10 Tips For Planning The Ultimate Southwest National Parks Road Trip

Planning a 7-day road trip is a little tedious. And no matter how much you plan, there are just some things you won’t know you need until you’re on the road. After embarking on the adventure of a lifetime, here are some tips and tricks to plan the ultimate road trip for your crew.

1. Figuring Out Your Route

This is the most crucial part of planning! Really figure out what you want to see. Do you want to see a lot of tall trees, canyons, historical museums, aliens, etc? When I was planning our Southwest Road trip, it was initially a cross-country road trip starting in Chicago. But while researching, I realized the things I was most excited to see were all in the Southwest, specifically Utah.

Also, be very realistic with your route. At least one thing will go wrong, so have a little flexibility in your driving plans. On our first day, the gear shift in the campervan stopped working, so we had to wait overnight for a new campervan. If only one person will be driving most of the time, don’t have them driving for 8+ hours straight.

2. Be Realistic

I guarantee you will stay at places a lot longer than you anticipated. Allocate at least 3 hours to each place. It’s better to spend less time somewhere than spend 4 hours longer than you thought you would. We went to the Coral Pink Sand Dunes thinking we’d spend two hours max, and we ended up being there for 4-5 hours.

A road trip is a different type of vacation. No matter how much energy you think you have, please give yourself one chill day. Our chill day was Day 5.

Unless you wake up early before your road trip, you won’t be waking up early during the road trip.

Gas is expensive, especially for a campervan. Add another $500-$600 to your budget strictly for gas.

3. Instagram vs. Reality

Listen, do not believe all the IG posts lol. Instagram is a great place to get picture ideas, but head to YouTube to get realistic depictions of the things you want to see.

There are a lot of popular places people recommend, but honestly, a lot of those places are just pretty for pictures. There’s nothing wrong with going to a place just for pictures, but if you’re tight on time,e try to keep those to a minimum.

4. Helpful Content Creators

YouTube is your best friend. Van life is popular in the U.S., so it’s easy to get ideas of places to go. I watched a ton of videos, but my main two channels were:

The Other Side
- Ana and Ian were my go tos while planning our road trip. The quality of their videos is fantastic, and they do a good mixture of popular sites with low-key things. I watched their Southwest videos numerous times.
Adventures of A&K
- Mainly watched them to figure out what hikes would be possible.

5. Showering

Before fully embracing the thought of van life, I had to figure out how we would shower. I remember watching a video about van life, and the Youtuber said he hadn’t showered in seven days…

To each their own, but seven whole days without showering was an absolute hell no.

I decided on this rechargeable portable shower because it was the simplest and had the best reviews. I really liked this because it gave us the freedom to shower wherever & whenever we needed to. The tent gave us privacy, and the shower head made the process super quick.

6. Road-tripping While Black

I, unfortunately, had to think about the safety of road-tripping while Black. It sucks that as Black people we have to worry if a town will be safe for us to stop in but it’s our reality.

When planning out our route, I made sure we wouldn’t be driving past sunset. I also researched the towns between the National/State parks we wanted to visit. Fortunately, we didn’t have any problems or run-ins with racists.

But everywhere we went, there were only about 1-2 other Black families, which is the reason I really wanted to document this trip. I am very happy to have been able to partner with Travellers Autobarn, which is working on promoting not only diversity but inclusion in the industry. Remember, exposure leads to expansion.

7. National Park Pass

Make sure to get an Annual National Park Pass! It costs $80 but covers admission to all national parks in the U.S. for a year. Without it, we would’ve had to pay $35-$40 for each national park we visited. The Grand Canyon alone costs $70/car.

8. Campsites

I didn’t book any accommodations before the trip because I didn’t know what city we’d be staying in each night. This was partly genius and partly not, lol. From research, I thought we’d be able to “camp” in Walmart parking lots, but we quickly learned that was a lie. Thankfully, I downloaded an app called iOverlander. iOverlander shows you where all the campsites are, from established sites to parking lots. I found every accommodation through here. 10/10 recommendation.

9. Mosquito Net

I wish someone had told me this! Most campervans have no air conditioning at night, so you’ll be tempted to keep the doors open before going to bed. The downside—mosquitos everywhere. We’d spend about 10-15 minutes every night killing as many as we could. Definitely make sure to pack a mosquito net!