Driving from Michigan to Seattle

[CruisingLover]

There are 5 of us going on an Alaskan cruise out of Seattle and flights alone would be close to $3000 :eek: so we are more than likely going to drive and take the opportunity to stop and see things along the way.

 

Has anyone done this before and, if so, have any suggestions as to what to see and do? I'm thinking it'll probably take 3 days to get to Seattle but I really have no idea.

 

Thanks,

Tracy

[MeHeartCruising]

Well, I've never done the drive, but would do it in a heartbeat if I had enough days. I'd probably choose a route that might permit me to stop at the Wisconsin Dells, Mount Rushmore and the Black Hills of South Dakota, and Yellowstone National Park before heading into Washington state.

[nets33]

It's a minimum of 34 hours drive time if you look at a mapping program. 3 days would be quick if you're driving 12 hours a day. You should also leave room for any weather delays, mountain driving, etc.

 

I don't know that you'll really have much time to see things if you allow for only 3 days of travel. After 12 hours of driving (I've done this many times from Detroit to Quebec) you are more tired than you'd think.

 

One place to see options: http://www.roadtripamerica.com/forum/showthread.php?24741-Fun-things-to-see-on-I-90-from-Chicago-to-Seattle

[McDebbie]

When we went on our Alaskan cruise there were a few people who took a train across country, maybe look into that. Check over on the Alaska port thread for more ideas. Hope the car is big, 5 people in a car for 3 days would get on my nerves for sure. :D

[CruisingLover]

When we went on our Alaskan cruise there were a few people who took a train across country, maybe look into that. Check over on the Alaska port thread for more ideas. Hope the car is big, 5 people in a car for 3 days would get on my nerves for sure. :D

 

Thanks :) We are very used to being in a car (van in this case). We have taken a trip every year since our first born was 3 (he is now 18) and have only flown 2 times. We've never gone west though so this is all new territory to us. Good thing now is we have 4 drivers!

[www3traveler]

There are 5 of us going on an Alaskan cruise out of Seattle and flights alone would be close to $3000 :eek: so we are more than likely going to drive and take the opportunity to stop and see things along the way.

 

Has anyone done this before and, if so, have any suggestions as to what to see and do? I'm thinking it'll probably take 3 days to get to Seattle but I really have no idea.

 

Thanks,

Tracy

You will need more than three days. On my list of must see would be: Mt. Rushmore and the Black Hills and Wall, South Dakota (allow 1 day), Yellowstone National Park (allow 2 days), 1 1/2 days drive to Seattle (at least 2 days in Seattle) and Glacier National Park (2 days) on the return trip.

Your option would be taking Amtrak. The Empire Builder is a 2 night ride from Chicago to Seattle. It travels through Wisconsin, North Dakota, Montana (a bit of Glacier), northern Idaho and Northern Washington. The King Street Station is right downtown Seattle. I would still suggest a day or two in Seattle.

 

Mandy

[punkincc]

The Empire Builder would be a fantastic way to go. We looked at it several months ago. Amtrack has vacations that overnight at Glacier, but they were pretty pricey. Just the thru trip in coach might not be too bad. Could be less than airfare and you would not arrive exhausted and out of sorts. Might be worth checking out.

 

If you factor in x number of hotel rooms, gas and food along the way, I'm not sure that driving would save anything over the price of a plane or train ticket.

[Izzybeff]

We cruised to Alaska 2 years ago and drove because my husband doesn't fly. It was about 3 days from Eastern Iowa to Seattle. We spent about 1/2 a day going to Mt. Rushmore, Wall Drug and the badlands. We didn't dwaddle though, we kind of saw it and moved on. The only thing I wished we would have done was go to Glacier National Park, but we had already been gone 3 weeks and needed to get home.

 

Just remember that around Seattle can be foggy sometimes. We ran into terrible fog going through Washington and it really slowed us down.

 

I am doing another Alaskan cruise this summer with my mom and a friend so we are flying. Driving would have been the same cost for us as flying, but added 6 days to the trip.

[Econom405]

We drove from Pittsburgh to Seattle 2 summers ago. One piece of advice I have for you is when you're in the desolate areas and it's almost time to stop, don't say 'one more exit' as we found out the hard way it was several hours until we found someplace to stay and the choices were poor. LOL we ended up in a motel that I slept with one eye open all night.

If you've never been through Yellowstone it is a must stop.

IMO once you've done a drive like this, you will want to do it again to stop and see the things you missed the first time, we have driven across the country several times, and can't wait to do it agian!

[CruisingLover]

I am doing another Alaskan cruise this summer with my mom and a friend so we are flying. Driving would have been the same cost for us as flying, but added 6 days to the trip.

