In June, three of my friends and I embarked on a long, ambitious, and sometimes exhausting road trip from Wyoming to Seattle. We had planned to stop at four national parks in six days and spend a few hours in each.

We knew from the beginning that we wouldn’t be able to see everything in any of the parks, and that was fine with us. When else were we going to fly to Montana or Wyoming?

We wanted our trip to include a mix of national parks, state parks, urban exploration, and open roads.

When we went to Yosemite National Park last October, we wished we’d stayed forever, but we didn’t regret spending a night there, so we assumed the same would be fine this time.

Seeing four of the most impressive national parks in one week (Grand Teton, Yellowstone, Glacier, and Mount Rainier) was hard to put into words.

However, I was overwhelmed by everything there was to see and knew I would probably have to return for the full experience.

We didn’t have enough time to explore each place.

We spent most of our time in Grand Teton National Park, staying two nights in Jackson, Wyoming, in a motel. We spent a lot of time at Jenny Lake, horseback riding with the mountains in the background, and staring at the snow-capped peak of Grand Teton for hours.

However, when it was time to go to Yellowstone, we estimated that we could only spend five hours there, since we had to drive another hour north to Livingston, Montana, to get to our hotel.

As soon as we arrived, we headed straight towards Thumb Geyser. It was less crowded but not as impressive as Old Faithful, which we quickly arrived at 15 minutes later. Next, we headed to Grand Prismatic Spring.

By then we were hungry and knew we had to find an open restaurant on the Montana side of the park, so we headed out and stopped to take some pictures along the border.

I was so in love with Grand Teton that I definitely didn’t give Yellowstone enough enthusiasm and time.

Over the next two days, we toured Montana’s major cities, stopping in Bozeman, Helena, Butte, Missoula, and Kalispell on the way to Glacier National Park.

Given our busy schedule and the added delay of having lunch at a restaurant with very slow service, Glacier somehow felt more rushed.

We had time to kayak for about an hour on Lake McDonald before heading down Going-to-the-Sun Road to Avalanche Lake, where the road had been closed due to ice. I left wishing I could have done so much more in what many consider the most beautiful national park in the United States.

Although we only spent about three hours on Mount Rainier, I was more satisfied with what we saw. The mountain was stunning from every angle and I didn’t feel like the longer hikes would have been as satisfying as looking at Mount Rainier’s reflection in the lake.

As the trip progressed, all of nature seemed to blend together.

Each park had its own unique beauty, and the mind-blowing geysers of Yellowstone complemented the tranquil deer-filled trails of Glacier.

However, when we arrived at Mount Rainier, I felt disconnected. We had seen so many waterfalls, valleys, mountains and wildlife that I almost felt numb to the views of the last two parks.

On one occasion, we passed an overlook that I was convinced I had seen before, only to realize it was a completely different viewpoint.

Aside from the main distinctive sites, many of the trails and roads in these latter parks seemed like repeats of those in the previous parks we visited, which I’m sure would not have been the case if I had visited them on separate trips.

I know I missed a lot of the nuances of each park; every moose or bison I saw on the side of the road was just “another bison.”

Because our schedule was so tight, we were stuck in whatever weather we had.

Since we only had a few hours in each park except Grand Teton, we had to deal with whatever the weather was.

We were generally lucky with mostly clear skies, although we did get caught in a storm in Grand Teton that prevented us from doing more ambitious hikes.

The mountains disappeared behind dense clouds and visibility was poor. This was also partly the case on Mount Rainier, where clouds blocked most of the mountain at some viewpoints.

Of course, if we had stayed longer in any of these parks during a rainy week, the outcome could have been worse. Still, our tight schedule left very little room for adverse weather conditions.

I don’t regret it, but I wouldn’t do this trip again.

After a few weeks of reflection, I have no regrets about how we planned this trip. Every park visit worked, the road trip was easy, and everywhere we went was beautiful.

My friends and I paid only $80 combined to enter the parks because we had America the Beautiful annual passes that covered parking in addition to standard entrance and amenities fees. It seemed like a great deal and we can still use our passes until they expire to visit other federal parks and recreation lands in the US.

As much as I wish we had spent more time at each stop, the reality is that we all have vacation days, limited travel budgets, and plenty of other things we want to see in the world.

We probably wouldn’t have been able to see these four parks in the next few years if we had split the trip into two or three parts.

Still, I probably would have been able to enjoy the national parks more if I had split the trip into Grand Teton and Yellowstone, and then a separate trip through Glacier, Mount Rainier, and Olympic National Park outside of Seattle.

However, to get the full experience of most of these places, I feel like I need to plan some return trips.