Upcoming long road trip - any tips/advice?

WarEagle28 · 2018-08-08T02:11:53+00:00

My fiance and I are currently planning a long road trip for late October. I'm hoping to get some advice or tips to know before taking on this trip, whether it be 4Runner specific or not. I'd like to hear from anyone who has taken a long trip and learned something along the way they wish they could have prepared for beforehand. So here's the trip: head from Atlanta to Utah and northern AZ and hit some of the big national parks and sights. We are taking a week from work which may be squeezing us on time but we feel confident we can do it. Our rough plan is as follows, and this is entirely open to change: Friday - depart ATL that evening after work and stop in Birmingham, AL to stay the night with some family. This could give us a small head start out of Atlanta. Saturday - depart Birmingham early that AM and trek all the way to Amarillo, TX. This is a big haul for one day but we plan to take turns driving. Sunday - get another early start and drive to Monument Valley at the AZ/Utah border. Take in the sights on the scenic drive, then carry on to Moab, UT for the night. Monday - Spend entire day exploring/hiking Arches NP Tuesday - Spend entire day exploring/hiking Canyonlands NP. Wednesday - Get an early start to Bryce Canyon NP, spend rest of day there. That evening we'd make the trek to Zion NP. (Or make the drive to Zion first thing Thurs. AM) Thursday & Friday - Zion is the big one we both want to see the most, so we're dedicating two days to this and hoping to camp in/near the park Thursday night. Friday evening we'll depart Zion and drive to Page, AZ. Saturday - get a really early start and see Horseshoe bend. After that we'll load up and start the stretch back east. If time allows we'd like to pit stop and check out Albuquerque, NM. We'd like to make it back to Amarillo that night and catch some sleep. Sunday - finish the final leg back to Atlanta. I plan to remove the rear seat bottoms to fit an air mattress in the back to allow a place to sleep, and we're looking at free campsites and places to park as our primary sleep plan. We'll also bring standard ground tent and camping equipment along. I'd love to have a RTT for this, but sadly that is out of the budget. All 4Runner sleeping advice is welcomed! We may snag a room in Amarillo just to get out of the car and in a bed after the long driving stretches. This is a really ambitious trip and we may be crazy for even thinking we can do this, but we're excited to get out west. This will be our longest road trip we've ever taken on. We will of course be smart with driving and not push it if we're too fatigued, we'd rather the trip run a day or two over plan than risk driving when we really shouldn't be. I'm open to any thoughts, comments, concerns, equipment recommendations, etc. Or if you just think I'm stupid for planning this, I'll take that too. :D Thanks!