I’m still in trip dreaming and planning mode over here in icy Virginia. J and I are tossing around the idea of doing a Big Trip late this summer; in the past we’d done a Big Trip every two years (#1 in 2016, #2 in 2018, #3 in 2020, and #4 in 2022), but this year we’re FOUR years out from Big Trip #4 and we’re getting antsy for an extended Airstream adventure.

J isn’t sold on the last proposal I put together for a big trip out to Wind Cave National Park in South Dakota and then down through the Rockies to Texas. He isn’t excited about Wind Cave, and wants me to lure him with exciting new destinations like I did with Banff and Waterton for Big Trip #4. He also really wants to go back to Great Basin, which pulls the loop farther west than I had planned. So below is my new attempt to woo him in one direction or another.

Alternate 1: Rockies

Main objectives: Rocky Mountain NP; Canyonlands NP; Great Basin NP; Guadalupe Mountains NP; Taos, NM; Big Bend NP; Austin; New Orleans; Atlanta (for family)

• Kentucky Horse Park in Lexington, KY (about a six-hour drive from home): great place to camp
• Evansville, IN (3-hour drive): cute-looking downtown, stuff to do?
• Jefferson City, MO (4.5-hour drive): state capital
• Leavenworth, KS (3-hour drive): history?
• Salina, KS (2.5-hour drive): don’t know anything about it but we have an inside joke about Salina KS so should go there
• Denver, CO (6-hour drive): visit friends
• Grand Lake, CO (2-hour drive): hike in Rocky Mountain National Park!
• [or look at Walden, CO, the gateway to State Forest State Park]
• Leadville, CO (2 hours south): the highest town in CO and home of Mt Elbert, the tallest mountain in CO. Could sub Vail, 45 mins away. Our friend Dr P says to check out the Melanzana store in Leadville
• [Aspen, CO (2 hours away but there are weird (seasonal?) road closures making it annoyingly out of the way): I’m assuming great ski towns are also great hiking towns]
• Salida, CO (1 hour south of Leadville): we’ve driven through and wanted to try staying there
• [Or check out Crestone, CO, the favorite of friends]
• Grand Junction, CO (3:20 west): we did some good hiking there in the past
• Canyonlands NP (2 hour-drive): we have dreams of driving White Rim Road. Or hike to Druid Arch in the Needles section of the park, where we’ve never been
• Escalante, UT (4-hour drive): tiny town with incredible hiking; we love it there!
• Great Basin NP (4-hour drive): have been wanting to return for more epic hiking
• Kanab, UT (3:40 drive): loved it there on first visit; cute town, great hiking
• Page, AZ (1-hour drive): another place we visited long ago, with great camping and hiking
• Durango, CO (4-hour drive): at one point we wanted to move to Durango!
• [Can we work in Great Sand Dunes NP here? Would be great to pick up a new national park!]
• Taos, NM (4-hour drive): we wanted to go but didn’t get there when visiting Santa Fe way back when
• Roswell, NM (4.5 hours south): I imagine there’s fun UFO-themed stuff there?
• Guadalupe Mountains National Park (2 hours south): we’ve been wanting to do more there since Big Trip #1!
• Marfa, TX or Alpine, TX (2ish hours south): we’ve had fun in Marfa and also in Alpine. I think Marathon might be too small
• Big Bend National Park (2.5ish hours south): Love love love love love it there. Also need to visit Big Bend Ranch State Park
• Austin, TX (8 hours east): love camping there and we’ve struggled to find good places to stop along the way so maybe we just power through the long drive
• Galveston, TX (3.5 hours east): has a big state park campground
• New Orleans, LA (5.5 hours east): our second-favorite urban camping destination after Austin. Maybe stop in Lafayette again? or somewhere else? or do the long drive?
• Montgomery, AL (4.5 hours northeast): we enjoyed it enough to try again
• Atlanta, GA (2.5 hours northeast): to stay in our cousins’ driveway
• Asheville, NC or Charlotte, NC (3.5-4 hours northeast): love Asheville but haven’t Airstreamed to Charlotte in a while

That’s 27 locations, and we’re spitballing around 65 nights total. Here’s the map.

Alternate 2: Midwestern Lakes

Main objectives: Minnesota lakes; Isle Royale NP; Voyageurs NP; Grand Teton NP; hiking in Ontario; Ithaca, NY or other pieces of our Northeast Three-Weeker itinerary

I am intrigued by this route. We’ve long been interested in the lakes of northern Minnesota and we loved our time in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula, in Houghton, Sault Ste Marie, and Mackinaw City. Bonus: we’d pick up two new national parks that are logistically very difficult to do with a dog… no, we’re not rushing to add another Airstream Dog to the family, but eventually it’ll be time.

