After all of your posts describing Chicago as the gang murder capital of the USA I wouldn't want to miss it. 😀

We are following the route just to get a rough order of states. Then when we get to each state we make a list of where we want to go and plan a route.

Here is our Oregon route.
Lava Beds National Monument
Crater Lake National Park
Oregon Caves
Boardman State Scenic Corridor
Oregon Coast Trail
Portland
Columbia Ri ER Gorge
Mt Hood

My wife already jumps whenever she hears something, she is convinced it is a bear or rattle snake.

She’s smart because it IS a bear AND a rattlesnake! Like a bear-rattlesnake duo!

My girlfriend saw a rattlesnake on a trail a few weeks ago, so they are out of their wintertime homes. And there are lots of bears everywhere. Mostly in the mountains, but you can’t be too careful.

Thanks for all of the awesome advice and ideas.

If the trip goes well we plan to park up the RV over the US winter and return the following year to do Canada and Alaska. Perhaps parts of South America the following year.

We bought a "America is Beautiful" National Park pass.

As a shake down trip we spent a few days in San Diego and went to the zoo. We have just spent three nights in the amazing Yosemite national park. We are heading to Lake Tahoe today.

As a rough guide we are going to follow this route.
https://www.mentalfloss.com/...ltimate-us-road-trip
As we get to each state we are going to work out what we want to see and plan a route through the state.
We are going to do it in the reverse direction to try and make to most of the warmer summer weather in the north and try and avoid busy national parks over the peak summer holidays. The southern states we will do as the weather gets colder.
Once thanks for all of the advice and ideas. I will include them in our trip.

I looked at his trip map and had the question of what town in central Kentucky is he visiting and why?


Bardstown. Bourbon Trail.
Could be Bowling Green for the Corvette museum.

Just avoid certain neighborhoods and you'll be fine, kinda like avoid certain snakes in Australia in the top 5 most venomous list and you won't die.

Yes and no.

Certainly the best way to avoid snakebite in Australia is simply to leave snakes alone. Two recent and avoidable deaths in Queensland have been the result of men, untrained in the handling of venomous snakes, attempting to remove Eastern Brown Snakes from the grounds of a school and a childcare centre.

Although Australia is blessed with over 30 dangerously venomous snake species, (including some found in the suburbs of all our capital cities), plus another 12 potentially dangerous species, and over 30 species of dangerously venomous seasnake inhabiting our tropical waters, death from snakebite is an exceedingly rare occurrence. Among a population of 26.5 million, we average about 2 deaths per year.

That's the equivalent of one gun death in Chicago every 5 years.

Lots of great options and routes. And if currently in LA...

Arizona and Utah are gorgeous, with lot of nice options for RV parks (I have been to a few). I would plan that as the start of your route as this is the ideal time to hit them. They will be blazing by mid June. Can then make your way to Las Vegas for the heck of it if so inclined. I actually just stayed at a nice RV park there.

From there, you might want consider trecking north. Yellowstone in late May before school gets out. Glacier in Montana is a can't miss epic national park. Best wildlife you will see, as less crowded and even more remote than Yellowstone. Amazing hiking trails. Coeur d'Alene Idaho is wacky politics, but gorgeous country. And just north of that in Mullan Idaho is the Scenic Hiawatha Bike Trail. It is a 15 mile abandoned railroad trail that you bike through 9 tunnels and over 7 high trestles. You can slow climb ride up, or they bus you up, and then you just roll the way down. They will rent bikes to you.

Then decide if you want to head to Washington, Olympic National Park, and then down the Oregon Coast. Or, make your way east, and can travel a northern route. Badlands South Dakota, toward Minneapolis, St. Paul which is gorgeous in summer. Travel down toward Chicago and then park in front of Windy's house for a week (shitter's full). However you decide to map it, I would shoot to spend Autumn working your way through New England. Absolute best place to see the leaves change.

I will look to send you links to the RV parks that I have stayed at with my camper. I have been impressed with how nice most of them are. By and large, folks are great. Most keep themselves as it is their vacation. But also plenty of community. "Hey, you need a can opener?? I have three!" "Come on, we need a 4th for Cornhole"

That route looks good, but I can’t tell if you will travel on I-15 between Yellowstone and Zion? Take highway 191 instead. Highway 191 parallels 1-15 on the other side of a mountain range when you do the North-South trip between Montana and Utah. Highway 191 is not interstate highway system driving, but it’s more beautiful.

If you want to see cool sights along your trip, the atlas obscura book has good ideas.

Be aware a lot of Yellowstone and glacier can be closed until late may/early June depending on snow. I visited glacier in early June once and going to the sun road was still closed but Yellowstone was all open.

Looks like a goal is to hit every state. Is there a reason to turn up into Detroit? I mean is there something there of interest? If its just to get into Michigan, Another option, would be when your in Wisconsin, head up to the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, just over the boarder in Iron Mt. is the Pine Mt, ski jump. a pretty impressive thing to see, and climb, porcupine Mt park is pretty scenic also. Google both. If you head up to Detroit, with no real plan's I would suggest a day or even 2 if you can, at the Henry Ford Museum and Greenfield Village. Give you a great history lesson of America and lots of cool things to see.

Not to hyjack the thread. But how does one deal with the crowded Rv sites? I know boondocking is an option but it appears that many of the state or national campgrounds are booked out way in advance. Is it possible to find places to put a class C or west you’re not make plans months in advance?

I pick up my class c tomorrow in Florida and plan to do the same as the OP.