Its the time of spring break. And my little son's school was off for the week. One of us had to take day off to stay at home with the kid. One option was to stay at home and get stressed out. The other option was to go somewhere. Since, we don't usually get 5 days off (mandatory no choice), we decided to rather use it and go somewhere. So where could be go ? This is always the most challenging decision. There is no scarcity of places to visit in this world. Prioritizing is always the challenge. And there is the money factor. How can we travel with the cost shooting through the roof? And then the planning. The flight tickets. The hotel stay. The car rentals. The food. How can we buy each of those in the most optimal way? After analyzing multiple options, keeping in mind off seasons, weather conditions and many other factors, we decided that we embark on the travel to the beautiful national parks of Utah. The goal was to travel to the five national parks in Utah namely Zion National Park, Bryce Canyon National Park, Capitol Reef National Park, Canyon Lands National Park and Arches National Park.
We were nervous. Will we be able to do it with a 2 year old ? Is it going to be stressful ? We were not planning to be adventurous. All we wanted was to have relaxing time in the parks while trying to do mild hikes and assimilating ourselves in the beauty of nature.
So we started.
Our flight was from Dallas to Salt lake City in the middle of the night. The flight from Dallas was at 10:00 p.m and would reach Salt Lake City at 12:00 in the midnight. And the car rental agency would close at midnight.
After the flight landed, I just ran to the car rental agency with which I had a reservation. Fortunately the agency was still open. Quickly I finished the formalities and got the car keys. Then I came back to the terminal to pick up my family and luggage. Next was get a night's sleep before starting the road trip next morning to Zion National Park. We chose a cheap and simple hotel which was around 2 miles from the airport. We wanted to avoid any unnecessary travel to a hotel since it was going to be just a fe hour overnight stay. This hotel cheap, simple and had free breakfast. Hey that is nice isn't. One step closer to budget travel. So, went straight to the hotel Airport Inn and slept off. Realized while checking out the car that it was a 2 door car and going to be very painful in taking the kid out and put him back in the car seat. So, called the car rental agency and requested for a car swap. They immediately gave an alternative car. So, had our breakfast next morning and went back to the airport to get a 4 door car. After getting the different car, came back to the airport, checked out of the hotel and started the road journey to Springdale where Zion National Park was located.
More on Zion National Park in Part 2.
We were nervous. Will we be able to do it with a 2 year old ? Is it going to be stressful ? We were not planning to be adventurous. All we wanted was to have relaxing time in the parks while trying to do mild hikes and assimilating ourselves in the beauty of nature.
So we started.
Our flight was from Dallas to Salt lake City in the middle of the night. The flight from Dallas was at 10:00 p.m and would reach Salt Lake City at 12:00 in the midnight. And the car rental agency would close at midnight.
After the flight landed, I just ran to the car rental agency with which I had a reservation. Fortunately the agency was still open. Quickly I finished the formalities and got the car keys. Then I came back to the terminal to pick up my family and luggage. Next was get a night's sleep before starting the road trip next morning to Zion National Park. We chose a cheap and simple hotel which was around 2 miles from the airport. We wanted to avoid any unnecessary travel to a hotel since it was going to be just a fe hour overnight stay. This hotel cheap, simple and had free breakfast. Hey that is nice isn't. One step closer to budget travel. So, went straight to the hotel Airport Inn and slept off. Realized while checking out the car that it was a 2 door car and going to be very painful in taking the kid out and put him back in the car seat. So, called the car rental agency and requested for a car swap. They immediately gave an alternative car. So, had our breakfast next morning and went back to the airport to get a 4 door car. After getting the different car, came back to the airport, checked out of the hotel and started the road journey to Springdale where Zion National Park was located.
More on Zion National Park in Part 2.
