Ontario to British Columbia (via USA- tourist attractions, RV resorts?)?)

[BadBoy]

We are travelling in our MH from Kingston Ontario to Vancouver B.C in mid June. We plan to take the U.S route the whole way.

Does anyone have any suggestions for tourist spots (nice campgrounds, cool restaurants, waterparks, worlds largest umm Q-tip, whatever?). Please feel free to paste in a link or name of a place beside the city, state etc. We are happy to go off our main path for something new and exciting. My kids are 13, 10, 7 & 5. We are planning on taking about 10 days total.

Here is the main route we are taking once out of Canada:

- Either through Chicago or Sault Ste Marie (not sure?)
- Madison Wisconsin (Waterparks- Kalahari &/or Noahs Ark)- 2 days
- (I-90 through South Dakota)
- Sioux Falls (Yogi Bear Jellystone Park?)
- Badlands National Park
- "Bear Country" in Rapid City?
- Mount Rushmore
- Sturgis (quickly)
- Billings, Montana (horseback riding?)
- Yellowstone National Park
- Lolo Montana (Hot Springs Ranch RV resort?)
- Spokane, Washington
- Port Moody BC

Thanks very much!

[Purplefans & Harvey]

Hi! Sounds like a great trip for you and the kids! We took our 32A to Mt. Rushmore last year from Massachusetts. Stopped at the Dells in Wisconsin to the Mt. Olympus waterpark (RV park right across street), and then to the Mall of America, visited Driveatank.com in Waseka, MN for a great Dad's outing, then across SD to the Rafter J (I think that's the name), campground where you could rent a car on premises (cool!). Then to Rushmore with car (although campers were there), Crazy Horse, Devil's Tower Wyoming (cool!). That's
as far west as we went.

Have a blast!

[skigramp]

That is a REALLY long trip for 10 days ... if I understand your proposed route that is about 5500 miles round trip ... that is over 500 miles of travel every day ... and you have suggested two days for the waterparks in Wisconsin Dells ... so 5500 miles in 8 driving days would not be fun for the kids or the parents ...

I recommend that you stop at the Black Hills ... you can ride horses, see Mt Rushmore at night, ride bikes, see bison, feed the donkey, visit wind cave, go to family dinner show, visit a gold mine, Deadwood, hike, ride bikes on their great bike trails, .... that would cut the mileage down to about 3000 miles ... you will all have more fun ...

[BadBoy]

Thanks very much for the information.

Its actually about 5000 kilometres (not miles) pretty much bang on. 10-11 days should be plenty depending on what we want to do. There should really be any action until we get to Wisconsin for 2 days then the adventure really begins.

We are looking for horseback riding (for good value for 4 adults & 4 kids), cool attractions, waterparks, must see RV resorts along the way. Yellowstone sounds questionable in the MH due to narrow roads I understand? My wife would not like that at all...hmmmm?

[Purplefans & Harvey]

Wow - I just saw you did what we did - went from class C to class A also! Do you pull anything? We don't and that limited us a littlebit.
The rafter J ranch was recommended through this site, and was a nice place. It was right on the bike path that you could ride, and there was a small horseriding place nearby. It also had car rental right on site. Lots of room for the dogs to run. Do you bring dogs with you also?

[skigramp]

I suggest you re-check the distance ...

I have used Yahoo Maps as well as Streets&Trips ... they show 2857 and 2868 MILES (respectively) from Kingston, ON to Port Moody BC

We regularly travel between San Diego, CA and Oshkosh, WI ... that is a little over 2200 miles ... I have found both of these mapping programs to be very accurate in predicting mileage

[BadBoy]

Hi, sorry all. I should have been much clearer in my op. We are travelling 5000 kms (1-way) from Kingston Ontario to Vancouver B.C via U.S route. We are actually moving out that way and will be towing a 12 foot U-Haul trailer.

We are taking 11 days to do the entire 1-way trip which should be plenty of time. I'm open for any neat campgrounds, waterparks, tourist attractions etc along the way.

Still gettin the MH ready. We have 1 bad cell in my 5 battery bank (for inverter) which hopefully I can rectify today. We just bought our 99 Southwind Class-A for $26,000 with 50,000 miles.

We found a great company to drive our vehicles across the country for $500 gas/taxes included for my car and $400 plus gas for my SUV which will be pulling another U-Haul trailer. Canadadriveaway.com is the site. We have attached a free app on our i-phone for cheapest gas called "gas buddy" which has proven itself very worthy thus far. Saved me $24 on one fillup of the MH alone!

The adventure begins in 15 days. Please post anything exciting we wont want to miss in any of the areas along the U.S route!

Thx again all

[mofa]

Your doing the right thing by driving through the states, the roads in Canada stink, I did it three years ago from BC to Quebec and ended up turning around because of the condition of the roads. I know your looking for great spots to stop, we found that just taking our time and taking some side roads off the highways, we found great little towns and shops and stores. I can also say that the people we met were more than kind and helpfull. For us we had more fun and adventures NOT preplanning our route. Might work for you.

Drive safe.

[skigramp]

One of the adventures that we enjoyed is the jet boat ride up the Snake River from Lewiston, ID ...that might not be on your intended route

The Smoke Jumpers base in Missoula, MT is very interesting ... they give tours through their facility

[TW]

US roads are a LOT better in shape, and the Fuel is about 20% cheaper.
Mostly Canadian Oil = Guess who makes all the money on the Canadian Cash Registers? Governments

TW