Vacations

One of the things on my bucket list is to hike the Appalachian Trail. I do have a couple of trips that I would recommend and two of them are driving vacations. The first is the Oregon coast. It is the most beautiful and dramatic stretch of coastline that I have ever seen. We didn't make any reservations, just drove until we found a place that interested us and had no problem finding a place to stay. The second driving vacation was the New England coast. It's a trip that I wanted to take my whole life. We're west coasters so we flew into Providence, RI and drove south to Connecticut and then followed the ocean through Rhode Island, Massachussets, New Hampshire and Maine. It took us 3 weeks to make the drive and my one regret is that we didn't have time to drive into the Maritime provinces of Canada. The third trip that I would recommend is an Alaskan cruise. We cruised the inside passage. I'm not a huge cruise person but it is absolutely the only way to see Glacier Bay. I want to do another trip to Alaska, this time to the national parks but this year will finally be the year that I get to Europe. Happy traveling.

I liked to go on long distance walking tracks in the past. Now I have a toddler son that is unable to walk I am not able to walk along all tracks unless they are buggy friendly. When he is older he will ride in a wheelchair. When I was twenty-nine years old I traveled to New Zealand and it is known for its excellent walking tracks. On the South Island I walked the picturesque Abel Tasman Walk. I camped along the way and one campsite was on a tiny cove. Only five tents were allowed there each night. It was an easy plus very enjoyable three to four day walk. I also did the Queen Charlotte Walkway along the sounds. It was a much more demanding walk and it was really beautiful. I liked staying at some pretty campsites. I had my baggage carried each day to the next place I stayed. Day three across a narrow ridge way was really challenging. Much of it was over ground difficult to walk on. There were sea views each side far below. I was exhausted when I reached the campsite that night. I would recommend the Abel Tasman Walk for people that like pretty beaches and am happy to time river crossings to take advantage of the tide. I would suggest the Queen Charlotte Walk for very fit people.

Hi Jodylee. Your post really intrigued me as in my younger days I often thought of hiking that trail. I never did as I lived out west (currently in Montana now). However I did hike the Pacific Crest Trail that stretches from Mexico to Canada and runs thru the San Bernardino, Sierra Nevada and the Cascade mountain ranges en route. I believe that the trail is some 2,200 plus miles long (it has been a while). While there are numerous places where you can't get to it by car, it would make a MARVELOUS trip if you could plan it out and camp along the way. You could take numerous day hikes en route, and even climb Mt Whitney (14,494.8 feet), as well as lots of other georgeous mountains to choose from. Now that would be fun. . . especially in these days of digital cameras