Our Postcards: An American Road Trip

Our Family Adventure Across the American West

For years, my husband’s parents had told us how much they loved travelling across America on organised tours. Their advice was always the same: if we ever had the opportunity to do one ourselves, we should.

Eventually, we did. With our children aged 12 and 15, we booked a 17-day Western Discovery tour beginning and ending in Los Angeles, with a route that would take us through some of the most recognisable landscapes and cities in the American West.

Looking back, it was the variety of destinations that made the trip so memorable. One day we were surrounded by desert and red rock, the next by mountains or enormous national parks, and not long afterwards we would find ourselves in the middle of Las Vegas or San Francisco.

From Los Angeles to the Grand Canyon

We began in LA, with a little time to settle in after the flight from London before heading south to San Diego. It was a gentle introduction to California, with time around Seaport Village before returning to Los Angeles and beginning the journey inland.

From there, the scenery changed remarkably quickly. We travelled through Palm Springs and on towards Phoenix, before crossing the Sonoran Desert and reaching Sedona. Its red-rock landscape was our first real glimpse of the scale of what was to come, particularly as we continued through Oak Creek Canyon towards one of the places we had all been waiting to see: the Grand Canyon.

There are certain landmarks that you have seen so many times in photographs that you wonder whether seeing them in person can really live up to the expectation. The Grand Canyon did.

We stayed within the Grand Canyon area at Yavapai Lodge, which meant we could spend proper time around the South Rim rather than simply stopping briefly and moving on. Standing at the edge and looking across a canyon that stretches seemingly endlessly into the distance was extraordinary, but our biggest memory came from seeing it from an entirely different perspective, by helicopter.

From above, you begin to understand its scale in a way that is almost impossible from the ground. The layers of rock, changing colours and enormous drops beneath us made it one of those rare experiences where nobody really needs to say very much. I remember looking around at the four of us and thinking, how lucky are we to be here?

Monument Valley, Lake Powell and Bryce Canyon

The following morning brought another unforgettable view as we watched the sun rise over the canyon before continuing through the Painted Desert and Navajo Nation towards Monument Valley.

This part of the journey felt like driving through the America you grow up seeing on screen, with vast roads disappearing towards the horizon and huge sandstone formations rising from the landscape around us. From Monument Valley we continued to Lake Powell, then crossed into Utah towards Bryce Canyon.

Bryce was completely different again. Instead of the huge open canyon we had left behind, the landscape was filled with thousands of unusual sandstone spires and pinnacles in shades of orange, red and cream. We stayed at Ruby’s Inn nearby, with the surrounding landscape and clear night skies making it feel a world away from the cities at either end of our trip.

From Zion to Las Vegas

After travelling through Zion National Park, we arrived in Las Vegas, and the contrast could hardly have been greater.

Going from days of rock formations, desert and enormous open spaces to the lights and energy of the Strip was almost surreal. We spent two nights at the Luxor hotel, giving us time to explore properly, but once again it was a helicopter that gave us one of our favourite memories.

This time, we flew at night.

Seeing the Las Vegas Strip illuminated beneath us was spectacular. Hotels, casinos and roads seemed to merge into one enormous ribbon of light stretching through the darkness of the Nevada desert. Having already flown above one of America’s greatest natural landscapes, we were now looking down on one of its most unmistakably man-made ones, and the contrast summed up so much of the trip.

Vegas is a place that seems determined to outdo itself at every turn. We wandered through vast casinos, extravagant hotel lobbies and shopping arcades that felt more like attractions in their own right, with everything from designer boutiques to elaborate themed interiors competing for attention. There is a real sense of theatre to the Strip, from the fountains and enormous façades to the sheer scale of the resorts, and even if gambling is not really your thing, the flamboyance of it all is fascinating to experience.

Death Valley, Mammoth Lakes and Yosemite

Leaving Las Vegas, we crossed Death Valley before climbing into the Sierra Nevada towards Mammoth Lakes, where the landscape shifted once again from desert to dramatic mountain scenery.

From Mammoth, our journey continued across the Tioga Pass into Yosemite National Park. El Capitan and Half Dome were among the sights we had heard about long before arriving, but Yosemite was another place where photographs cannot quite convey the scale. The granite cliffs, forests and huge open valley made it yet another completely different version of the American landscape.

After exploring Yosemite, we continued through California towards San Francisco, where another change of pace was waiting for us.

San Francisco and the Pacific Coast

We spent two nights at the Fairmont San Francisco, which gave us time to explore the city properly after so many days on the road. There were cable cars, the waterfront and some of the city’s best-known landmarks, including the Golden Gate Bridge and Alcatraz.

San Francisco has an atmosphere all of its own, but what I remember just as clearly is the stretch of coastline that followed.

We travelled south through Silicon Valley to the Monterey Peninsula, stopping around Monterey and Cannery Row before visiting Carmel-by-the-Sea. This was a softer, slower side of California, with pretty streets, coastal scenery and the Pacific beside us as we continued south to Pismo Beach.

Our final stretch took us through Santa Barbara and Santa Monica before arriving back in Los Angeles, where we finished in the same city we had started but with the sense that we had seen several completely different versions of America along the way.

A Family Adventure We Still Talk About

Seventeen days had taken us through major cities, deserts, mountains, beaches and some of the country’s greatest national parks. More importantly, we had experienced all of it together while our children were at an age where they were old enough to remember and appreciate what they were seeing.

Years earlier, my husband’s parents had told us to take one of these tours if we ever had the opportunity, and we are very glad we listened.

There are countless moments we still talk about, but two will probably always rise to the top: flying above the Grand Canyon in daylight and looking down over Las Vegas at night. Two completely different views of the American West, and two memories from a family adventure we will never forget.