Rapid 2 week roadtrip around the US West Coast States

Nature
The wow factor for nature - does it show nature at its best? Doesn't need to be the wildebeest migration or diving with hundreds of hammerheads. Rather make you pause as you realise just how awesome the natural world can be
10
Culture
How much does this experience showcase some of the better and finer things that us humans can offer? Sure, it can be ancient ruins and renaissance churches, but it can also be festivals or soaking up some of the great modern cities of the world
6
Fun factor/activity
Very simple - was it fun? This is usually linked in with doing some kind of activity - i mean, walking along some cliffs is nice, but paragliding from them, now that is fun. Its a vastly underrated factor in a truly great experience
7
Avoid the crowds
Big tour groups and being surrounded by loud fellow tourists can sap the life out of even the greatest of travel experiences. This score is to reflect just how much you can avoid this. But. . . The score also takes into account if the crowds actually add to the experience, such as with a party town or a bustling local market
7
World famous
How world famous is the experience?
10
unique
How hard is it to have a similar experience in other places round the world?
9
Overall TE Score
The overall travel experiences score:  fun factor + avoid the crowds + (best of nature or culture) + (best of world famous or unique). Then convert into a score out of 100
85 *What the scores mean and where do they come from
RANKING
How this travel experience ranks compared to all the other experiences on this site, based on the travel experience (te) score
20th/453
Top 5%
continent
North America
country
USA
Length of time
2-4 weeks
Typical daily price
This gives you a rough idea of the daily price based on 2 people travelling where they can split costs like accommodation. It excludes travel there and back, and factors in inflation the numbers in brackets show the price range for the full time of the experience (so not necessarily daily). It is a range to reflect different budget vs higher end
$240 ($3,000-$4,500 in 2025 prices)
Time of year visited
May
Primary Tags
Click on any of the tags to see all travel experiences with the same tag
Adventure Driving Wonder of the World - Natural
All Tags
Beach promenade Beaches Big city Breweries Bridges Bustling restaurants Campervanning Canyons Casinos Celebrity Spotting Cliffs Cool neighbourhoods Dam Desert Forests Hiking Isolation Lakes Live sport Market Mountains Partying / Lash Red deserts Rock arches Snow Stadiums Sunsets Theme Park UNESCO world heritage site Waterfalls Wildlife - Bison Wildlife - Wolves Wonder of the World - Engineering / Industrial
Wow Factor
The wow factor reflects just how much you’re likely to say “wow”. As there’s a lot of experiences in the world, and a lot of wows, i’ve gone with a simple ⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️ to ⭐️ score, and a separate category for the truly "gash"
⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

Summary

My favourite road trip in the world – the contrasts of natural landscape along the way with snowy mountains, red / yellow deserts, and temperate rainforests; the tasters of the different culture snapshots of the US with conservative cowboys through to uber-liberal SoCal and Pacific North West; the sheer world-fame of some spots like Las Vegas, LA, Yellowstone, the Grand Canyon; but more than anything – its a trip that is simply perfect for driving.  The distances involved, the way the US in particular is set up for the drivers and the scenery to take in in between the obvious highlights is just world-beating and gets the maximum Wow-factor rating of ⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️ .

 

It’s also a super high octane trip – 4200 miles / 6760km of driving – the sort of thing you rattle off in your 20s, when you have the energy, 2 weeks of vacation and are keen to see and do everything.  There’s something just so incredibly fun and fantastic about seeing one world-famous site one after the other in rapid succession – one day being in the likes of Yellowstone National Park, the next in Arches National Park, the next the Grand Canyon, the next Las Vegas, the next LA etc etc.  An exciting whirlwind that creates a feeling most will never forget . . . and in a way equally spoils / sets the bar incredibly high for any other trip.

 

A bit rushed? – on the trip itself, we didn’t feel overly rushed.  Again, we had 2 weeks vacation and wanted to see as much of this part of the world as possible.  For example, I actually found a day / half day in each of the national parks perfect to do a basic walk, see the main attractions and get the feel for them.  But of course, it would have been nice to spend longer in each – perhaps take a 3 day hiking trip across one of them.  Or perhaps see some of the other pieces we of course missed along the way.  Ultimately, I always suggest avoiding the mass tourism standard experience on offer, and I shudder just thinking of trying to do this again, but in a part of the world that has world class sites one after the other, the gorging on them was great fun.

