Great Sand Dunes National Park

Great Sand Dunes National Park is located in southern Colorado, about a 9-hour drive from Salt Lake City. The park is obviously most well-known for its large dunes, but there are also hiking trails which lead to forests, lakes, and waterfalls.  Spring to early summer brings the unique Medano Creek and beach, located at the […]

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Acadia National Park

Once we made our way into Maine, one of our first stops was the Portland Head Light.  We had spent a lot of time in the car up to this point, and had debated stopping here or just going straight to the Airbnb.  Ultimately, we made the decision to stop, and by chance we made […]

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Shenandoah National Park

This road trip was planned with a few different goals in mind. First goal, Shenandoah National Park. Second goal, see part of D.C. Third goal, see fall colors along the northeast coast. Fourth goal, Acadia National Park. I had never been to this side of the country before, so I was excited to see all […]

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Channel Islands National Park

Channel Islands National Park is comprised of 5 beautiful islands off the coast of Southern California.  The park was established in 1980, and consists of 249,354 acres, half of which are under water. The names of the different islands are: Santa Cruz, Anacapa, Santa Rosa, Santa Barbara, and San Miguel. This was the 6th National […]

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Pinnacles National Park

Pinnacles National Park was promoted from a National Monument to National Park in January 2013. This park is a natural wonder, formed by volcanic activity from millions of years ago. It’s full of canyons, caves (& bats), rock spires, unique vegetation, and infamous California condors. Pinnacles is not a large park, only having about 30 […]

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Sequoia & Kings Canyon

After ending our magical time at Yosemite, we ventured towards Visalia, CA, which was conveniently located about 45 minutes from the entrance of Sequoia National Park.  I won’t spend too much time reminiscing about our time in Visalia, but if you’d ask me or my friend, this was probably the worst part of our trip. […]

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Great Basin National Park

Great Basin National Park is located in eastern Nevada and is about 3.5 hours from Salt Lake.  This was stop #1 and National Park #1 on the big 10-day National Park road trip we took this past summer. Our plan once arriving at Great Basin was to drive the scenic loop, hike the Alpine Lakes […]

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Glacier National Park

Glacier National Park is located in northwest Montana on the Canadian border.  The Continental Divide splits the park between East and West Glacier.  When open, the Going-to-the-Sun Road connects the two sides of the park in roughly 50 miles, however when its closed, it takes about 2 hours to get from one side to the […]

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Death Valley National Park

Death Valley National Park is a land of extremes. It’s America’s hottest and driest national park, and sits on the California- Nevada border. Because Death Valley gets extremely hot, the peak season is from October- April when there are cooler temperatures. We visited in April, just as temperatures were starting to heat up. Now, I’m […]

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