16 Day Family Road Trip: Nashville to Jackson, Wyoming

Our kids have always been good travelers – whether it’s on a plane or in a car. When COVID-19 hit, we had to cancel a few camping trips and were pretty much stuck at home for a couple of months. After month two, we were ready to get out and needed a family road trip, if for nothing else than a change of scenery. My husband has a flexible schedule and right now was a great time for him to pick up and leave. We decided on a road trip out west from our home in Nashville, TN.

We went back and forth about the vehicle we should take on our road trip. We knew we didn’t want to take my car even though it’s a good traveling car (a Toyota Sequoia). We wanted something that would allow everyone to spread out more. Back and forth we went, from renting a big RV and driving out or renting a Sprinter van. We went with renting a Sprinter from Bandago.

We ended up choosing the Sprinter Grand. 23 feet long, 11 feet high, and seats 12 – we had the perfect amount of room for everyone. Each of the Sprinter Grands come standard with Xbox, TV/DVD, 23 inch monitor, 110v power outlets, headphones, and Wi-Fi. This van is equipped with ALL the things you need and want for the journey. But, my favorite part is the massive cargo space in the back. The measurements are around 5′ X 6′ X 6′. You can fit everything you could possibly want or need for your trip + some in this space.

The people at Bandago were fantastic to deal with and answered every question we had. We have even talked about renting one of these again when we had to the beach for three weeks in October.

We decided on a Sunday to take this road trip, booked our first couple of stops at Airbnb’s and off we went — four days later. Normally we’d plan more, but everything was super cheap at the moment (because of COVID-19), so we made sure the National Parks were open -which they were- and we knew we could find places to stay along the way, so why not go now?

We drove from Nashville to Omaha, Nebraska the first day (10 hours of driving) with a couple stops along the way – one being the Kansas City Chiefs stadium. Our youngest son wanted to see it since he is a Chiefs fan. We had dinner in KC, checked out the stadium for an hour or so, then continued on to Omaha where we spent the day at the cutest Airbnb.

We only were in Omaha one night, but loved it so much we may make a separate trip there again sometime soon.

Our trip then took us to South Dakota. If you’ve never been to South Dakota, you MUST go sometime! I had no idea how beautiful it would be. We visited Mount Rushmore, Badlands, and Custer State Park — and let me tell you how amazing Custer State Park is. One of the most beautiful parks we have ever been to and it also has amazing campgrounds that we’d love to take our camper back to sometime.

In South Dakota, we stayed in a cute little cabin (and I’m emphasizing the word “little”) within a development. It was cute and was definitely small for 6 people. We would recommend this place if you had a family of 4, but no more than that.

After two nights in South Dakota, we headed to Wyoming – a seven or eigh hour drive. We knew we’d come back to South Dakota another time and were making notes of things we wanted to do and see again on our next trip there.

The family road trip continued.

We planned to stay in Jackson, Wyoming for seven days. We rented a place that looked amazing but a few days before our arrival, they had to cancel it because the owners of the Airbnb decided to come into town. Outpost (the agency we booked through on Airbnb) reached out to us to get us switched to a new unit. We stayed in a townhome in Teton Village. We LOVED the location, but the unit needed major updates and didn’t have air conditioning (as many don’t in the area, which we found out after we were there). We had a few hiccups, but the rental company was great to help make our stay better. There are a lot of great places to stay in Teton Village or Jackson, Wyoming.

For the week we were there, we spent our days in Grand Teton National Park as well as in Yellowstone. We saw a TON of wildlife which made the trip extra special. The other times we have been to this area, we’ve seen some animals – but this time we saw a ton every day! I think it was because the parks had been closed for two months and the animals have had the place to themselves. Not only did we time it great with the wildlife, the park was close to empty since we went 5 days after they had opened, so there weren’t any crowds at all.

We saw multiple grizzlies every day and cubs, black bears, foxes, a wolf, elk, moose, and so much more. For the animal-loving kids that we have, this was the highlight of their trip for sure. Every evening after dinner, we would drive back out to the park to check out the wildlife right before dark. The great thing about staying in Teton Village was, you were less than five minutes to the entrance of Grand Teton National Park. Very convenient!

If you’ve never used this service before, check out Gypsy Guide. We used it for every park that we visited on the trip and it was nice to “have a tour guide in our car”, but go at our own pace. Our kids even loved listening to it.

You’d think after being in Jackson, Wyoming for seven days we would be ready to leave. We weren’t and we’re ready to go back — like tomorrow. We so wish we could. The town was so cute, great little shops and restaurants and there is so much to do in the area!

Some of the restaurants we ate at and loved are:

Bubba’s

Snake River Brewing

Gun Barrel Steak & Game House

Jackson Drug

Pinky G’s Pizzeria

Virginian Restaurant (best breakfast)

From Jackson, we left and drove to Moab, Utah. Another beautiful drive! We stayed two nights in Moab and visited Canyonlands National Park and Arches National Park. The 3 bedroom condo we stayed in was perfect for the amount of time we were there. We really didn’t spend much time at the condo because we were gone so much. It was really just a place to lay our heads at night and to let the kids swim for a couple of hours one day.

Of the two parks we visited during this stop, Arches was our favorite. Again, we used Gypsy Guide to guide us through the parks.

We spaced out the two national parks in one day. We visited Canyonlands in the morning, had lunch inside the park at a wonderful picnic spot, and then came back to our condo to let the kids swim for a few hours before heading out for dinner and spending the evening at Arches. We wanted to be inside Arches when it was dark too check out the stars.

My favorite thing about Arches National Park was a short hike we did around when it was getting dark. There wasn’t really anyone else on the trail but us and it was starting to get dark. The stillness of the park, the silence, and watching the moon and stars come out was absolutely breathtaking.

From Moab, we drove throuogh Colorado where we made a stop at Mesa Verde National Park for a few hours and had lunch inside the park. It was definitely worth the stop. I had been there before as a little girl and remembered what a great park it was. They were just starting to open back up when we were there, so some of the turn-offs were still closed, but it was still worth the stop.

After a stop at Mesa Verde, we drove to New Mexico where we stayed two nights in Albuquerque. We visited the cute town of Santa Fe one day and then headed out the next towards Arkansas. Why Arkansas? We went to college right outside of Little Rock and wanted to show our kids around campus since we had never done that before. It also happened to be on our 16th wedding anniversary which made it a little more special since that is where we met.

After we stayed in Arkansas for one night and walked around campus and got a milkshake at our favorite place, we drove to Jackson, Tennessee, and spent the night. The trip was coming to an end and we all were excited to sleep in our own beds at home but were missing being on the road just the same.

We set out on this adventure, drove over 5,000 miles across the country and back with our four kids – ages 14 all the way down to 4 years old. We still love each other and would do it again in a heartbeat! In fact, our kids say it’s one of their favorite trips we have ever been on. We explored six National Parks, visited with family, celebrated a birthday, earned a couple of Junior Ranger badges, and saw some of the most beautiful scenery and wildlife on Earth. It was definitely a trip to remember and we can’t wait to do a similar trip next Spring.

You can check out our road trip must have’s in this list HERE and also, make sure you check out the “Out West” highlight over on Instagram where you can view more about our trip and also see a few questions we answered from followers over there.

Have you ever taken a long family road trip like this? Where did you go?