I’m trying to plan a family vacation for the summer of 2014 and the two front-runners so far are the San Juan Islands in Washington State or Big Sky, Montana. If you have been to those places can you tell me what you think of them? Which place would you rather to visit in the summer?
Alternately, if you would rather not visit those places, where would you plan a family reunion in the western US?
Well, this is a coincidence. I happen to be in Big Sky this week. Kind of a sleepy, small town feel (but I’m staying with my uncle, who’s not the ziplining or bar-hopping type).
The standard response to these questions is “it depends, what sort of stuff do you like to do?” So, what do you want to know about Big Sky? I’ll ask around.
Big Sky in the summer is a pretty good launching-off point for touring in the area, but it is first and foremost a ski town. That’s good in that you can usually score some pretty good deals on pretty nice lodging that would be astronomically expensive during ski season, but there’s not a ton to do right in town during the summer. If you’ve got more family members than you can cram in a single vehicle, having to do a lot of driving to do anything might not be all that conducive to actual reunion-ing.
I’ve skiied Big Sky and we were close enough to snowmobile Yellowstone, so there’s that. Pretty nice stepping off place for lots of scenic drives, hikes, etc.
I have four friends that live on the San Juans either full time, work from there remotely or have vacation homes. They all mention the number of times they’ll come across a pod of killer whales, group of deer, whatever. Takes a bit more planning but I certainly get the appeal.
San Juans are beautiful but summer ‘is’ the tourist period and so you will pay more there for accommodations. Also only way to access is via ferry which is also peak season at that time and tough to get the one you want. If I recall roundtrip tickets for car and driver are about $50, with each passenger another $12-15. But it is a nice area once you get there.
I live in the general area so I see that type of scenery all the time, so my preference would be Big Sky. I did a project back here several years ago and loved it.
But you really can’t go wrong with either. For a 100% contrast you could try Southern Utah with all the national monuments down there. But summers will be a bit brutal there I think, but what a beautiful place.