10 days, 9 people, an RV, and a route out west. Before we ever hit the road for our epic 10-day RV trip out west, there was a whole lot of planning, researching, and decision-making that had to happen. Nathan and I are taking you behind the scenes of exactly how we pulled it all together: the good, the not-so-good, and the things we’d 100% do differently next time. Next week, we’ll give you all the stories and a deep dive into the entire trip.

Where did the idea come from?

My husband Nathan and I were driving, and he had the thought, let’s go out west in an RV. If we did it in an RV, we could take someone else with us. We had our friends Tucker and Brittany in mind because we always try to see them (they don’t live by us), and we knew they’d be excited to join. As simple as it sounds, this is really how we came up with the idea.

But why the RV? When Nathan pitched it, he was already set on the RV. But it also made it more economical by sharing the cost of the RV instead of each of us renting a car and the cost of hotels/cabins along the way.

We took the ‘we are just going to figure it out’ mentality. We really had no idea what we were into and really leaned into those moments.

First steps we took

We had this idea, and everyone was on board. The first step for us was booking the RV. We wanted to secure that because we needed to have the info about the RV to book campsites.

When it came to researching destinations, our list started long. And we quickly realized our ideas were unrealistic and we wouldn’t be able to do it all in the 10 days. We knew we wanted to go to Yellowstone & the Tetons, and kind of worked our route around those, being the main points of our trip.

The route we took

We flew into Denver and got the RV, and drove to Estes Park at the Elk Meadow campsite. We spent most of the next day in Estes Park hiking and enjoying the area there. Then, we headed towards Jackson, Wyoming. This was a day when we pulled over at some point and explored the river during the drive. It was such a beautiful drive. We stayed 2 nights in Jackson. From Jackson, we made our way into the Tetons. We stayed right on Jackson Lake for 3 nights. After that, we made our way into Yellowstone. We spent 2 days there, and the campsite was awesome. We then headed to Cody, where we did a rodeo. Finally, we headed back to the RV drop spot.

Things we wished we’d done differently

Nathan thought the biggest issue was the amount of time spent driving in the RV. He wishes we had planned the driving better due to the extra time it takes when driving an RV. The other thing is that Nathan would want to spend another day in Yellowstone because we went through that so quickly, and he felt like we only got the highlights. For me, I would change the time of year we went (although that’s what worked for us during the time). Ideally, I’d like to go at the end of September or early October next time. I’d also love to spend more time in the Tetons.

If you’ve ever thought about renting an RV and hitting the open road, or if you just love hearing the behind-the-scenes of a big trip this is packed with practical tips, funny moments, and the reality of what it takes to plan something like this from scratch.

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