Mount Rushmore, South Dakota, Yellowstone advice please?

TINKERBELL

Hi we are planning a road trip to Mount Rushmore in South Dakota then onto Yellowstone National Park and San Francisco. Has anyone done this route? Any suggestions appreciated. Is Denver the closest international airport we can fly direct scheduled flight into from Heathrow? Any money saving experts out there with any ideas of cutting costs? Hope to go this June so left it late unfortunately for the cheaper flights.

EssexExile

Many years ago we flew to Denver then went north via the Rocky Mountain National Park then Mount Rushmore & on to Yellowstone. I didn't find Rushmore very exciting, too touristy & to be honest it looks better on film. If I did it again I'd drive north from Denver to Laramie, then Rawlins & head north from there to Lander then up to Grand Teton National Park & Yellowstone. I've not gone from there to San Francisco.

Denver was the best airport when we did it, flying there again this May.

As I say it was a long time ago but at Yellowstone we stayed just outside, at Cody, then drove in early & got some cancellations for the next two nights in the park. If they still do that it's a great idea.

Have fun.

TINKERBELL

Thank you will look into that.

PeacefulWaters

Icelandair might be worth a look for saving on flights.

The first draft of my holiday for this year had us flying UK to Keflavik, a couple of days in Iceland and then onto Denver flying back direct to Blighty using Avios. It was a lot cheaper than a direct flight to Denver.

A clue on how many days you've got would help. But if time allows I'd be looking at including Arches, Canyonlands, Mesa Verde, Bryce Canyon, Zion Canyon, Vegas, Death Valley, Mammoth Lakes and Yosemite on my way to San Francisco.

The I80 from Salt Lake City looks, well, dull.

torbrex

another thumbs down for Mt Rushmore, I found it very 'American' if that makes sense.

EssexExile

PeacefulWaters wrote: »

Icelandair might be worth a look for saving on flights.

Read the reviews!

PeacefulWaters

EssexExile wrote: »

Read the reviews!

Most are very good.

cubegame

To echo other posters, Mount Rushmore is very underwhelming. However, it is a natural stop on a circular from Denver taking in Yellowstone, so why not?

Icelandair are simply awful for long haul.

EssexExile

PeacefulWaters wrote: »

Most are very good.

I would read them not just count the stars!
5* "It was lovely, I didn't want any food on a 9 hour flight", etc.
Also the OP was asking about flying to Denver & there are several complaints that Icelandair have no people there to contact when things go wrong.

John259

I'm not a fan of Mount Rushmore, not much to see and not very impressive. It just struck me as vandalising of the mountain. Nearby Badlands National Park, Wind Cave National Park, Jewel Cave National Monument and Custer State Park are all good though.

However, the Black Hills aren't on the direct route from Denver to Yellowstone so I'd give them a miss so as to gain time to visit at least some of the wonderful national parks in the more westerly states that Peaceful Waters listed in post #4, and perhaps also the extremely scenic Pacific Coast Highway (the best part is between Morro Bay and Monterey).

Yellowstone is vast. I found it best to spend a night at each of the towns on the periphery of the park, driving between them and seeing the relevant parts of the park each day.

South of Yellowstone is Grand Teton National Park. Sadly a lot of people drive past this magnificent park but IMHO it's worth at least a couple of days in its own right. A particularly great way to spend a day is to take the boat ride over Jenny Lake and the relatively easy hike up to Hidden Falls, Inspiration Point and at least a bit of Cascade Canyon.

Have you discovered the US National Park Service web site, which has lots of practical information about visiting each park? In the left margin there are links to park maps which show the roads, points of interest, walking paths, hiking trails and where relevant the free shuttle bus routes.
http://www.nps.gov

Wikipedia has good articles for each of the national parks, often with some great photographs.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Main_Page

There are some excellent videos for most of the national parks on YouTube, but finding the good ones can take time. Here's one of a mega coast-to-coast road trip which included many of the places mentioned in this thread:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bmSVpSl4vVs

This playlist has separate videos, mostly fairly short, for each of the national parks:
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLpz7cLJ1_TwSnUf7XGZAQci-c3omf5Ept

travellerboy

I would expect you have factored-in the added costs of one way car rental, even so there are many options for a route to include Yellowstone. Mount Rushmore maybe not worth the hassle !


My route would be Heathrow to Seattle the thru the Cascade mountains into Canada, visiting Jasper, Icefield Parkway / Banff and back into the US via Waterton Lakes National Park area. This is called the Road to the Sun highway, a pure dream. You pass thru the Glacier National Park onto Kalispel / Boseman then into Yellowstone Park itself. We passed thru Mammoth Hot Springs, on the Northern edge of Yellowstone onto Red Lodge to experience the Bear Tooth Highway, awesome something you will never forget. Then after a night in Red Lodge back into the park visiting all the highlights, we based ourselves in West Yellowstone for 3 nights.
Then exit Yellowstone thru the Grand Teton NP/ Jackson Hole - final returning back to the UK via Salt Lake City.
We included San Francisco as the starting point with a few days in Yosemite then flew from SF to Seattle for the bulk of the absolutely fabulous holiday - will do it again someday soon I hope.