Capitol Reef National Park was the third official stop on our Southwest U.S. national parks road trip (after Zion National Park and Bryce Canyon National Park). We spent almost a full day here before driving to Arches National Park. Capitol Reef is one of the lesser known Utah national parks, making it a hidden treasure of undiscovered cliffs, canyons, domes …
Hiking the Stunning Lower Calf Creek Falls Trail in Escalante
After visiting Bryce Canyon National Park, we continued our Utah Mighty Five Southwest road trip with a stop at the Lower Calf Creek Falls Trail in Escalante, Utah. Here, we hiked to Lower Calf Creek Falls, one of the few active waterfalls in the southern Utah desert, and were blown away by its beauty. This post focuses on how to …
How to Spend One Day in Bryce Canyon National Park
Bryce Canyon National Park was the second stop on our epic Southwest U.S. road trip, following Zion National Park. We spent just one day here, allowing for ample time to visit Utah’s other national parks. Situated on a high plateau at the top of the Grand Staircase, Bryce Canyon has the highest elevation of the “Mighty 5” Utah national parks …
How to Plan Your Epic 3-Day Zion Adventure
Zion National Park is Utah’s first national park and one of the most-visited national parks in the U.S. It’s the perfect addition to a Utah Mighty Five or Southwest U.S. road trip and also a great place to visit all on its own. This blog post focuses on our visit to Zion National Park in October 2021, how we got …
A Quick, Little Getaway to Texas Hill Country
After our trip to Fredericksburg, TX, Sara and I had that itch to travel – even more so than the past year when we couldn’t! Even so, neither of us had been vaccinated yet, though we both are now…yay! With that in mind, we were trying to come up with some more ideas to travel “locally”, i.e. within Texas, but …
How to Celebrate Turning 30 in Deerfield Beach, Florida
With COVID-19 still looming and almost a year of stalled travel plans, my boyfriend, Tim, and I made the somewhat risky decision to join my brother, Don, and his fiancé, Kristina, on their trip to Deerfield Beach, Florida for Don’s 30th birthday. Day 1: Getting to Deerfield Beach Drive/Fly to Deerfield Beach Don and Kristina left early Saturday morning, planning …
How to Celebrate Your 30th Birthday in Fredericksburg, Texas
2021 brought a new year and new (albeit modified) travel plans! Our first trip was to celebrate my 30th birthday in early January, and given the Covid vaccine was not readily available to most people our age at that point, we wanted to make sure we were super cautious. Ultimately, I decided on a local trip to Fredericksburg, TX, which …
How to Spend Two Spontaneous Days in Chicago, Illinois
Candace and I met in late 2016 at a personal development course – back when we were both still living in Houston, Texas. We became closer friends as we did several other programs together, and one of these brought us to Chicago, Illinois in mid-2017. We decided to take advantage of the situation, since neither of us had been before, …
How to Explore Western Oregon in One Week
In early 2018, my friend, Courtney, and I decided to run a half marathon and chose the Fueled by Fine Wine race in Dundee Hills, Oregon. The race took us through some of Oregon’s most beautiful vineyards and wineries and offered incredible views, as we climbed more than 2,000 feet in elevation. Since neither of us had been before, we …
West Coast Road Trip From Seattle to Austin
Only 24 hours after my adventures on the Olympic Peninsula, I was back on the road for a casual 2,700-mile drive from Seattle, WA to Austin, TX! Given the year we were having in 2020 and the fact that I’d already been missing my friends and family a ton before we were all in lockdown for the better part of …