Road Trip Honeymooners

We are planning a mini road trip weekend for ours two weeks after wedding. We're heading from Indiana to Tennessee stopping at places here and there. I would love to have a couple weeks and see more so I'm a little jealous of yours lol.

Emphasis on extend. There are some longgggg stretches between some of those stops. FH and I did a road trip from Northern Colorado to Las Vegas, to Mammoth Lakes California, to my grandparents house in Central CA, to Monterey, to Santa Cruz, to San Francisco and then on our way back to CO, we hit up Yosemite, Lake Tahoe, and Salt Lake. That was a 10 day trip and it was a haul and I feel like we didn't get a good amount of time at each stop (but we were visiting my childhood friends and my family too). How many days total are you planning for and how long are you planning to spend at each stop?

Edit: plus you will be driving an RV, which will slow you down. And not that i am trying to be negative, just saying that this seems pretty ambitious. I would stick to going up and down the west coast and saving the west/ southwest for another time. But again that depends on what your timeline is looking like

We're going along that same path! Well, sorta. I'm super excited and we've done a lot trips in the area

@Sovatastic - We were thinking of doing our a few weeks after, too. That can give us some time to unwind from the wedding and pack for the trip!

@Veeismeee - That's why I mentioned extending the trip. We are thinking of a 4-ish week trip. This has always been a dream of ours and this seems like the perfect time. We are well aware of the ambitious nature of the trip, and have traveled to many other places together, there's just a few left on our US bucket list.

@Jessica - awesome! How much time are you allotting for the trip?

FH and I want to do a road trip of part of the east coast. Our honeymoon won't be until the next time he gets block leave after we are married because he is in the Army, and it can be very hard to get time off so we don't have anything really planned out yet.

Again, not trying to sound discouraging, 4 weeks should definitely be perfect

This is a very fun trip! I did a very similar tour with a friend a couple years ago- Denver to Yellowstone to Vancouver to Seattle to San Fran to Vegas to Grand Canyon back to Denver. It was such an epic trip! We pulled it off in 2 weeks but we pulled several 17+ hour driving days which I would not recommend- definitely add way more extra time to see the sights!

Not to discourage anything at all but if you're not familiar with altitude already be cautious! FH and I just attempted a 3 week trip across the west but day 5 we made our way up to Breckenridge CO after 4 days in Fort Collins and Denver. I woke up the next morning super sick with altitude sickness and wound up in the emergency room, which unfortunately ended our trip. It was such a bummer! I still don't know what I did wrong but I figured I'd share my story because if that happened on my honeymoon I'd be crushed!

@Sandra altitude sickness is too real! I took a two-week trip to CO a few months ago and did some hiking. I'm not in great shape, but dear lord that was rough.

I would so rather do the road trip! We have a bit of a mini road trip as part of our honeymoon as I live in and he's also from Nevada, but have to go back to Idaho so my FH can finish his last few semesters of school. We'll be going to Yellowstone to really honeymoon after we get there though (:

We aren't doing a road trip honeymoon but it sounds like a ton of fun. Something different for sure.

That was our original plan. I love the idea!

Yes! My grandparents took me on a 3 week vacation every year, and we'd go in a big loop across the states! Those summers were the absolute best. We drove a Bronco though, so we could cover more ground, but with 4 weeks, that seems like plenty! They always had AAA route our trip out for us. And we got books from them for every state we went through. Best memories ever!

@HolyMoly - I love this! I belong to AAA, so that's something to look into. It's so inspiring to know this is where you built some great memories. We're really hoping that it will be a great, memorable trip!

I was just searching for a post like this from yesterday and it didn't come up in the search, but your post from a few weeks ago did (go figure, WW), so I figured I'd add here what I wrote on that post :-)

Did you decide if you're going to do a roadtrip for your honeymoon??

My husband and I had planned for a while that we wanted to take a cross country road trip (2-3 weeks long). We got married in October 2015 and wanted to take a delayed honeymoon (the roadtrip) in summer 2016. We ended up going to Ireland on our honeymoon right after our wedding and putting the roadtrip off until this summer. We took the roadtrip 7/1/17 - 7/14/17.

It was THE MOST EXHAUSTING thing we have ever done!!! The level of exhaustion probably has most to do with how much time you have to take the trip, how much you spread things out, how much driving you do in a day, etc. Our route was the purple line on the map I'm attaching to this post. Our trip was 14 days, we drove through 24 states, 12 national parks, 9235.7 miles, and drove for 160 hours & 20 minutes. We hiked in one park (Zion National Park), but most parks we just drove through and got out to take pictures. Before going on the trip, we had wanted to hike in a few more parks, but we just didn't have time.

It was a once in a lifetime trip (although I did go on a cross country roadtrip for 3 weeks in 2010, haha), and we're so glad we were able to do it, but it was not relaxing by any means! I'd say that you should do this if it's what you want to do, but be mentally prepared that you may be exhausted and it won't necessarily be a romantic relaxing honeymoon. If you go, have fun!! And let us know where you go, what you see, and how it is :-)

Rachel, thanks for all of that information! We have decided to go ahead with the trip. Your trip was so bold 160 hours in 2-3 weeks! I'm sure that was exhausting but it sounds like you saw some awesome stuff!!

We're thinking 120 hours and about 4 weeks, so we will probably have a little more wiggle room. We found an air bnb in a secluded area of Joshua Tree, so we're hoping to spend a few days there to relax before we start our drive back to the east coast. What we're your favorite parts of the trip? Any place you highly recommend??

Ah, 4 weeks will be amazing!!! You will see so much and be able to relax and enjoy it! It's hard to pick a favorite place because everywhere is so different! Have you ever been out to the western half of the US? It's so different in landscape! We really loved Utah - Zion National Park is so surreal looking and beautiful (if you can and are up for it, I recommend hiking Angel's Landing. We didn't do that on this trip, but I did it in the past), and Arches National Park is also crazy and neat!

Glacier National Park is also beautiful and a wonderful place to see! The drive up the mountains in some of these parks is so scary and nervewracking, so be careful! Yellowstone National Park is a classic and very neat. Grand Teton National Park is beautiful (my favorite mountains!), but it's kind of smaller-ish; you basically just drive through it as you go from Yellowstone down through Wyoming. Jackson, WY is a really cute and fun looking place and we'd love to go back there someday, so if you have time, I'd recommend staying there. Montana is also a gorgeous state. Death Valley National Park in CA is crazy!!! If you have time, it's a fun place to say you've been. It's incredible; literally, it's unbelievable being in that park and seeing/realizing/feeling how hot it is and seeing the landscape (definitely pull off at some lookout points; the short-but-feels-long-because-it's-so-hot walk is worth it for the views). And people live there!!! Grand Canyon, of course, is also a classic and breathtaking view, so I'd go there if you can.

Those were probably our biggest highlights. I'm really curious where you guys will end up on your trip!

We wanted to go to the Pacific Northwest (Portland and Seattle; I've been to Portland in the past and love it!), but we didn't have time. I see those places are mentioned in your original post, so if you have time, definitely go!

Rachel, this is great!! We will definitely try to check out the places you mentioned. I'm especially interested in Death Valley! We're still in the planning staged and will probably go in May or so. I'll definitely make a post once we return!!

Death Valley is so surreal! Yay, I can't wait to see your post afterwards!