Fly Drive USA

Depart the UK on your chosen scheduled flight to Denver. Upon arrival, independently make your way to your hotel, where you spend the first night of your adventure.

Collect your Motor Home and make your way to Cheyenne, Wyoming – the capital city and gateway to Cowboy Country. Try to be there for Frontier Days (www.cfdrodeo) though you must book well in advance as the event attracts visitors from very far afield. Visit: the Capitol Building and the State Museum.

A long drive across featureless, tumbleweed strewn country. But have faith, it really is worth it once you cross into South Dakota. Our recommended campground has no hookups, showers or amenities but deer and buffalo roam to the fence. Coyotes howl but otherwise the silence is deafening and the stars are never brighter. There are other full facility campgrounds to choose from if you prefer. It is 270 miles to Wind Cave National Park. Visit: the Mammoth Site and Evans Plunge pool in Hot Springs.

Everyone knows of Mount Rushmore, one of America’s icons. Fewer know the Crazy Horse Memorial, a giant mountain carving of the famous Indian Chief. Please don’t miss visiting either of them! Visit: dramatic Badlands National Park and, if time, the site of the massacre at Wounded Knee.

“The Deadwood Stage was comin’ on over the hill” probably carrying Wild Bill Hickok and Calamity Jane! Don’t miss it; and enjoy a pint at the Old Franklin Hotel or even Kevin Costner’s bar…he fell in love with Deadwood when making ‘Dances with Wolves”. Close encounters of a third kind? You remember the movie? Well the location was Devils Tower. Visit: Spearfish Canyon. It’s an easy loop from Deadwood on the way to Wyoming.

This sounds like a long drive but it is mostly on the Interstate so you should be at the Buffalo Bill Historical Society in Cody shortly after lunch. It may sound boring – but please don’t miss it! You are at the gateway to Yellowstone National Park. Visit: the Medicine Wheel off the more scenic Alt14 on the way to Cody. Once there, don’t miss the Remingtons and Russells in the Whitney Gallery of Western Art.

A stunning drive through Shoshone Canyon to the eastern entrance to Yellowstone National Park. It’s then a gentle forty miles to Grant Village and your campground. Expect occasional traffic jams. That’s when the folk ahead stop to view the wildlife. It could be a Moose with its young, a bear or a group of deer. People just stop and look at interesting wildlife. Just before Grant Village, turn right to Old Faithful – so named because this geyser faithfully shoots thousands of gallons of boiling water around 150 feet into the air at predictably regular intervals through the day. Visit: the Grand Canyon of Yellowstone with its twin falls, one twice the height of Niagara; the Fountain Paintpot and many more geothermal pools and geysers.

22 miles further on brings you out of the South Entrance of Yellowstone and into Grand Teton National Park. You only have to look at the Colter Bay website to see the majesty of the Grand Teton Mountains. Open June to September, this is not a cheap campground; but the location makes it worth it. Visit: the Flagg Ranch Resort, between Yellowstone and Grand Teton.

Drive away from the Grand Tetons through the Great Divide Basin to the town of Lander. On your journey you will pass through The Wind River Indian Reservation, home of the Shoshone and Arapahoe Indian Tribes. Visit: Fort Washakie and the grave site of Sacajawea and Chief Washakie, the last Chief of the Shoshone Tribe.

The name Laramie conjures up pictures of the wild-west doesn’t it? With good reason. In its early days, Laramie was such a rip-roaring railroad town that it made good sense to build the territorial prison here. At the Wyoming Territorial Park, you can still peek into cells where desperadoes such as Butch Cassidy once did their time. Visit: Saratoga Hot Springs’ Hobo Pool on a loop off the freeway through the spectacular Medicine Bow National Forest.

For your last night on tour, you’ll be staying in Fort Collins: the town that the 2006 Money Magazine designated as the best place in the United States to live. Located in the foothills of the Colorado Rocky Mountains this is somewhere to relax after all the spectacular sites and sights of the last few days. Visit: the Annheuser-Busch brewery to see their wonderful horses and sample Budweiser and you might enjoy visiting one of the several micro-breweries.

It is just 60 miles to your motorhome drop in Denver. Make your way back to the airport and check in for your flight back to the UK.