 

We are going to sit down and look at all of the costs to determine if driving would actually be cheaper or not. Personally, I would rather fly but my husband says even if the 2 costs (driving vs. flying) are the same he would rather spend the time driving so we can be together as a family seeing new sights......

[NayRN]

While taking the train cross-country has been something I've thought of doing before, the cost is way up there!! I just did a fake booking with Amtrak and the cost from Pontiac, MI to Seattle, WA is approximately $700 per person! I then did a booking on Delta and, depending on the day/time of the flights, I found round trip flights anywhere between $376 and $500 per person (please remember I chose random days and times to find all prices and your search may vary!) It seems to me that not only is flying faster, it's less expensive than the train.

[mtebor]

I just did an amtrak from Buffalo NY to Seattle and price was $274 for regular coach. I did the autotrain a few years ago and never again. Of course this was right after a hurricane in Florida and this was the first train out since the hurricane. We were very late. We arrived in MD around 11 pm. I forgot what time it was supposed to arrive but I thought it was in the morning.

[zephyr17]

I have driven cross-country between Seattle and Indianapolis several times. Restricting driving to roughly 500 miles/8 hours a day, it is 3 nights on the road minimum, and 4 is more realistic. That is without seeing anything. If you want to see much at all, it is 5 nights or more.

 

Big things to see are Yellowstone and Glacier, of course. It isn't feasible to do both one direction, so do one coming out, the other going back. Mt. Rushmore and the Black Hills. Devil's Tower (remember Close Encounters?). Wall Drug in Wall, SD is a must stop, it is the ultimate "roadside attraction". Little Bighorn Battlefield National Monument if that interests you (the Indian camp was pretty much where I-90 is).

 

Remember, once you are in either of the Dakotas and points west, distances between services can be long.

 

A couple of comments about the train, since I do that, too on a regular basis (just got off the Empire Builder from Chicago on Sunday, in fact). Choosing sleeping cars is always more expensive than flying. Coach can be cheaper. Amtrak practices yield management, just like the airlines. The closer they expect it to being sold out, the more expensive it is. With that said, during the summer months the Empire Builder runs sold out or close to it most every day. For best fares, start looking to book it or at least start checking fares in March or April for summer travel. Also, remember that sleeping accomodations are priced by the room, like hotel rooms, not per person.

 

If you chose the train, chose it because you want the experience. It likely will not save you money. Even though coach seating on the Empire Builder is equivalent to airline first class (but with more leg room), I do not recommend 2 nights in coach to anyone over the age of 30. Finally, do NOT schedule a same day arrival as the cruise on any Amtrak long distance service. Always build in a day. It is a good idea flying, but is pretty much mandatory if you are taking a long distance train.

[Casagordita]

There are 5 of us going on an Alaskan cruise out of Seattle and flights alone would be close to $3000 :eek: so we are more than likely going to drive and take the opportunity to stop and see things along the way.

 

Has anyone done this before and, if so, have any suggestions as to what to see and do? I'm thinking it'll probably take 3 days to get to Seattle but I really have no idea.

 

Thanks,

Tracy

 

Google Maps says it's 2,345 miles from Detroit to Seattle, so doing it in three days would be a brutal pace. My ultra-Type A father used to insist on making 600 miles a day on family vacations, and that was miserable--but you're talking about more like 700+! If you can't take more time than that, it's going to be a pretty harsh trip, with not a lot of time for sightseeing.

 

That said, if you can spread it out a little more, there's plenty to see between there and here. I-94 and then I-90 would be the fastest route, but you could pretty easily detour a little south in Montana and visit Yellowstone, or go a little north to Glacier National Park. They're both well worth it! The only difficulty might be if your cruise is early in the season--some of the most spectacular mountain passes (like Going-to-the-Sun Road in Glacier) are closed most years until sometime in June.

 

Ultimately, you might end up spending close to as much money on gas, lodging, and restaurant meals on the drive, plus parking for your car while you're cruising, as you would on just flying out here. But if you have the time, it could be a wonderful trip, and worth every cent.

[Gardyloo]

Back-of-the-envelope sketching, plus a little homework...

 

Why not rent a minivan and drive out, drop it in Seattle, then fly back afterward?

 

I can see rental rates from DTW to SEA over a week that run roughly $900 for a one-way minivan. (Avis, Budget) One way airfare back in late June (assuming the timeframe) is around $280 per person. So with five of you, assuming 2 hotel rooms at $150/room/night and 4 nights lodging, plus gas, you're looking at about $4300 all in.

 

Flying round trip plus two nights in Seattle before and after, around $3600.

 

Driving your own car, five nights on the road each way plus two in Seattle, plus a week's parking, around $4350.

