Sunday, August 30, 2009

The Inspiration for a National Park Vacation



El Capitan Yosemite National Park 2009-

We sometimes are not great at planning far in advance and with limited time off from work and conserving funds- In 2007 we decided to visit a few National Parks on the east coast and discover our own country.

In about 3 weeks, we had formulated an itinerary, packed the car with tent, sleeping bags, a weeks worth of clothes, some snacks and headed south!

Our trip included Gettysburg National Park, Great Smokey Mountain National Park, Shenandoah Valley National Park, an d Mammoth Caves. Along the way we discovered West Virginia, The Biltmore estate in Asheville, NC, Cherokee Reservation and park, The Grand Ole Opry ( the original), The Corvette Museum, the National Air Force Museum And a great German restaurant in Columbus, Ohio.

In 2008, after much discussion decided there were parts of this country we hadn’t really seen except passing through for business or over as we were getting to somewhere else. So once again about 4 weeks before my husband and I coordinated time off from work- we sketched together an itinerary.


We would head West!


Mount Rushmore, Badlands, Devils Tower, Yellowstone, Grand Tetons, Arches National Park, Mesa Verde and The Rocky Mountains! All in 17 days…..

We did it as well as adding Canyonlands, Monument Valley and “Four Corners”, and The Great Salt Lake.


WOW! Is all we can say.


So here it is 2009, National Parks are becoming our obsession and my husband has the luxury of a month of free time (thank you economy) and in 2 weeks we scheduled our most lengthy trip covering Yosemite, Alacatraz, Great Basin, Muir Woods, Crater Lake, Olympic, Mt Rainier, Glacier and Theodore Roosevelt. We add in Seattle, Vancouver BC and Banff National Park of Canada and WOW!

I plan to recount our trip(s) with our highs, lows, must do's and general tips.


Travel On!



Posted by wanderlust at 6:35 PM
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2 comments:

  1. KSBSeptember 1, 2009 at 4:50 PM

    Blog that would help us in planning our first trip to USA that starts this month on the 19th. Can you advise me, if you know of course, where is a good place for camping in LA and in San Francisco? Our journey will take us throught different cities and parks on the West Coast. Is there any chance not to do reservations and to have a night or two in National Parks?

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  2. wanderlustSeptember 2, 2009 at 6:50 PM

    We did most of our trip without reservations. That being said We did have camping (tent)reservations in Yosemite but we were there early august- peak season. However in Olympic National Park(WA),and Great Basin(OR, we had no problem with getting a site. Mt Ranier(WA)was sold out as well as hotel/motel rooms, We ended up in Tacoma- would not recommend)
    My best advice is to check on www.recreation.gov which handles the camping for the US parks. You can probably get a sense whether they will be full this time of year. My inclination is to say now that children are back in school is should be less busy. Re camping near cities? Since we were on the road for a month- we stayed in hotels in the cities (Seattle, San Francisco, Vancouver BC.)
    There are State Parks and National Forests so you may want to look at that option.

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