I have a co-worker that loves five-word philosophies.  I had never heard of such a thing until she asked, “if you could describe your outlook on life in five words, what would it be?”  This quickly became a fun conversation in the office.  Everyone wanted to join in on the fun on building a short and succinct way to summarize their values and outlook. Just for fun, I thought that it would be nice to do something similar with travel philosophies. My Five Word Travel Philosophy Without too much explanation, I’m thinking that my 5-word travel philosophy is as follows: “Life’s short – hit the road!” To me, this emphasizes the fact that our days on this earth are finite in number.  How do we want to spend our time?  I have spent a lot of time toiling over things that just don’t matter.  I intend to spend a lot…

Happy 2019!  We hope that you’re off to a great new year! When it comes to our parks, Jason (my husband and travel companion) and I want to experience “it all”.  Any opportunity to get out and explore the parks is one that we look forward to.  Choosing where to go is always a fun challenge. All politics aside, we are concerned about the current situation with the Government shut down that is leaving our National Parks vulnerable to misuse.  We are remaining optimistic that the parks receive the funding and support needed to operate safely (and soon).  Assuming that everything is up and running in the near future, below is our wish list of sorts for 2019. Home Sweet Home – Ohio This year, we would love to finish visiting all of the National Park Units in our home state of Ohio.  There are currently eight units in the state,…

It’s hard for me to believe, but today is the first birthday of this website!  This has been a great year of learning and growth, and we could not be happier with the great friends that we have made that love our National Parks!  We thought that this post would be a quick update on what we’ve done this year, what we’ve learned, and also a chance to start a conversation about where we are going in the year ahead.  So, without further adieu… let’s dive in! 4 Things That I Have Learned During My First Year Blogging 1. Running a website has been an enjoyable experience! It has required a lot of time and effort to learn how to build and operate a site, but has been a good investment of time.  It is really neat to see the results of efforts that have been put in over the…

At different points in my adult life, vacation and taking time off have meant different things to me.  I have several internal challenges that I face when considering taking time off.  In a previous post, I shared that I grew up in a family that primarily traveled with a purpose when taking time off from our everyday lives.  The concepts of taking time off to “just disconnect from the daily grind” and “reconnect with yourself” were not even on my radar.  So, as an adult, redefining vacation has been an ongoing and evolving process. Sometimes, I think that there may be something more to my challenges with taking time off than my purpose-driven upbringing.  I act on a script inside of my mind that tells me that I should be productive most of the time.  While this is true, I crave opportunities to free myself from responsibility and go with…

#NatureWritingChallenge Topic: How my public lands experience has changed in the last 15 years. Check out the challenge here. (Note: Rules for this challenge include writing, unfiltered, on the topic for no more than one hour. Please forgive typos and incomplete thoughts) 15 years ago, I didn’t know that public lands existed. Sure, I had heard about Yellowstone and the Grand Canyon, but I didn’t have a consciousness that these places were interconnected, that they were publicly owned, and that they were accessible to me. Consciousness. When I was younger, my family took trips with a purpose. We would hop in the car or get on a plane to visit family, to go to weddings, to attend conferences, to do service projects, but only rarely to get away to explore. I can remember two distinct trips where the purpose was to get away and to connect with nature. Both of…