 

Of course these are just imagined numbers ($150 hotel rooms on the road, $200 in Seattle, 20 mpg mileage, etc.) but I suspect the spreads aren't all that different - say $800-$900 maximum spread between flying and driving. (BTW I don't count food since you have to eat wherever you are. Lots of hotels/motels have kitchens, so it doesn't all have to be eating out.)

 

I've driven from the east coast and midwest to Seattle and v.v. on several occasions, and I love it. I've taken anywhere from 4 1/2 days to nine days to go coast to coast with minimal stops; obviously if you want to include Yellowstone or some such, then days add up. If there are kids traveling, the sense of the size of the country is marvelous, and there's no better history lesson. Stop at the Corn Palace in Mitchell SD, or Deadwood SD to see the side-by-side graves of Wild Bill Hickok and Calamity Jane in the Mount Moriah cemetery. Stop at the Little Big Horn Battlefield site (next to I-90) - incredibly moving, and even a day's detour into Yellowstone - see the geysers and terraces around Mammoth Hot Springs, for example - is stunning. Stop at Helena, Montana if you can, and see where a suddenly-rich miner personalized his bank building by having the stone mason carve the owner's thumbprint into the stone over the door. Walk down Last Chance Gulch.

 

I once took some British colleagues on a drive from Chicago to Seattle; neither had been in the US before. I had a CD in the player and timed it so that as we rose up onto the hill just east of where I-90 crosses the Missouri River in South Dakota, on came "Shenandoah" on the CD. "Across the wide Missouri" really means something, when you see a mile-wide river curling across the plains there below you. It's like your heart stops. Everybody was crying.

[Kartgv]

You might also check TripAdvisor (sister site to Cruise Critic) forums for information. You can visit forums by location or check the "Road Trip" forum and ask questions just as on Cruise Critic. Here's the link to their forum home page:

 

http://www.tripadvisor.com/ForumHome

[kenish]

Another suggestion- Take the suggested routes one direction and via Canada the other direction. Vancouver is one of the world's best cities and the drive from there to Calgary is spectacular!

 

One suggestion is tie in your trip with your kid's school- historic points like the Custer Battlefield, Lewis & Clark, etc. If they are keen on aviation the Museum of Flight in Seattle and the Boeing factory in Everett are both worth considering.

[epixx]

Have you considered flying on Southwest Airlines? The cost for most of the summer is $482 per person round trip, or $241 one way (with one way driving as suggested above) from Flint.

[gusandgidgetsmom]

We did this trip last year from IN. We met our children from MI in Seattle. Depending on where in Mi you are coming from it would be about the same distance for us. We drove to Oregon first and stayed for a month and a half on the coast ( I am originally from there) and then drove to Seattle. We drove in the day before to see some sights as my parents were married in Seattle. On the way back from the cruise we just drove without sightseeing stops. We had two drivers but my husband chose not to utilize my skills! haha. It took us 3 and a half days. The trip really wasn't all that bad and if you are used to driving it would be an easy one for you. You are mainly on interstate so it is very easy, except as one poster said if you ar ein areas in desolete states don't hesitate to stop when you first think of it. We had a flat tire in one of those states (had brand new tires!!) and we had to travel on our little spare longer than we would have liked and one night we said oh lets just go a little farther and that took us 2 hours until we found a hotel and it was not pretty. I mapped out everything on Mapquest on the way out I made reservations after 10-11 hours on the road and it worked out well. The way back we just winged it!

As far as the train it is more expensive than driving unless you don't get a room, but I could not imagine not taking a shower or not sleeping in a bed. We checked it for our cruise to Hawaii via LAX. Thought it would be fun--well we are flying-it is cheaper. We are however taking the train to NYC for our summer cruise so our Grandsons can experience it. That trip will only be seats not a room and if all things considered, oil, gas, wear and tear the train is cheaper.

Good luck. Have fun planning.

[RandyH]

If you have time (and like driving) it can be great...

 

My daughter and I did most of the route a couple of years ago... bringing a car west from Maryland to California... She did one day from Maryland to Chicago, visiting an aunt in Michigan on the way... I met he there...

 

We did Chicago to Chamberlane SD then over night... stopped for lunch, for the Spam Museum (best free museum in the world) stopped at the Corn Palace...

 

The next day we drove through Bad lands National park, to Mt Rushmore and Crazy Horse Memorials and stayed in Deadwood...

 

The next day we drove through Stuges for Breakfast, on to Devils Tower, on to Little Big Horn Battle field, then left I 90 at Billings for Cody Wyoming for the night...

 

We were headed to Yellowstone, then Grand Tetons, then to San Francisco....

 

You could stay on I-90 and drop into Yellowstone from Livingston...

 

From Yellowstone it is about 800 miles to Seattle...

 

That would be about 5 days...

 

We did the trip in May, hit some weather along the way... Yellowstone was mostly frozen... but still made good time while having a good time.

 

Randy