Before moving from Indianapolis to Las Vegas, we took a road trip for a five week trip out to Las Vegas and back to Indianapolis on a different route. This google maps link (+screenshot below) includes all of our stops to and from Indianapolis. This trip has been one of the greatest memories and we now HIGHLY recommend everyone try doing a big road trip like this in your lifetime. This post covers the trip from Las Vegas back to Indianapolis. To see part one and to go over the stops we took from Indianapolis to Las Vegas, find those here.

Day One

-Leave Las Vegas and head south through Arizona and begin your cruise along the historic Route 66!
-Stop at the Petrified Forest National Park for a few hikes and take a look at awesome, massive petrified wood. In hindsight, I wish we would have entered at the south entrance and drove through the entire park. Instead, we ended up starting at the north entrance – driving south to visit a few trails and viewing areas, then drove back to the highway for exiting in the same spot we entered.
-Drive to Santa Fe, New Mexico for the rest of the night.

Day Two, Three, and Four

If you follow our plans, we ended up staying for an extended break in Santa Fe, New Mexico. We fell in love with the colorful, vibrant, and cultural town of Santa Fe. We loved eating at the Santa Fe Oxygen Bar and the Root 66 restaurant for meals out, however, we had the special treat of staying at the Four Seasons in Santa Fe. We tried to spend a lot of time at the resort, going to morning yoga, hiking along the property, using mountain bikes from their activities services, reserving a private hot tub and sauna from the spa, and eating meals inside their restaurant or delivered to our room. Everyone was incredibly thoughtful and provided us with plenty of vegan options during our stay. This part of our trip was a splurge, but we were considering this our honeymoon stay, so we made sure to enjoy it as much as possible!

Day Four

After Santa Fe, we drove to Tulsa, Oklahoma with a stop at one our favorite meals along the roadtrip in Amarillo, Texas at Yellow City Street Food. When we arrived in Tulsa, we had great plans to take it easy and rest up before we finished driving back to Indianapolis. There are so many cool spots to stop along historic Route 66, after all. However, at this point, we had been away for over five weeks, and we really wanted to be home. So we woke up early and finished driving to Indianapolis. For more stops, check out where you can go to along Route 66.

P.S. Hopefully before you left Las Vegas, you were able to check out our ideas for getting outside and eating out in Las Vegas.

If you used Las Vegas as your home base for trips to other National Parks, hopefully you catch our weekend trip ideas from Las Vegas to:
St. George, Utah
Death Valley, California
Great Basin National Park, Nevada
Joshua Tree, California
Palm Springs, California

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