How to Plan a SUCCESSFUL National Park Trip
How to Plan a SUCCESSFUL National Park Trip
How to Plan a National Park Trip – quite often I am asked how to plan a successful national park trip. In this video I’li clearly walk you through the nine steps that I take for a successful trip. Of course you may wish to customize it for you own liking, but I trust you will find these common sense principles helpful.
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I would add : make a travel book with observations, drawings, feelings and souvenirs ( like ticket entrance). ..and watch them when you cannot travel😉
An AMAZING tool for anyone wishing to travel. No more excuses about it being too expensive or too hard to plan. Although I am quite glad you do all the work for our family!
This is much more detailed than my process of "load up car, drive, and figure things out when I get there."
There are definitely benefits to traveling alone! I also find planning a trip is a good time to reach out to other people you know have been to the place and ask them for ideas of things they liked that you could see or do. People love talking about their experiences and if you haven’t talked to the person in a while you can catch up!
And remember, Biden says you must wear a mask while at any national park, or other federal land.
Glad to see I’m not the only one who puts that much time and planning into a trip! This should really help a lot people! Great video Randy!
Great tips! Love your videos! I’m currently planning a southern Utah trip for May, and I’m in the process of watching all your Utah videos. I heard the current Executive Order on masks even includes while hiking on trails in national parks. Please tell me this isn’t being enforced. Wearing a mask while hiking outside in the heat will be torture. Have Park Rangers really been ticketing people for not wearing masks while on trails?
How the heck do you keep looking younger and younger. Wow
Great video! I definitely agree with your point at 2:30. I recently went on a week-long road trip that took me to Death Valley, Sequoia, King’s Canyon, and Yosemite. Now that I’ve experienced the major attractions and gotten a feel for each park, I’m even more motivated to go back and explore the parts I didn’t see.
Great video and it’s definitely valuable that you made this video. Speaking from experience, I started my park journey without not planning. I have found planning more details while leaving open spaces for last minute flexibility balance to work out the best. Like you, I’ve done a lot of “Survey trips” on seeing many parks to get a feel for places. I do find value in staying longer at parks I’ve been to before.
Great info. We also camp when we visit the parks. One tip that’s worked for me is in peak seasons if you can’t get a campsite in the national park and don’t want to pay for an expensive resort campground you can typically find camping at state parks near the main destination. We are visiting Badlands and Black Hills areas and found a nice state park that made the trip much more affordable than an expensive campground resort. State Parks, Army Corp of engineer parks are typically well maintained and good options if prime destination is booked out. If you don’t want to camp many of the state parks will offer cabins with a nice fire ring for cheaper than a hotel room. There are many great spots all over start local if needed. We started our outdoors activities by going to a local state park and staying in a cabin for a weekend doing mild hikes.
Thanks Randy for all of the great information. We truly have some great national treasures in all of the states. You’ve done a tremendous job highlighting a variety of different types of parks from historic sites to natural beauties. I’ve watched a lot of episodes with my kids and they seem inspired for our family journeys based on seeing the cool things on the videos. Keep up the great work.
These were better tips than I’ve heard from professional tour guides!
Hello there! I hope all is well, bro!
Point 1: planing my itenerary is the best part of the trip, because, when something went wrong, you can start all over again 😉
I put all my information which I need in my cellphone, my head and the whole itenerary in my gps. I travel paperless. The preparations for each trip starting mostly years in advance (the reason is point 1 :D). Especially in this times…
USA have great history amazing nature by reading making us as if we are tourists. Watching YouTube channel takes us there ihope god will end this calamity which COVID-19 in mean time be carful take care of your selves ihope for your channel more success and progress it’s such amazing cultural documentary channel
what park are you guys at @ 2:29?
Nicely put together Randy. A good informational video for any novice planner.
Our planning methodologies are pretty similar. It is nice to see that it isn’t just me that can be overly meticulous in planning these adventures. One of the hardest part for me is simply paring down the activities for the parks that require multiple days. When we leave a park I want to feel that I did it justice in seeing all it has to offer.
In my opinion, securing your overnight accommodations is the number one priority. It is crazy how on top of things you have to be for some of these parks. You have to know the exact date and time when your booking window opens as some parks book instantaneously. We haven’t even gone on our vacation for this year and I am already planning our vacation for 2022 since I know I will have to pounce on booking the lodging/campsites the minute they are released. With all that being said, I love planing these trips and love the research too.
Cool! Thanks
Wow thank you for this informative video. I have been wanting a video like this from you. Thank you so very much 😊you’re AMAZING
Bendiciones a ti y tu hermosa familia saludos!!!
Love the beard!
