indigenous peoples, the tower’s design and structure were fascinating to explore and truly unforgettable!
Learn more about guided tours at the Grand Canyon here!
After our tour, we stopped for lunch in the Village (I’ll touch more on dining options there later).
By midday, my mom was ready to relax in the hotel room, so I decided to go on a solo hike down the rim. I took the Bright Angel Trail, which stretches over 12 miles down into the canyon.
I planned to hike down about a mile and then turn around for a relatively quick, easy hike. However, the farther I went, the less I wanted to stop! Every twist and turn brought new breathtaking sights, and I just kept telling myself, “five more minutes!”
I ended up hiking more than 2.5 miles down, which turned out to be the easy half of the trip. The trip back up was long and grueling in the summer heat, and I had to stop every few minutes to catch my breath.
📝 Note: I have come to find out this is a common tale! Local Brandon Perlow shares all of his tips and tricks for a successful hike to the bottom of the Grand Canyon, and then back up, in his guide here!
The Bright Angel Trail was gorgeous and absolutely worth it, but make sure to pack lots of snacks and water!
Day 7 (Grand Canyon):
For our last full day at the Grand Canyon, we started our day with breakfast in the Village at a place my mom’s friend had recommended. It kicked off a leisurely day of soaking up as much beauty as we could before moving on to the next leg of our trip!
After breakfast, we took a short hike along the rim.
My mom is very active, but she’s in her 70s, and it was hot, so we took it slow. Nevertheless, she did great!
At one overlook, we spotted a California Condor soaring over the canyon, a species we had learned was on the brink of extinction but had been successfully reintroduced to the park and was growing in number!
After our hike, my mom relaxed in the hotel room while I ventured along the rim to the Yavapai Museum of Geology. This museum told the awe-inspiring story of how the Grand Canyon was formed over the course of billions (with a B!) of years.
We ended our last day in the park with dinner and a trip to the gift shop to stock up on souvenirs.
Food Options in Grand Canyon Village
El Tovar Dining Room: A steakhouse perfect for a night out or a fancy lunch.
Harvey House Cafe: A great place to start your day with breakfast.
Maswik Food Court: A quick and easy dining hall with lots of options.
Yavapai Tavern: A bit farther out from the Village, but accessible by shuttle and with very good food.
Day 8 (Grand Canyon to Moab, UT):
Sad to be leaving the Grand Canyon, but excited for the next leg of our trip. We packed up and checked out of the Maswik Lodge on Day 8. Our next stop was Moab, Utah.
The trip from the Grand Canyon to Moab was relatively uneventful, but the stunning scenery that surrounded us kept us more than entertained!
When we arrived in Moab, it struck me as one of the most unique cities I’d ever visited. The red rock landscape surrounded the city, which was much smaller and more quaint than I had anticipated.
The main strip was lined with tons of restaurants and shops, and we had a great time eating, shopping, and stretching our legs after a long drive.
Although it was just a one-night stop for us on this trip, I made a mental note to myself that I’d have to come back to spend more time there.
Moab struck me as an outdoor lover’s paradise. We noticed a large number of mountain bike and off-road rental shops.
We ate dinner at a restaurant called Gloria’s, where my mom made an offhand comment to our waiter about how fresh the water tasted there.
Our waiter then told us about a spring just down the road that flows out of the side of a mountain. He told us that people have sought the spring’s fresh water for thousands of years and gave us directions to find it. We made note of his instructions and decided to check it out before we left town in the morning.
We spent the night at the Inca Inn in downtown Moab.
Day 9 (Moab, UT to Cheyenne, WY):
When we left our hotel in the morning, we hopped in the car and followed our waiter’s directions to find the spring to fill our water bottles. It took more time to find it than we expected, but after asking a few locals for directions, we finally found it.
It’s called Matrimony Spring, and it’s located on Highway 128, less than a quarter mile east of Main Street and just across the street from the Colorado River. There is enough room on the side of the road to park a few cars, and if you didn’t know it was there, you’d drive right past it!
We filled our water bottles, took some pictures, and set off on what turned out to be the most beautiful stretch of driving of our trip!
Throughout the trip, we were treated to great sights while we drove, from fun Route 66 roadside attractions to sprawling fields and mountains, but our Day 9 trip from Moab, Utah, to Laramie, Wyoming, truly stands out from the rest.
It was the one day of our trip that I felt the drive itself far surpassed any stop we made along the way!
From Moab, we drove many miles along the Colorado River. I was entranced by the river’s contrast against the bright red rocks. As we drove out of Utah and into Colorado, the terrain shifted from dry red rock to lush green mountains.
We traveled along I-70 for the first stretch of the drive, then turned onto Colorado State Route 131, which was memorable, to say the least!
While on Route 131, we spent over three hours winding through the mountains with very few – if any – straight stretches of road. At one point, my mom remarked that we were lucky we had filled up on gas before this part of the drive, as it had been at least two hours since we had seen a gas station!
