We have friends in England who want to visit the West next year without driving. They want to start in Vancouver or Seattle, visit Yellowstone and the Grand Tetons, possibly the Four Corners area, then Zion and Bryce in Utah, and end in San Francisco. Is this doable by train, or is the only alternative the bus? Any suggestions for their itinerary are welcome.

I don't see any reasonable alternative to driving for that kind of itinerary other than a chartering a private plane, which would probably cost a bigger number than my imagination can handle.

This is a perfect example of the vastness and emptiness of the western U.S. The population is so sparse that I would be amazed if you could do this even by bus. Bus routes, where they exist at all, are going to go from one larger population center to another.

According to Mapquest it's 756 miles from Seattle to West Yellowstone (add a 100 miles on either end from Vancouver to Old Faithful), maybe another 500 or 600 miles to Four Corners, 200 or 300 over to Bryce/Zion and 700+ back to San Francisco.

Even if you could do this by bus, you'd end up in some small town 50 miles from the sights you want to see and no way to get there.

I'm not usually one to recommend a motorcoach tour, but in this case it would be an alternative. Several companies do tours of the USA west. Email me at the office if you'd like me to pull some brochures from our files and mail them to you or to your friends. sally@century-tvl.com

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That's a good idea! You probably couldn't find one that covered the exact proposed route, but maybe you could fly from Seattle to SF, then do a round trip motorcoach tour out of SF.