Advice for road trip

[Alaska mike]

Hey everyone, great to be a part of this forum. I am new to RV life, my wife and i just purchased a 2019 reflection 315RLTS. we are planning our first road trip for September and are traveling from Phoenix to Utah for 2-3 weeks. I am planning on Zion/Bryce and Arches/Canyon lands. Im a little leery of Zion because of all the limitations on getting in and around the park. Is it worth having to ride all the shuttles to see or just skip and see only Bryce? What RV parks are best for each area, wanting to stay in Moab for Arches/Canyon Land. Also if anyone is heading to Alaska would love to give some tips on where to go/see.

[orbiker]

Hey everyone, great to be a part of this forum. I am new to RV life, my wife and i just purchased a 2019 reflection 315RLTS. we are planning our first road trip for September and are traveling from Phoenix to Utah for 2-3 weeks. I am planning on Zion/Bryce and Arches/Canyon lands. Im a little leery of Zion because of all the limitations on getting in and around the park. Is it worth having to ride all the shuttles to see or just skip and see only Bryce? What RV parks are best for each area, wanting to stay in Moab for Arches/Canyon Land. Also if anyone is heading to Alaska would love to give some tips on where to go/see.

Welcome to the forum.
Get your reservations now. Utah is crazy busy in Sept and Oct.
Campendium is a good place to find the out of the way places to camp.

Safe travels. KEN

[traveldawg]

Some ideas... all of which assume you can get reservations at those NP areas.

Zion - we made reservations months ago at a campground in Zion River Resort in Virgin, UT. I most likely will not ride the bus into and through the park if it is at full capacity. We will tour and maybe go to the north rim area to see what we see.

Bryce - see if you can get in at Ruby's campground. From there you can ride the bus to every spot in the park. Take a long hike & loose the crowded feeling at the rim.

Moab, Canyonlands - tour in your car. Get out and hike/walk as much or as little as you want. Google Corona Arch and hike it - a bit less crowded than the parks.

Be sure to get both GyPSy Guides and Just Ahead apps for your smartphones. GG is worth ever cent you will pay.

[AustexGP]

Hey everyone, great to be a part of this forum. I am new to RV life, my wife and i just purchased a 2019 reflection 315RLTS. we are planning our first road trip for September and are traveling from Phoenix to Utah for 2-3 weeks. I am planning on Zion/Bryce and Arches/Canyon lands. Im a little leery of Zion because of all the limitations on getting in and around the park. Is it worth having to ride all the shuttles to see or just skip and see only Bryce? What RV parks are best for each area, wanting to stay in Moab for Arches/Canyon Land. Also if anyone is heading to Alaska would love to give some tips on where to go/see.

That's a great trip to take. But make your reservations early and get a list of all the RV parks close by. Spanish Trails in Moab made the reservations for us in Heber City. We just lucked out in Tropic. It was a place to sleep after visiting the parks, nothing going on in the "so called" city.

We came up from Central Texas and here's what we did. We stayed at Spanish Trails RV park just outside of Moab and used that as the base for Arches, Canyon Land, Capitol Reef and Dead Horse State Park. Then we went North using Utah 191 toward Salt Lake and stayed at Mountain City RV Park in Heber City. Used that as a base for Park City, Olympic Village and Salt Lake City. There are several little towns around Heber City and there is a train ride that you can take. It was closed for the season in late September.

If you can get into Ruby's do, but if not we stayed in the little town of Tropic. There was a small RV park that had full hookups but DIDN'T have TV, Wifi or any restaurants. It is just off of Utah 12 and you can get to Bryce Canyon from there. It's a good drive to Zion and you come in on the east entrance through the tunnel. If you have a 3500 they will have to stop traffic for you to go through the tunnel. DO NOT attempt to take the RV to ZION NP. If you can get a spot in Springdale for Zion it's worth it. But to get there from Ruby's or Tropic you would have to go to back up to IH70 then use IH15 to Utah 9.

On trip that we didn't take and might should have was to drive Utah 12 from Tropic to Escalante, again don't pull the trailer.

From Tropic we came down Utah 89 down to IH40 (Flagstaff). Since you're a Phoenix native I'll leave the trip from Flagstaff to Phoenix to you.

[orbiker]

The National Parks are great. The views between the parks is just as good.

This is outside Tropic, UT. on UT12 I think. It was on a motorcycle trip from Oregon on Sept 2016.



Highway 12 and 24 are very scenic. 95 too. Pretty much the SE corner below I-70 is a must see area.

Safe travels, KEN

[Alaska mike]

Thanks for the tips!!

[zinman]

Hey everyone, great to be a part of this forum. I am new to RV life, my wife and i just purchased a 2019 reflection 315RLTS. we are planning our first road trip for September and are traveling from Phoenix to Utah for 2-3 weeks. I am planning on Zion/Bryce and Arches/Canyon lands. Im a little leery of Zion because of all the limitations on getting in and around the park. Is it worth having to ride all the shuttles to see or just skip and see only Bryce? What RV parks are best for each area, wanting to stay in Moab for Arches/Canyon Land. Also if anyone is heading to Alaska would love to give some tips on where to go/see.

"Alaska mike" if traveling from the east through Zion be careful of the Mt. Carmel tunnel. The tunnel was built in 1927 when cars trucks were a tad smaller. If your over 7'10" wide and 11'4" tall you will need a permit from the park service and the parks service will need to stop two way traffic and make it one way traffic long enough for a large rv to pass through the tunnel since you will go over the centerline to drive through it. Safe travels!!

[sande005]

We went in Sept, and stayed at the Zion River Resort. Expensive, and lots of rules, but a very well run/maintained place. At that time, cars were allowed on the main road, so we drove that part. Then parked on other days in town, and took the shuttles, which are very convenient.