Montana holiday for clueless Paddies

LadFromLimerick

Hi all,
Hoping to head to the USA this August with the wife (belated honeymoon). We're at the very early planning phase, We want to fly in to one of the major US cities direct from Ireland, spend a few days there and then drive to Montana over the course of maybe a week. Can anyone suggest any good road trips (Chicago, San Fra, Denver?).
We'll spend the rest of our time in Montana and the surrounding region. we want to see the Glacier National Park but aside from that we really are a bit clueless about that whole region, it's just a part of the America we think we'd like. We're into the outdoors, hiking, swimming, etc.
Would appreciate any info from people who might be familiar with the area (must see and must do things, suggested itineraries, etc).
Many thanks in advance for your help!!

ncmc

Katherine Thomas was in Montana in last nights 'No Frontiers', it looked beautiful. I think you can watch the programme online and it is repeated during the week. Sounds like you have a lovely trip planned.

rossie1977

nearest big city to montana is calgary in canada, flyglobespan will be flying direct to calgary and vancover from dublin starting in june.

really the choices of good road trips to montana are endless, you could do calgary (banff) and then drive south, you could do south/north dakota and drive east, west from california or washington state, south from anywhere really

if i was doing that for the first time i would fly into las vegas and drive north through utah where you're base should be moab (that would be more down your street actually with the amazing outdoor options in southern utah http://www.utah.com/nationalparks/ mountains around salt lake city, through wyoming and jackson hole, grand teton national park then yellowstone NP on the montana/wyoming border

Cosmo Kramer

Spent some time in Montana in the Autumn, lovely spot.

Its a huge state, but pretty much everything you will want to see is in the western third, so for that reason i wouldn't recommend driving there from Dakota or Minnesota, as you would be driving through a lot of nothing terrain really.

Probably the best starting bases would be Seattle/Vancouver or California/Vegas. From there you could take in Salt Lake City and drive up through Wyoming and Yellowstone National Park into Montana.

Or from the west you could take in Seattle, then go to Vancouver and across southern Canada into Calgary and down into Glacier National Park (which is on the Canadian border) and into Montana that way.

In western Montana theres tons of interesting places to visit, although the towns are relatively small and quite far away from each other, but its hard to drive from one to another without passing by somewhere interesting or really scenic. Butte is a good town to visit if you're Irish, theres a large ex-pat community there. Helena is also a nice town (its where we were based), and Kalispell is up near Glacier National Park.

The only problem you may find is that on the way home its almost impossible to get from Montana to Ireland in two flights, there are only really flights to Minneapolis, SLC, Vegas and Seattle from the state and I dont think there are any direct flights to Ireland from any of those cities. It might be worth driving on as part of your trip to Calgary or Denver to get an easier route home.