Ashley Bliss Design Blog Posts

Do you love taking National Park Road trips as much as we do? If the answer is yes, read on because in this blog post I’m going to share with you how we visited 4 beautiful, different, awe-inspiring National Parks in the Southwest USA in just 6 days.

Day 1

We were coming from San Diego so we caught a flight that got us into El Paso, Texas at about 6:00pm. We rented a car from the rental agency which was onsite at the airport, which really made getting a rental car quick. Next thing we knew we were on the road heading north into New Mexico towards the city of Las Cruces. It was about an hour drive from the airport to our hotel. We were in bed by 10pm after grabbing a bite at a local spot that was close to our hotel.

Day 2

Up early and ready to explore was how we were feeling the morning of day 2. We grabbed a delicious breakfast at a local diner and were off to drive to White Sands National Park. The drive from Las Cruces to White Sands was just around an hour drive. We spent the day hiking there, went to a nearby town Alamogordo about 25 minutes away for lunch and then came back to White Sands to catch the sunset there, which was amazing. Right after the sunset we were on the road to Whites City, New Mexico which was a 3 hour and 15-minute drive. We were in bed that night again by 10pm or 11pm.

Day 3

Our hotel we were staying at in Whites City was 10 miles away from Carlsbad Caverns National Park. This gave us time to explore Carlsbad Caverns, go into the cave, check out the visitor center, and then we spent the rest of afternoon driving to Guadalupe Mountain National Park, which is a 30-minute drive from Carlsbad Caverns. It was really windy that day so we decided not to hike that afternoon at Guadalupe. We had to double back about a 45-minute drive to our hotel but it was all good because we had to drive by the two parks again in the morning in order to go on onto the next spot. If I remember food was hard to come by, we were around really small towns and we were there in mid-October, not peak season. Again, in bed by 10pm or so, we were tired and had been doing a lot the last couple days.

Day 4

We did so much on day 4 on this trip. We got up early and drove to Guadalupe Mountain National Park again. We decided to hike about a 3-mile roundtrip hike there, then got in our car and headed deep into west Texas. About midday we stopped in Marfa, Texas which is a little artist’s oasis in the middle of the desert. We then drove on to Big Bend National Park. We stayed at a lodge & restaurant inside the park which was really cool. We explored the park and caught the sunset on the Rio Grande River, which is inside Big Bend National Park. The drive from our hotel by Carlsbad Caverns to the lodge at Big Bend National Park was a 4 hour and 30-minute drive in total. It was a long, fun day, again we were in bed pretty early this night.

Day 5

Up early, and ready to explore Big Bend a little more. Big Bend is huge so we drove around and saw some sights and then exited the park and started driving northeast in Texas towards Midland, Texas. This night we got a hotel close to the Midland airport. We wanted to make it easy for ourselves for the next afternoon when we had to return the rental car and then go catch a flight. In bed early to rest up for traveling the next day. We visited my favorite fast-food restaurant, Steak & Shake for dinner that night, so good!

Day 6

We were feeling rested and ready to go. We had some time to kill after we checked out and before our flight. We found that there was a really nice local park real close to the airport so we decided to hang out there for about an hour rather than wait at the airport. We dropped off our rental car at the agency at the Midland airport and boarded our flight and were on our way home to San Diego. In our own beds this night and so glad that we saw the amazing places we just saw!

My hope is that by explaining how we break down our travel time, share cities to stay near certain parks, and any other tips is that it will encourage anyone out there who wants to do a road trip like this to do it! You will be so glad that you did, we were!