Solo Road Trip 2026: Yellowstone, Glacier & the Tetons With a Teenager, Two Dogs, and a Camper

There was a point somewhere in Wyoming when I looked in the rearview, saw our little camper chuggin' along behind us, glanced at my daughter & two dogs in the back, and had one very clear thought: I got us here.

Not in an inspirational-poster kind of way. More like: Huh... we are hundreds of miles from home, I am responsible for literally everything, and somehow this is working.

I was the driver. The navigator. The person watching the weather. The person deciding whether we had enough gas to make it to the next town. The one backing into campsites, setting up the camper, checking reservations, figuring out where the dogs could and couldn't go, remembering which batteries needed charging and deciding whether we had enough energy left for one more stop.

Over two weeks, we made our way through some of the most beautiful places in the West — Yellowstone, Glacier, the Tetons, Jackson, Cody, the Black Hills, Mount Rushmore, Crazy Horse, Deadwood, Lava Hot Springs and plenty of miles in between.

We hauled paddleboards and e-bikes. We camped. We woke up ridiculously early for views that made the alarm worth it. We changed plans. We got tired. We laughed. We ate road-trip food that absolutely did not qualify as balanced nutrition. We played Jenga outside in the dark.

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This trip wasn't teaching me nearly as much about travel as it was teaching me about myself.

I wasn't confident at first

I think we sometimes have this backward. We look at someone doing something that feels intimidating and assume she must have reached some magical level of confidence before attempting it. She knows what she's doing. She's fearless. She's naturally adventurous.

But I didn't wake up one morning suddenly feeling qualified to tow a camper across several states with a teenager, two dogs and enough gear to outfit a small sporting-goods store.

There have been plenty of moments when I've wondered whether something would be easier if another adult were there. Because of course it would. But convenience and capability are not the same thing.

I didn't become capable because I finally stopped feeling nervous. I became more capable because I kept doing things while still being a little nervous.

You solve one problem. Then another. You drive the unfamiliar road. You pull into the campground. You figure out where everything goes. You make a decision when Plan A doesn't work. And eventually your brain starts accumulating evidence: Oh. We've handled harder things than this.

The itinerary is not in charge

If you had seen my planning before this trip, you might have assumed I was preparing a small military operation.

In the 6 months leading up to our trip, I made approximately 375 stops at Barnes & Noble to stock up on the best guide books, road trip books, hiking and camping books, maps, journals, and everything in between.

I love an itinerary. I love knowing where we're going, what time the sun rises, where we're staying, how long the drive takes, what we're doing the next day and approximately how much chaos I'm signing myself up for. Planning makes solo travel easier for me because it removes a lot of unnecessary decisions once we're actually on the road.

But this trip reminded me of something I occasionally forget:

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The itinerary works for us — we don't work for the itinerary.

There were days when something sounded fantastic while I was sitting at home planning it and much less fantastic after we'd already driven for hours. There were stops we changed, things we skipped (like the epic mountain horseback ride in Glacier that I’ve been looking forward to all year that got cancelled due to wildfire smoke — ugh!), times we decided we'd rather stay at the campground to swim than squeeze one more attraction into the day just because technically we could.

And almost nothing terrible happened as a result.

There is a particular kind of freedom in realizing that just because you planned something doesn't mean you have to do it. Sometimes the best travel decision is admitting everyone is tired. Sometimes the better memory comes from gelato instead of another landmark.

— Nicole, Solo Adventure Mom