Chicago --> National Park Road Trip?

If you want it to be relaxibg then I would suggest only 1 to 2 national parks

Hey Sydney! Your honeymoon plan is very similar to one I'm considering! I'm also getting married in Chicago and my FH and I were considering a two-week national park road trip. I think you'll definitely want to cut down on your itinerary. Based on what you've got laid out now, you'll have an average of two days per park, and that's not factoring in driving between these places, plus the initial drive from Chicago out west, which is loooong. My parents live in Montana now and often drive between Chicago and Missoula--those distances are a long farther than they seem.

The itinerary we were considering is Rocky Mountain, Arches, Yellowstone, and Glacier. For these kinds of trips that are outdoorsy/active by nature, I always try to stay at least two full days in each of the bigger places so I'm not adding a ton of driving onto the exhaustion of hiking and exploring the parks. I'd recommend spending a few hours to check out blogs with recommended itineraries and must sees for each of the places you're considering, and mapping it out into one giant itinerary. Factor in driving time, ideal sleeping spots, etc., and see how long that entire ideal trip would take. From there you can start trimming until you have a solid itinerary that fits your two weeks without feeling too busy! I'm also prone to jam packing trips, so I feel your pain, haha.

But I can also tell you that some of those locations you can definitely see in less time than others. The Badlands, for example, is a great road trip side destination because you can see a ton of the cool landscape as you drive through it. Of course the time you spend there depends on how much you want to get out and into the landscape itself, but that could be a good one to schedule as a pass-through type of stop on your way to another place.

Good luck with your planning! I'm a national park junkie and love planning road trips like these!

Grand Canyon is jam packed then. And you have packed too many, too far apart. Cedar Breaks is a mini grand canyon, between Bryce and Zion. Most of Zion is beastly hot then. But the Virgin River has a section called the narrows that is much cooler. You hike 2-3 days sometimes in the river, where it is narrow, then on beach beside it. 60 feet down from heat, it has the cooling waters, deep shade. There are many side canyons that just glisten with color. You choose a ledge at least 20-30 feet above the water to sleep, in case it rains upstream, makes the water rise 10-15 feet, then go down a couple hours later. Two of the 3 times I have done this hike of the Marrows, it has rained upstream, not where we were (Zion is a desert.) And i the morning, the main canyon and side canyons had so many places where little streams of water poured out of cracks, that in the strong sun of morning was breakfast and a mile walk in rainbows. No rock climbing or technically hard stuff. Bryce is a fairy tale in rock. Various layers of chalky vs hard rock have been carved by wind and water.
There are zig zag paths down into canyons. Top Cedar Breaks. 1-2 days






Middle 3 in the Virgin River in Zion, last 2 the rock sculptures of Bryce. 

The Tetons and Banff are another good pair, cooler, bigger.

Zion is AMAZING!! I think your trip sounds perfect!

Aw, I love this! We're planning on doing something similar, but I haven't actually mapped anything out yet, so I don't have any advice on that front.

If you're not aware though, you can get a National Park passport and collect stamps in it from the various parks that you visit.

DH and I love National Parks and have a goal to see all of them, so he got me the passport as a gift a couple years ago!

My husband and I did a similar trip only 9 days long. We are also from Chicago area. We drove out to the Badlands in south dakota, then went on to yellowstone. Which was honestly over-rated and not worth it. On our way back we stopped at Devil's Tower, the Black Hills of South Dakota and another two nights in the Badlands! We absolutely loved hiking through the Badlands the most.