So I'm heading west this summer with the fam and was wondering about taking my drone with me.  I think I could get some interesting shots with it.  I have a couple questions:

1. How do I go about getting on an airplane with my phantom? I have a backpack style case for it, which would be perfect as my carryon. If I have to check the bag in, I'm just not taking it because of the way airports handle luggage. Anything I need to know about this? For what it's worth, we're flying Southwest. I'm worrying about them taking the thing apart inspecting it, and not putting everything back together correctly.

2. We are heading to northern Arizona and southern Utah to Sedona, Grand Canyon, Zion, Bryce Canyon, and Las Vegas. Do national parks have any restrictions on flying phantoms? Any other beneficial information for me from you experienced travelling flyers?

you can carry it on.  i think you can have 1 battery in the phantom and 1 or 2 in the pack.  call your airline to confirm before you get to the airport just to make certain.  plenty of ppl travel with them nowadays so it is likely that TSA people will know what it is and have no reason to disassemble.  make sure your battery has some power in case they want you to demonstrate that it will turn on.  ive seen a dozen or more stories on this board of ppl carrying on in US and overseas without ANY ISSUES at all.

US national parks (and state parks) are ALL NO FLY ZONES.  only parks you can fly in are local (city/county).

btw, you can see all the no fly zones programmed in the phantom on their website http://www.dji.com/fly-safe/category-mc.
ie, the firmware will not limit you from taking off from or flying over a national park, but the law states that they are no fly zones.  in other words, it depends on whether you want to break the law, but the drone itself is not stopping you.

here is a useful map of all the US no fly zones by law. https://www.mapbox.com/drone/no-fly/

That map of the US no fly zones is very helpful! Thanks! Seems like I may not bother taking the phantom, as basically everywhere we will be is a no fly zone.

well, technically you could stand at the edge of the park and go straight up to 500ft... i bet you could get some pretty amazing shots from the edge of any national park @ 500ft.