Great advice & info! Watching your videos is always part of my research. 😀
I do want to mention a book that I find extremely helpful for starting my NP trip researching : Your Guide to the National Parks, the Complete Guide to All 59 Parks by Michael Oswald. Gives a nice history & overview of the park & highlights as well as best times to visit. It lists hikes with their length & difficulty. It lists food & lodging options as well as activities you can do. Also has maps. A photocopied map from this book saved me when I was visiting the side of Pinnacles NP where the visitors center was closed and there were no maps. A great place to start research.
I also like Trip Advisor for researching trips. I search the name of the National Park and read everything in the Things To Do section including the reviews. I have found some super cool lesser known things in that section. The more popular parks also have very good forums. If you read posts back for several pages, you will get all kinds of good info. I find these 2 things great jumping off points for starting to research any National Park trip.
Stay safe. Be well!
Great video Randy. Best recommendation is to WATCH THIS CHANNEL!
This is beautiful
Perfect tips. Some lodging reserve 12 months ahead. Some places needs a permit. Research …..
If you have kids do the junior ranger program! Especially at Grand Canyon and Grand Teton.
I been doing almost exactly this since we have been going to the national parks. Takes some time to plan but well worth the effort. The wife and I look forward to your new videos and usually watch them the day they are posted. Thanks Randy for your wonderful videos
Great advice! It has helped me to feel more confident about my planning for our upcoming July trip to Zion, Bryce and Grand Canyon. 💗
Truly loving your channel.
God bless🙏🏻
Como siempre amigo, hermosos lugares gracias !!!!
Great video! I’ve also found guide books super helpful – sometimes they’re quicker than the Internet because everything’s all in one place. So they’re useful when I’m looking for something generic. Looking for anything very specific or needs to be completely up-to-date? Internet comes in handy ghere
California don’t like them just burn it down its fun
Great video. Totally agree – Planning is a very fun part of the whole experience. Hopefully I will be able to execute a trip to Black Hills and Yellowstone in 2021, a trip I have been working on since last January 2020. Greetings from Denmark.
How do you camp when you’re going from out of state? Do you bring your equipment with you or rent equipment at your destination? New to this! And I would appreciate all the details and tips you can spare!
if we are allowed back to travel we – a friend and I – are planning to fly to Vegas, get a car and spend 10 days visiting The Valley of Fire, Cedar breaks, Bryce Canyon, Zion, Antelope, Monument Valley and Arches…then fly to Vancouver/Seattle area and spend 8 more days trekking around. No wives, no kids….!! I have watched plenty of your videos and took plenty of notes. 🙂
Great video! For me the planning is sometimes as much fun as the trip itself and it always includes watching many YouTube videos like yours to learn as much as possible. Being prepared can make the trip much more enjoyable and allow you to make the most out of bad situations. I’m currently overloading on information planning a 2 week trip to lower Utah in November and your videos are always very helpful. Thank you!
What good advice and safe adventures👍
The internet is such a great tool now to plan a trip, find out when to park, camp, hike etc. Years ago I used to look up at the mountains, knowing there were great walks there but did not know where to start, where to park and some many other things that are now so easily available on- line. Some great tips there Randy, cheers Alan
My whole family loves your National Park video’s Randy. Thanks for putting them together! PS, I’ve been showing my kids Yellowstone & Grand Teton videos the last few days as we’re planning a trip there this summer 🙂
Thank you for doing this. I need this when I start my adventures this year.
It’s sad if no rain in calf why is there lighting
Thanks! I am going!
Very useful video – thanks so much
We are like that funny meme: People from the Midwest be like "Why would I fly, it’s only a 14 hour drive"! Ha ha. Great advice about booking the car rental when you book the flight. That can be overwhelming when booking at an airport and you’re tired.
Well done sir! Like you planning is fun for me and my family expects me to have a plan for each day. We do though make spontaneous stops as our mantra is "we better stop and see it now in case we never make it back".
SALA CHUP ENGLISH
Leaving Mi 17 th June going over mackinaw Bridge from there who knows 🇺🇸
A good place to start is looking at parks near you. For instance we have Saratoga just 20 min north, Martin Van Buren 15 min south, and Acadia about a 6 hour drive. I have only visited one of these. My take home….Just Do It!!!!
I like to make a "packing list" so I don’t forget any gear, clothing, or other items I may need during my trip. As forgetful as my mind seems to be anymore this has prevented me from leaving something critical behind and then having to purchase something while out on the road.
Great tip sir as always! Your videos guided me a lot in our planning
Always plan for every situation! I can’t stress it enough to new hikers. I’ve personally had to help stranded, hungry, hurt or dehydrated hikers out of their predicament.
So If I want to camp but not on the campground, what is my course of action? where can/should I do this? I would love to set up camp away from all the other visitors, like at 5:58 in the video.