Driving the Utah & More Road Trip
With the Pacific Coast Highway still closed in mid-2025 (but now re-opened) and so unable to do my hoped-for West Coast trip, in early September 2025 I landed in Atlanta for another road trip, which I named ‘Utah & More’. Because I would visit all five National Parks in Utah plus lots more stuff before and after.
I originally started out planning another Coast to Coast trip, starting in Boston – a city I lasted visited in 1987 – and then heading west. When I went through my bucket list of places I still wanted to visit in America, I discovered a number of them were near each other in the American Southwest. Plus I could get to see Death Valley after last year’s postponement. I didn’t expect to be able to do that so soon. And on the way I could stop at some cities and sights I’d never visited before.
But when I started to work out a cross-country route – finishing of course in Santa Clara to see the 49ers – I was quickly up to a 3 week trip length.
I then realised that it was not feasible to go Coast to Coast and do all that I’d planned so far in the Southwest. This part of the plan had worked out fine and I didn’t want to alter it. Also, on the original C-to-C trip back in 2018, my post-trip observations were not to do such a long trip again (I drove 4,466 miles). Also that some of the daily mileages I did were a bit too much on a regular basis.
So I re-planned the early part of the trip and it all seemed to work out. Atlanta was my starting point to kick off Utah & More…