Being from Illinois, driving through winding mountain roads isn’t second nature to me, but luckily, the weather was good, we both kept our cool, and we finally made it to the interstate in Wyoming in one piece.
While I wouldn’t describe it as a relaxing drive, the gorgeous views (and adrenaline!) definitely made it a lifelong memory for both of us!
We made it to our hotel in Laramie, Wyoming (the Travel Inn) with a newfound appreciation for relatively flat land and straight roads.
Day 10 (Cheyenne, WY):
We had booked two nights in Laramie, giving us a full day to attend Cheyenne Frontier Days, a rodeo and festival held each summer.
We would have preferred to stay in Cheyenne rather than Laramie (about 50 miles away), but because of the festival, hotels were either booked up or outrageously expensive, so Laramie would have to do.
We arrived in Cheyenne in the early afternoon, parked our car, and took a shuttle to the fairgrounds. I went to college in Texas, and I still had never seen so many cowboy hats in one place!
Once on the fairgrounds, we had some time to kill before the rodeo started. We spent a lot of time shopping at vendors’ booths, where you could find everything from clothes to cowboy boots to knick-knacks.
We grabbed a bite to eat and then headed to our seats at the rodeo.
It was the first time either of us had seen a rodeo, so we didn’t know what to expect, but we had a great time watching all the events! It was really incredible to see such an intense sport up close.
The festival concludes each night with a concert from a different country music artist. On the day we were there, it was Brooks & Dunn, but after what had already been a long day, we decided to head back to Laramie and call it an early night.
Frontier Days is an absolute must-see for any rodeo or country music fans!
Day 11 (Cheyenne, WY to Keystone, SD):
We left our hotel in Laramie and headed east to South Dakota, where we planned to see Mount Rushmore that night. But first, I was very excited to see the Crazy Horse Memorial.
The Crazy Horse Memorial is a carving on the side of the Black Hills Mountains (not unlike Mount Rushmore) depicting the Lakota leader Crazy Horse. It is an ongoing project that has been underway for decades.
There is a beautiful visitor center with a museum, rooms filled with Lakota art, and a gift shop. You can then purchase a shuttle bus ticket to see the monument up close. It was both a beautiful spectacle and a humbling reminder of all that the Lakota people have faced and overcome.
From the Crazy Horse Memorial, we drove to our hotel in Keystone, South Dakota (the Magnuson Grand Rushmore View). We timed our trip to Mount Rushmore so we could see it both in daylight and after sunset.
Mount Rushmore National Memorial featured a striking visitor center with exhibits on the memorial’s construction and the presidents depicted.
There is also a short hike (0.6 miles) called the Presidential Trail, which leads closer to the memorial and offers unique, less well-known angles. It was a fun trail with lots of opportunities for cool photos!
Every night from Memorial Day through the end of September, at dusk, they host a lighting ceremony featuring a video, a ranger talk, and the memorial’s lighting at the end. It was very entertaining and well worth the wait!
After the ceremony had concluded, we spent a few more minutes admiring the monument before heading back to our hotel.
Day 12 (Keystone, SD to Badlands National Park):
The morning of Day 12, we set off for the last big stop of our trip: Badlands National Park. My mom had never heard of the Badlands, but I assured her that, based on what I had heard from Cindy and others, it would be well worth adding a few nights to our trip.
👉 You can read Cindy’s Ultimate One Day Badlands National Park Road Trip Itinerary here.
It was a short trip from Keystone to the Badlands, and we had some time to kill before checking into our next hotel, so we stopped at Wall, South Dakota, at the famous Wall Drug store.
Wall Drug was a massive roadside attraction containing dozens of shops, places to eat, and photo ops.
We spent a few hours there browsing through the shops and getting some Christmas shopping done, and I don’t think we saw even half of it! It truly had something for everyone and is a must-stop for anyone in the area.
We checked into the Super 8 in Wall, SD, before heading to the Badlands Visitor Center, which featured an impressive museum and a fascinating fossil-preparation lab, where you could watch paleontologists and students work on fossils in real time!
Before we even stepped out of the car in the Badlands, it was clear to us that this was a truly one-of-a-kind national park.
It’s difficult to describe the land; the best way to put it is that I felt as if I were on another planet. The peaks and valleys were nothing out of the ordinary; it was the sprawling, bizarrely shaped formations that made it unlike anything I had ever seen before.
It’s a scene better shown in pictures than in words, and even better to see in person, if you ever have the chance!
We drove to a few scenic outlooks, where I occasionally took short solo hikes while my mom stayed in the car and read a book.
A few of the hikes I took felt less like hikes and more like playing on a playground, with small mounds in every direction that could be climbed on, over, and through, giving it a very “choose your own adventure” feel!
After a day spent adventuring in the national park, we had dinner at Badlands Saloon and Grille, where I had one of the best burgers of my life! (It was called the Badlands Burger and had jalapeños, cream cheese, and jelly. Highly recommend!)