Table of Contents

The Highlights of the 2 week Trip

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#1 The roadtrip itself - stunning views of some of the most impressive natural scenery in North America from the seat of the car. This part of America is just perfect for this sort of trip

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#2 Hiking through Yosemite National Park - one of the most intensely beautiful spots in the world, with scenery as jaw-dropping as it is compact

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#3 Getting on the lash / partying in the giant theme park that is Las Vegas

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#4 Seeing some of wildlife and vast landscapes of Yellowstone National Park in Wyoming

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#5 Going to see any of the live sport on offer. Something will be on just about anytime of the year and its showcases something that is about as close to the heart of what is American as it gets

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#6 Having the high expectations met as you gawp at the immensity of the Grand Canyon

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#7 Passing through some of the former frontier towns and seeing a different conservative side to this vast country

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#8 Driving through the Navajo Nation to see the mesmerising reds of the desert and the looming giant buttes of Monument Valley in Arizona

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#9 Driving over the world famous Golden Gate Bridge on your way to San Francisco

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#10 Driving past the spectacular Grand Teton Range in Wyoming

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#11 Giggling at the customary odd road signs

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#12 Walking along the various trails and seeing the impossibly narrow rock arches of Arches National Park in Utah

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#13 Driving down some of the world famous Route 66, and watching its 2,448 mile sunset from Santa Monica pier

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#14 Walking alongside some of the tallest trees in the world in Redwood National Park

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#15 Seeing the famous geysers in Yellowstone National Park, especially the giant Old Faithful

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#16 Learning the history (did you know the city was rebuilt on stilts?) and checking out the open markets of Seattle

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#17 Looking across the vast . . . and cold . . . vistas of Yellowstone National Park

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The Route

US West Coast Roadtrip – Rough Itinerary

The following itinerary has links to the individual travel entries that will give you more tips on how to have the best experience there:

 

Obviously, you can start this trip from any of the points eg LA, San Francisco, Salt Lake City etc.  We started in Seattle just because we were living in Vancouver at the time

Travel Tips

The driving

There’s a lot of driving – around 4200 miles / 6760km, so be prepared for it.  Again, while there are world famous stops and time to enjoy the national parks or big cities, this is a road trip and you’ll most likely be driving for 70 hours in total.  So share the burden and take the time to just watch the scenery go by.  Best do so in a campervan as you’ll have more space on the long drives to properly sleep and can, when needed, just rock up and park / sleep by the road.

 

The Amazing Drives

This trip is packed with them, but the highlight drives were:

  • Driving through Grand Teton National Park – hadn’t even heard of it before the trip but wow!
  • The Big Sur – most famous Californian road.
  • Route 66 – old dinners and images of a past era.
  • Pacific Coast Highway – iconic, nearly 660-mile scenic drive along California’s coast from near San Diego to Mendocino County.
  • Over the Hoover Dam.
  • The Las Vegas strip (don’t suggest doing a u turn on it in a camper van).
  • Up to Yosemite National Park.
  • Through the deserts near Monument valley.

 

Live Sport

See if can fit in a sports game – classic America right there.  We, for example, were able to go to see a Seattle Mariners baseball game.  Hotdogs, staring around the stadium when nothing was happening (majority of the time), seventh innings stretch and all that, great stuff.

 

Places it would have been nice to also see

Zion National Park, Rafting down the Grand Canyon, San Diego, Sequoia National Park, Death Valley, Napa Valley for the wines, Glacier National Park, and Mesa Verde over in Colorado.  All look to be wonderful experiences and something I’d have added to a longer itinerary.

 

Places it would have been nicer to spend longer in

  • San Francisco – this itinerary only gives a short stop to pop into China Town and drive across the Golden Gate Bridge
  • Time to properly hike any of the national parks.
  • More partying in Las Vegas.

The downside of doing this trip so rapidly, but if you had more time, these are the places I’d like to have stayed longer

 

For the route shown above

See the link here (google map west coast US) for how to see this in google. maps

Experiences Nearby

The below map shows experiences nearby with a colour that reflect the Overall Score of those experiences

Other Great Roadtrips around the World

Driving through the Australia’s red centre from Adelaide to Darwin
Overall Score: 78

10 days campervanning around the South Island of New Zealand
Overall Score: 80

Itinerary for 10 wonderful days in Guatemala
Overall Score: 78

Driving down the West Coast of Scotland – Glencoe, Oban, Skye and the Harry Potter Bridge
Overall Score: 78

3 week European roadtrip for mountains and wine
Overall Score: 85

Roadtrip up the Queensland Coast in winter
Overall Score: 73

A supercharged week seeing the highlights of Israel and Jordan
Overall Score: 83

Driving the Transfagarasan Highway of the Transylvanian Alps
Overall Score: 80

10 day roadtrip around Tasmania
Overall Score: 78

Driving through Namibia’s highlights
Overall Score: 75

Score Detail

The scores you see above are really the point of this whole site, rather than just the individual travel review you're seeing above.  They fit into a much bigger summary of 20 years of travel, across 100+ countries, from dirt-poor backpacking to the luxury end, rushed weekends to months on the road.  Every one of the 500+ experiences have a "wow factor" score and a few other scores that add up to a more analytical Travel Experience (TE) score.  For more info, have a look at the About page for the travel philosophy that drives them.

But, more importantly, have a play with the map above and on the Home page to see which of these experiences rank as really Maximum Wow-factor all the way down to the proper "Gash".

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