Dreaming of Utah

Yes, I said Utah.  It started almost 3 years ago when we visited my mom's friends in Seattle and they just came back from a trip to Utah and raved about how beautiful it was.  I was like, "Utah???"  Really?  For vacation??  What's in Utah?  Just like the way people say, "Iowa???"  or "Tennessee" when I tell people where I went to college, or where I work now.  So I looked into what was in Utah.  Do you know what's in Utah?  There is A LOT OF STUFF IS IN UTAH!!  Sorry, for the all-caps, I'll try to compose myself.

Arches National Park
Photo: Jim Karczewski - National Park Service

The two national parks I'm most interested in visiting is Arches National Park and Zion National Park.  Super recently I came across a picture of Arches National Park, but I don't know where.  As for Zion National Park, I came across a picture of it on Budget Travel's feature 12 Most Beautiful Paths: No Car Required.  Most were hiking trails but there were biking trails too.  Sometimes I think that interesting land formations are more beautiful than beaches.  Then I see a picture of a beach and think, "Well, not to say that beaches are ugly.."  Anyway, all of that was to say that I find land formations to be fascinating and gorgeous.

Two Utah locations on my radar meant that I wanted to see how close they were to each other.  So I had an adventure on Google Maps.  Those are fun.  And totally cheap.  All it takes is time and internet connection.  After talking with my special someone we mapped out a dream itinerary.  It requires a lot of vacation time probably and it would be a long while before we could do it.  If you're reading this, feel free to hijack our dream itinerary, all I ask is you report back so we know how to plan our trip better!

Zion National Park
Photo: Tom Putnak - National Park Service

Itinerary:
Driving time: 21 hours and 34 minutes, if stayed on route and skipped "Along the way" destinations.  If you wanted to fast track from Arches National Park to Zion National Park, you can save an hour and nine minutes by staying on 1-70 and then onto 1-15.  Then you would drive through Manti-La Sal National Forest and Fishlake National Forest.

• A. Salt Lake City Airport
• B. Arches National Park
• Along the way: (On top of the 21:34 hours)
• Capital Reef National Park
• Carcass Canyon Wilderness Study Area
• Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument
• Kodachrome Basin State Park
• Bryce Canyon National Park
• Dixie National Forest
• C. Zion National Park
• D. Grand Canyon-North Rim
• E. Hoover Dam
• F. Las Vegas Airport

View Larger Map

The reason why you would start at Salt Lake City and end in Vegas is if you wanted a one-way rental car, rental car companies would prefer cars to move toward populated areas, instead of remote.  Sometimes, you can't even rent a rental car if your destination is considered remote.  Originally, I wanted to fly into Grand Junction since it's the closest major city to Arches National Park, but one-way rental cars were $800+ a week.  After playing around with other starting points, I found that starting at Salt Lake City's airport would cost $655/week, but $350+/week if you rented the car from town.  If you enjoy driving, then you could find a rental car a lot cheaper if you return it to the same destination.  Especially from Vegas, I've seen around $10 per day in Vegas.  After seeing these prices, we decided that we're definitely waiting until we're 25 so we don't have to pay outrageous underage driver fees.

Arches National Park
Photo: Tom Gray - National Park Service

One way tickets can be expensive sometimes (and other times they don't charge you a premium for booking only one-ways), but since this trip was a way of using my mileage, I searched and found one-way flights for 12.5k miles.  Leaving from Las Vegas, we thought we'd take Southwest and then skip baggage fees.

The major destinations of this trip were Arches National Park and Zion National Park, but since the Las Vegas airport was nearby, we added Grand Canyon's North Rim and Hoover Dam to the itinerary.  Most people who visit Grand Canyon see the South Rim (not coincidentally that's the rim both of us saw).  I've been to Hoover Dam before, didn't think much of it, but when you're with a nerdy engineer, I guess you have to visit these things.  :P

Why get a rental car?

Isn't the point to go on the cheap?

The first time I got a rental car was while in college, our school started a Hertz Connect pilot which allowed students to rent the car for $8 an hour (including gas and insurance) or $64 for the day.  What made this service compatible on a college campus was that the driver only had to be 18 or older.  Typically, there are fees for drivers under the age of 25 and some companies do not rent out to drivers under 21.  Both times I got a rental car, my school paid for it because it was for an organization activity.  A lot of students that did own cars hardly drove it because our school was like a bubble, and so it was more cost effective to pay for a rental car the few times they needed it, rather than the cost of car ownership.

The first time I got a rental car after graduating was because I had a visitor and no car to show them around.  At first I was totally flabbergasted at the price of the car rental because I'm under 25 so there was an additional $10 per day fee, which undoubtedly added up.  Even after getting a car though, I still got rental cars on occasion.  My car is 12 years old and struggles with driving uphill.  On a trip to the Smokies (and again through the Smokies to Asheville), I was not going to put my car through that and potentially face mechanical problems sooner than necessary or worse, have the car break down on me during the trip.  At least, if there was a problem with the car during the trip, I could call the rental company and they would bring another car.  Sure, it would delay the trip but at least not ruin it.  The cost for renting a car for the weekend would be far less than the cost of repairing a car (as I know all too well...).

I didn't think of this on my own though.  I've known of people who drove their own cars for daily commutes to work and running local errands but renting a car anytime they made longer journeys.  Part of that has to do with mileage, because no matter the age of the car, high mileage can shorten the lifespan of the car.  So in the long term, rental cars can make sense even when you have a car of your own.

Plus, some Enterprise periodically runs a weekend special where it's only $9.99 per day (but a 100 mile per day limit and $0.20 per mile after that) and Hertz often has promotions such as waiving the under 25 driver fee and you can combine discounts.  Hertz partners with AAA, some insurance companies, and probably other companies to offer discounts.  The cheapest deals on rental cars that I've seen are on Hotwire, but to book you must be 25 years old.  Bummer!