3 Centre US Holiday - Ideas welcome

[omniflow]

I'm planning a 3 centre US Holiday. I've got some ideas, but only the middle part of the holiday is fixed. The idea is to top and tail a trip to Mardi Gras in New Orleans - so the timing is fixed.

The outline plan at the moment is:

Phase 1 - Fly into an airport, pick up a hire car, then do a 7 - 10 day circular roadtrip. Back to the airport, drop off the hire car then get an internal flight to New Orleans
Phase 2 - Mardi Gras for a week - I've started a separate thread on this.
Phase 3 - Internal flight to departure airport, collect a hire car and then have a week at the beach (it will be 6th March)

I'm 90% sure I'm going to use Virgin for the flights, so a fairly limited selection of airports.

For Phase 1, I'm currently thinking of flying into Las Vegas, then doing Grand Canyon, Monument Valley, Santa Fe and Zion National Park - but I could skip the leg to Santa Fe and do Death Valley & Palm Springs. I'm slightly concerned about snow as it will be late feb. I could make this phase as short as 1 week or as long as 2 weeks. We'll have a couple of days in Vegas, but the whole casino thing leaves me cold (I've been to Reno and South Lake Tahoe before).

For Phase 3, I've currently got my eye on Panama City beach in Florida, but might also consider Clearwater if the weather will be better. I'd look to fly home from either Atlanta, Tampa or Miami, so we'll either have a bit of a drive at the beginning and end of this week, or possibly try and find one-way car hire (currently looks very expensive), or take an internal flight.

Apart from the Mardi Gras piece nothing is fixed at all, so any ideas welcome.

[djc206]

Regarding your phase 1 leg that sounds good to me. In January this year we flew into Tuscon then drove to Las Cruces to use as a base to visit the White Sands NP, up to ABQ (sthole) then headed over to Page AZ, Mexican Hat, Monument Valley, Bryce, Zion and then Vegas before heading down to San Diego for some sun so similar but with a bit more time.

So, working on your starting point of Vegas and thinking along the same lines going round the Grand Canyon, Antelope Canyon, Monument Valley and Zion before returning to Vegas would work nicely. Bryce can be done in a day at that time of year from Zion as long as the road is clear. We drove up there and met a chap in a pickup at a rest stop coming the other way who had just been caught in a blizzard north of the park but it hadn’t made it that far south so the roads were completely clear for us. In the park itself the roads and paths were all clear but the snow does accumulate in places, I have a photo of my wife stood next to a cleared path and there must have been kicking on for 5ft of snow there. On the basis that it’s not a safe bet I’d stay in Zion which is arid enough that there’s rarely more than a few inches of snow on the ground and if the conditions are right take the trip up to Bryce being completely prepared to turn around and abandon the idea if the conditions change.

We’ve done Zion in summer and winter and winter wins every time for me. We secured permits to hike the Subway this year and we had the whole valley to ourselves for the whole day. Bloody hell it was a tough slog but we found the dinosaur prints which was my aim! In summer all 60 permits will go and it’ll be heavily trafficked. Angels Landing was also great, way less congested although quite icy in places, rent yourself some spikes from one of the shops in town, best $10 you’ll ever spend, you’ll struggle to make it past Walters Wiggles if you don’t. Oh and I forgot the best bits are that you can drive into the valley itself rather than having to use the shuttle bus as in summer and accommodation with be 1/3 to 1/2 of the price of the summer months.