• Western Maryland – Myersville/Hagerstown/Antietam/South Mountain SP (4-hour drive): This five-mile hike in South Mountain State Park caught my eye
• State College, PA (2:45 drive): college towns are usually interesting, and we can hike Mt Nittany for a view. Campgrounds don’t look super convenient, but there are a couple Harvest Hosts options
• Ithaca, NY (3-hour drive): college town plus beautiful surroundings (“Ithaca is Gorges”)
• Niagara Falls (3.5-hour drive): I went as a kid and it might be fun to check out as an adult! There are lots of big RV resorts near the falls which could be entertaining or could be annoying, and a bunch of nice-looking Harvest Hosts in the area, and lots of breweries!

There’s lots of hiking in Ontario! Several provincial parks and a couple national parks line the northern side of the Great Lakes. Here’s what Google’s AI overview said when I asked about hiking in Ontario:

“Ontario offers world-class hiking, ranging from the rugged La Cloche Mountains in Killarney Provincial Park to the scenic coastal cliffs of the Bruce Trail. Top spots include Algonquin Provincial Park, Sleeping Giant, and Pukaskwa National Park’s White River Suspension Bridge. Popular day hikes feature the Cup and Saucer Trail and Dundas Peak.”

So we’d do a collection of parks heading northwest from Niagara back toward the top of Minnesota. One possible hitch though is that campgrounds in those parks fill quickly, so we might be too late even in February planning for a late summer trip.

• Bruce Peninsula National Park (3:45 drive): hiking and kayaking along the rugged Georgian Bay coastline
• either ferry north to Manitoulin Island (the largest freshwater island in the world; it has lakes which have islands too–Treasure Island is the world’s largest island in a lake on an island in a lake) (maybe hike the Cup and Saucer Trail on Manitoulin) or Killarney Provincial Park, or drive back down the peninsula and around Georgian Bay on the Trans-Canada Highway, stopping at a couple provincial parks (lots more research needed here!)
• Lake Superior Provincial Park (6?-hour drive): hiking, canoeing, backcountry, moosies
• Pukaskwa Provincial Park (2:45 drive): more hiking and paddling
• Sleeping Giant Provincial Park (3:30 drive): surprise! hiking and paddling along the Lake Superior shoreline. Also, birds
• Grand Portage, MN (2-hour drive): gateway to Isle Royale National Park (or stay in Grand Marais, 40 minutes farther down the road–it’s been on my wishlist since we started Airstreaming)
• Voyageurs National Park (4-hour drive): another remote national park we never even considered visiting when we had a dog
• Fargo, ND (4:40 drive): reliably fun town with reliably tasty food and one of our favorite breweries
• Bismarck, ND (3-hour drive): or–between Fargo and Bismarck is Valley City, the “City of Bridges”
• Billings, MT (6-hour drive): the biggest city in Montana
• Sheridan, WY (2-hour drive): a historic Western town surrounded by mountains; look at boondocking in the Bighorn Mountains
• Jackson, WY (4:15 drive): I am desperate to return to Grand Teton NP to do some longer hikes!
• Custer, SD (8-hour drive): Get that Wind Cave NP sticker! Plus we love Custer State Park
• Sioux Falls, SD (5-hour drive): falls! South Dakota’s largest city
• Madison, WI (6.5-hour drive): Madison is another city we loved on a Big Trip and would be happy to return to. Alternatively, look at Devil’s Lake SP north of Madison for highly-rated hiking or cute-sounding town Lake Geneva
• South Bend, IN (4-hour drive): college towns tend to be fun; there’s a Harvest Host downtown. If we decide to go south from Madison rather than east, Starved Rock SP or Ottawa, IL are worth looking into
• Louisville, KY (4-hour drive): only spent a day there on Big Trip #1, seemed fun
• Nashville, TN (3-hour drive): Nashville was once one of our favorite cities to Airstream to, but since they closed our in-town campground it hasn’t been the same for us
• Asheville, NC (5-hour drive): we love Asheville; we could also happily stay next door in Black Mountain…

That’s also 25-ish separate locations… but there are many more unknowns in this itinerary before doing an Ontario deep-dive. A friend of a friend can give us insider intel if we decide to go in this direction.

And here’s this map

J, what do you think? [J says: I like both. How do we choose?]