How to Plan For a National Park Trip!

If you have ever thought about going to a National Park but are nervous that you aren't ready for it? No fear needed! I will go through the basics of maneuvering these life changing places of AWE! Here's some questions and things you may have not considered before you visit!

(Picture in Fiery Furnace: Permitted area in Arches National Park)

I'd like to start by saying I have easily been unprepared for a lot of the national parks I have visited, not knowing trails or much about the places to see and sometimes that is half the fun but there have also been times I have written a thorough itinerary to jam pack as much as I can! Which leads me to the first question you need to ask yourself:

What do you want to get out of your time in the park?

Knowing what you expect to experience will determine a time frame, capability and what you need to bring with you. If you expect a full camping experience with a ton of large hikes, you're going to need a lot of gear and a decent amount of time. It may shock you to hear, but we do not always camp when we visit National parks. In the Arches picture above, you're looking at the warmest day of our weekend around 35 degrees! We definitely planned for a warm place to come back to after a day of hiking in the cold. You could also just expect to do a drive through a park for a day and that's all you wanted to experience. We have also planned trips with our dog which limit our time and hikes within parks SIGNIFICANTLY so setting expectations is essential for enjoying your time there. Once you have set what you expect from the experience the next step is:

Set a timeline for your trip

First major factor in the timeline is how far you need to travel to visit the park. Is this something close to you? do you need to drive or fly to this location? We have rarely flown to hikes but will most likely need to for East Coast National Parks since they are tens of hours away. You may also need to decide if you personally can handle a drive to this destination and if you can handle your companions if you have any. Me and my husband travel really well together taking shifts of hours of the drive and that helps us travel a ton via car. Currently we live in El Paso and have made multiple trips to White Sands because it is a convenient 90 minute drive and our dogs LOVE SAND DUNES haha. In the case of White Sands it is easily a half day trip with minimal hiking due to all the hiking being just walking on sand. Big Bend is made more convenient by living here too but is still 5 hours away and requires more than a day specially since the national park is huge. Which is your next factor:

How big is the National park? I recommend opening up a map app and start looking at how long it takes to get from a few points in the park like visitor centers or potential hikes in the park. There are also a few factors I will talk about further in the article but also look into whether or not you can drive in those areas too. You may have to factor travel accommodation schedules into your timing too.

Next factor in this is what kind of hiking/walking are you planning on including? Obviously, if you are just planning on driving though, you can plan an easy one day trip through almost any park. However, if you are planning on doing some hiking, you will need to plan for that for 2 components.

1st) How long it takes to travel to the trail head. Places like Yellowstone, Big Bend and Glacier are HUGE and it takes Hours to travel from end to end of the park. Make sure you are looking at how long it takes to get there! 2nd) How long it takes you to hike! Are you a slow hiker/ view watcher? We know that it takes us less time than Alltrails pretty consistently but I do plan to use that time frame for buffer time just in case something happens like bear sightings and extra stop and stare moments. This leads us smoothly into the next component:

What kind of hiking do you plan on doing?

This again depends on you personally as well as what kind of park you are visiting. I highly recommend looking at the National park website for park favorites to start. I also recommend checking youtube (and my past and future reviews of parks) to get some of the more hidden gems of each place that will make your experience special.

(Photo: draft timeline of big bend weekend trip)

After getting an idea of which hikes you would like to add we need to add that to our timeline. The photo is the idea of what I start to do if I am planning on jam packing a bunch of stuff into a weekend. The timing includes buffered hike time and buffered drive time so we aren't rushed but we can still figure out how much we can add. Coming back to my note earlier: There are quite a few parks that limit traffic in and out of the park. Make sure that you look at the NPS website for your park for road closures and shuttle only places! I believe during peak months there are 6-10 national parks have timed entry passes required as well that you should be aware of. For example, in Zion NP we rented ebikes to travel the roads so we could travel a little more freely to the majority of the canyon, specifically for the Narrows but that does take more time than driving. However it may have been quicker than waiting for a shuttle to pick us up. The Big Bend timeline has been updated due to us not get any of the campsites in Chisos campground so I had to plan for the hour drive to get to our Airbnb. Perfect Segway to the next question:

Where are you planning on staying?

I am so thankful people are exploring National Parks more and more but dang is it difficult to find spots to camp in them now. Usually all national parks have two reservation systems: 4-6 month in advanced spots and 2 weeks in advanced spots. But you absolutely need to know where you are staying in a ton of these remote places. And here's a big one: YOU DO NOT HAVE TO CAMP TO GET STARTED VISITING NATIONAL PARKS!!!! We have stayed at hotels, glamping tents and basic tents and all are completely acceptable and you need to start somewhere!

Some places are much more enjoyable in hotels as well. Photo: our motel room in Tuscon for Saguaro NP. Even though it was late fall we still were getting 80-90's temps and would have been MISERABLE in a tent. We had fun at this pet friendly hipster place in town and Zion clearly approved!

A part of this is dependent on where the park is and what you already have. I feel like this needs to be said: people get intimidated by people that HAVE to have the most luxurious or expensive equipment. You really do not need much to start. You can go to Walmart and get a $50 tent and use stuff you have from home like pillows, a comforter and sandwich supplies! You can do a lot with that but it's more about enjoying your time in the park, not where you stay. Start at your comfort level.

Be Open to the road blocks you WILL experience!

I want to end this article mentioning how much fun it is to run into pleasant surprises and leaving a little bit in the air! One of my favorite examples of this is my first trip to Rocky Mountain with my husband (boyfriend at the time). We had planned to visit the bear lake area and didn't even realize the major connecting road had opened JUST that week. We got coffee and breakfast at a local shop in Estes Park and sat next to some friends that were elderly. The man was showing his friend developed photos of the wolf cubs in his back yard and then showed us too! So cute! We told them where we were going and they told us that the Trail Ridge Road was open and that if we were looking to spot a moose to take the road and go to the other side of the park. It was such an incredible experience and we wouldn't have, if we had stuck to our original plan! Please be open to the direction your journey is leading you. You may enjoy the unplanned adventures more.

Trail Ridge Road for the story above!