Planning Our Trip
Plans for this trip actually began in 2019 when we were planning a much shorter trip up the west coast through Oregon, Washington and British Columbia. That trip got shortened due to my mother's passing and we ended up only going just across the border into Oregon to visit my cousins who were gathering in Brookings for 4 days.
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So for our Anniverary Trip we decided to include those stops but with several more states added. It was a challenge to figure out all of the important sites (tourist traps) we wanted to experience and try to keep our drives to under 6 hours and/or 300 miles per travel day.
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Once we had the map planned out with all the stops, we began to book our hotels and try to use our timeshare where possible. We ended up only using our timeshare at to stops due to the limited credits we had available at the time we needed to book them, which is generally 1 year out.
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Once all the hotels were booked, we started figuring out just what we wanted to do at each stop. We were visiting more than 6 national parks just in the U,S, alone with another 4 Canadian National Parks. With so much to do at each stop, we just had to narrow it down to seeing 2 things per day max.
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The more important thing was that because it was May of 2020, many hotels wouldn't allow us to book until we were within year of our actual trip. To complicate matters further we were in month two of a viral flu strain that was getting worse daily to the point that we might may actually have to change or even cancel our entire trip in one way or the other.
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We also kept an eye on hotels we could book because as you get closer to the beginning of a trip, the prices actually go down, so we would book a better place at a better price and cancel our original reservation. We did this several times and it wasn't until we got to February this year when the prices started to rise and we locked them all in.
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Lastly, we decided to make alternate plans just in case we couldn't enter Canada. At the time, travel was restricted everywhere so we created a duplicate plan and booked all the hotels along this route so we wouldn't have to pay higher prices at the last minute.
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At the beginning of May this year, about a month before we were to actually leave on our trip, Canada was still not letting Americans cross their borders unless you had a negative Covid test within the last two weeks and you were required to stay at your first stop (ours would have been Calgary) for a total of 14 days just in case you caught the but after your negative test and began showing symptoms. At this point we just decided to use our alternate plan and canceled all the duplicate stops on our original plans and begin purchasing tickets for some of the tours, activities, and such that we had chosen.
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This trip will begin and end in Sacramento. Along the way we will make stops of 1 to 5 days in Winnemucca NV, Jerome ID, Jackson WY, Casper WY, Custer SD, Billings MT, Cody WY, West Yellowstone MT, Kalispell MT, Couer d'Alene ID, Wenatchee WA, Seattle WA, Vancouver WA and Klamath Falls OR.
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You can click on the button below to check out our first 5 days. It might change daily or it might take us a few days to catch up but I will paste a link to our website in FB when we have added something. It will be a work in progress, so let's get started!
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