Day 13 (Badlands National Park):
On the last full day of our trip before returning home, we kicked off day 13 with one of our most fun impromptu stops of the trip. On our way into the national park for another day of sightseeing, something on the side of the road caught our attention – an enormous prairie dog statue, a small building, and a sign that read “Stop and feed the prairie dogs.”
That was all the convincing we needed, so we pulled off the road and into the parking lot.
The Badlands Ranch Store had a gift shop with paper bags full of peanuts for just a dollar a piece. We each bought ourselves a bag and stepped out into the field, where you could see upwards of 20 prairie dogs at any given time, close up and in the distance.
We had seen some prairie dogs in the park the day before, but this was by far the closest we had been. We spent close to an hour tossing peanuts to the prairie dogs and watching them chase each other around.
One brave prairie dog even came up to me and ate a peanut out of my hand!
After saying goodbye to our new prairie dog friends (and buying more prairie dog merch in the gift shop than I’d care to admit), we continued on toward the national park.
We didn’t make it far before another stop caught our eye, and we were back out of the car again. This time, it was at the Prairie Homestead, a museum that tells the story of the area’s homesteaders.
The man at the desk gave us a warm welcome and an introduction to the homestead, and we decided to buy tickets to explore the rest of the museum, which included an indoor exhibit and the option to visit the actual structures out back where a homesteading family had lived.
It was another great impromptu stop!
We spent the rest of the day checking out more scenic viewpoints and taking short hikes in the Badlands.
The more time I spent there, the more fascinating the landscape became to me, and the Badlands now sits at the top of my “most underrated national parks” list!
We headed back to our hotel at the end of the day for the final night of our trip.
Day 14 (Badlands to Chicago, IL):
We got an early start on Day 14, hoping to make it back to Chicago by nightfall. We were looking at about 12 hours of driving (excluding stops), and my mom assured me that if I got too tired to drive, we could always stop.
But I figured if we were to stop, it would be in Wisconsin, which we had traveled to plenty of times, so I was set on getting back home that night.
(Plus, I had driven straight through from Chicago to Texas a handful of times in college, which totaled 17 hours, so part of me wanted to prove to myself that I still had it in me!)
It was a long, relatively uneventful day in the car. We stopped a few times for food and gas, but otherwise we just listened to music and reminisced about our trip.
We finally made it home by about 11 pm. We stayed awake just long enough to bring our bags in from the car.
Traveling the country is such a wonderful experience, but there’s really nothing like sleeping in the comfort of your own (or your mom’s) home!
My mom and I had a truly unforgettable two-week trip, and I’m so grateful that her retirement and my work schedule allowed us to spend that time together.
By the end, it felt as though the first week of our trip had been a lifetime ago, but thankfully, we took enough pictures to capture the memories.
My mom spent our first day back home choosing which pictures to post on Facebook (something she does once every several years!) and texting her sisters to recruit them to come on our next trip.
By the end of our trip, I learned that sometimes the best way to plan a trip is to plan as little as possible!
We made sure to book hotels for the biggest stops on our trip (like the Grand Canyon) well in advance, but we left the rest open to keep room for spontaneity and flexibility, and I’m so glad we did! There are plenty of stops that turned out to be highlights of the trip we may not have made if we had held ourselves to a stricter agenda.
Where I Would Have Spent More Time
There are a few places along our trip that I felt a particular desire to spend more time in.
📍 Moab, Utah
We stayed one night in Moab, primarily because it was conveniently located between point A and point B. But after spending less than 24 hours there, I found myself thinking about when I could plan a trip back to spend more time there!
Moab is also very close to Canyonlands and Arches National Parks, which I would have loved to see!
📍 The Grand Canyon
While we spent the most time here of anywhere on our trip, the Grand Canyon is the kind of place you could travel to yearly (hell, monthly!) and never run out of new things to explore.
I would love to go back to spend more time hiking, to explore deeper into the canyon, or to check out parts of the canyon outside the national park.
📍 Route 66
Route 66 has always fascinated me, and no matter how many times I drive along it (it’s been a couple of times now), it never feels like I’ve had quite enough time to explore.
There are just so many hidden gems and attractions, which means there’s always a reason to go back!
I’ve also never been past Arizona on Route 66, so seeing what lies along the route in western Arizona and California is high on my list!
📍 The Badlands
Since the conclusion of our trip, I have told several people that they need to visit the Badlands… if nothing else, because I can’t find the words to describe it to them myself!
Route 66 Attractions Wrap Up
I hope this has given you plenty of practical advice for visiting any of the places my mom and I were lucky enough to see on our trip, and I hope it serves as a reminder to take that trip with the people you love while you can!
The only trip you’ll regret is the trip you don’t take.
Until next time!
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- Route 66 Attractions You Can’t Miss: A Two-Week Mother-Daughter Trip - February 19, 2026