Unplanned Road Trip Planning To Colorado and Utah Part 1

Does the title of this post make any sense? We are making a road trip to colorado that is unplanned, but I’m trying to do some planning haha!

Let me explain our road trip to Colorado to you a little further.

We haven’t gone on our honeymoon yet (that happens in July). On Wednesday, I woke up and Wes said that we should just pack up our bags, take the dogs, and leave immediately to go on a road trip to wherever.

However, I’m not really the spontaneous type who just drives to places in hopes of finding a place to sleep.

I am the type of person who needs to plan every last minute.

I love reading travel guides online and I can read these just like how others read books – I just can’t stop! I like to know everything and anything about where I am going to travel to.

It’s both a positive and a negative – I can spit out random facts about a place that I’ve never seen or been to, but it can also take the fun out of things when I know EVERYTHING about where I am going to.

Sometimes, a little spontaneity is needed.

I also know that this is something that Wes has been really wanting to do. And guess what? I’m having a ton of fun! It’s nice just planning things as we go, and taking our time in areas that we want to.

Where do we plan on going on this unplanned trip?

Ha, I know that this trip is supposed to be unplanned, but I have tried looking into different spots along the way.

When we were on the road from St. Louis to Denver (it’s a 12 hour drive!), I did create a few different itineraries for us.

At one point, we were thinking about adding Yellowstone, Lake Tahoe, Yosemite, San Diego, and Las Vegas into our road trip, but we decided not to last night so that we could focus more of our trip on Colorado. I think we are going to save the west coast for another trip.

We LOVE Colorado so far, and we still have plenty of days left to go. We aren’t sure when we are going to start heading back home. It will probably be around 10 days from now. Might be sooner, might be later. That’s what’s great about this trip, nothing is set in stone so we can feel everything out and see what we really want to do.

On our updated itinerary:

Leave our home that is located in a suburb of St. Louis, Missouri.
Travel to Wes’s family’s property in Warrenton, Missouri (about one hour away from our home). We stayed here for two nights.
Go to Denver and stay for 2 days. We explored the area and I was probably most excited about their awesome REI!
Leave Denver and go to Arapaho National Forest. Our hotel was located in Silverthorne, Colorado though. We went to Arapaho National Forest yesterday and just drove around on their dirt trails around the mountains. We plan on going back today and tomorrow.
Today, we are going to Lake Granby and we are going to try to find a place for our tent. We are hoping to stay here for one to two days.
After leaving Lake Granby, we will be traveling to Black Canyon of the Gunnison National Park. We will probably camp here for one day.
Next will be the Colorado National Monument. We might camp, but I have a feeling that we will want a hotel so that we can wash our clothes and enjoy a hotel room (instead of living out of a tent).
We will then leave Colorado for a few days and travel to Canyonlands National Park in Utah. We plan on enjoying this area and hopefully trying to make it out to BlueJohn Canyon.
After leaving Utah, we will travel back to Colorado and visit Mesa Verde National Park. We will probably camp out here for one day.
Next will be visiting the Great Sand Dunes. I’m super excited about this. We may have to get “dog shoes” for our pups so that they don’t burn their feet on the sand though.
After all of that, we want to go back to Denver for a day and try to recoup for the 12 hour journey back home…

Now, this is where I need your help. Is there anything that I should be adding to our list? Is there anything on the list above that you think we should skip? What are your favorite things to do in Colorado? I want to hear all opinions!