Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Rocky Mountain NP - fly into DEN.

Came here to say exactly this. Cute town too. Just prepared to enter the park early, which is easy to do if you stay on east coast time. Lots of great easy hikes that you can google. We did the Dream Lake/Emerald Lake hike from the Bear Lake trailhead.

We stayed at the Quality Inn near Estes Park and it very clean, comfortable and well-run. Estes Park is a cute little town with a downstreet and cute shops. When we were there right before Covid there was a glass blower and a taffy maker in town. Hopefully they are still there.

Flying in to Denver and renting a car there is expensive (i grew there so I go frequently) the last few years it has actually been cheaper to do California. If your budget is tight that’s something to consider

Heading to Denver for work tomorrow. The car was normal price/not expensive. LA a few weeks ago was way higher.

There’s a lot of seasonal variation

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Rocky Mountain NP - fly into DEN.

Came here to say exactly this. Cute town too. Just prepared to enter the park early, which is easy to do if you stay on east coast time. Lots of great easy hikes that you can google. We did the Dream Lake/Emerald Lake hike from the Bear Lake trailhead.

We stayed at the Quality Inn near Estes Park and it very clean, comfortable and well-run. Estes Park is a cute little town with a downstreet and cute shops. When we were there right before Covid there was a glass blower and a taffy maker in town. Hopefully they are still there.

Flying in to Denver and renting a car there is expensive (i grew there so I go frequently) the last few years it has actually been cheaper to do California. If your budget is tight that’s something to consider

Heading to Denver for work tomorrow. The car was normal price/not expensive. LA a few weeks ago was way higher.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Rocky Mountain NP - fly into DEN.

Came here to say exactly this. Cute town too. Just prepared to enter the park early, which is easy to do if you stay on east coast time. Lots of great easy hikes that you can google. We did the Dream Lake/Emerald Lake hike from the Bear Lake trailhead.

We stayed at the Quality Inn near Estes Park and it very clean, comfortable and well-run. Estes Park is a cute little town with a downstreet and cute shops. When we were there right before Covid there was a glass blower and a taffy maker in town. Hopefully they are still there.

Flying in to Denver and renting a car there is expensive (i grew there so I go frequently) the last few years it has actually been cheaper to do California. If your budget is tight that’s something to consider

Anonymous wrote:Rocky Mountain NP - fly into DEN.

Came here to say exactly this. Cute town too. Just prepared to enter the park early, which is easy to do if you stay on east coast time. Lots of great easy hikes that you can google. We did the Dream Lake/Emerald Lake hike from the Bear Lake trailhead.

We stayed at the Quality Inn near Estes Park and it very clean, comfortable and well-run. Estes Park is a cute little town with a downstreet and cute shops. When we were there right before Covid there was a glass blower and a taffy maker in town. Hopefully they are still there.

Rocky Mountain NP - fly into DEN.

Glacier you can totally do in a week or so- the airport in Kalispell is 25 minutes from the park entrance, and you probably won't be able to get a place to stay in the park at this point, but plenty of rentals within 20-25 minutes of park entrance in Kalispell, Whitefish and Columbia Falls. Flights aren't too bad actually in August- search around but I saw some basic economy on Alaska (stop in Seattle) for $360 Aug 5-13.

Car rental is very tough- over $1200 for 8 days at that time. You can probably get it down eventually using tools like Autoslash to rebook when prices drop, but probably not below $500-600.

Rentals look like you could do around $275-300/night.

I'd like to take my kids to a national park out west this summer, but figuring out where to go and how to do it on a budget is the tricky part. (Fed facing potential RIF, but we've been saving for a while and i don't expect to be better off next year.) We only have 6-7 days if I keep my job, so we may have to fly. What will give us the most bang for very few bucks?

My dream trips would be southern Alaska parks or Olympic and Mt Rainier. Don't think Alaska makes sense for a trip this short. My oldest kid wants to go to Alaska, Yellowstone, or the Grand Canyon. Southwestern parks probably a feasible option but I've been to a few and would prefer somewhere new. Yellowstone/Grand Teton/Glacier would be amazing, but again...6-7 days.

Not interested in east coast parks or New River Gorge - done a lot of that and will visit again. Thanks for any ideas!