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After an amazing adventure on Maui, we headed to our next leg of our adventure. Most people we talked to that have visited Hawaii have been to Oahu and Maui. Fewer have made a visit to our next stop: the Island of Hawaii, most commonly called ‘The Big Island', the youngest and largest (and still growing!) of the Hawaiian Islands. 
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Camping has ignited our travel spirit over the last nine years. It’s encouraged us to explore new locations. It pushed us to set a family travel goal of seeing all 50 states with our children, while they are still children. And sometimes, camping nudged us to travel to locations where camping isn’t the best way to visit.   The North Shore of Minnesota, a 150 mile long shoreline from Duluth to the Canadian border, is a stunning and surprising stretch of the upper Midwest that should be added to your wishlist. We have loved visiting Maine, the White Mountains, the coasts of Oregon and Washington, as well as the Lake Michigan shoreline. The North Shore seems to blend the best of all of these regions while being uniquely Minnesota.
We had a romantic vision of what a winter road trip to Minnesota would look like: snowshoeing over fields of fresh powder, frozen waterfalls, and ice skating on one of the 10,000 lakes, winter festivals and ice bars in Minneapolis, and sledding in a park before warming up in front of a fire. With a blizzard in October this year, who would have guessed it would be warm, gray, and drizzly for our visit?  Following our new family tradition of traveling and camping for Thanksgiving, a tradition that started in 2015 with our first big camping trip to the Grand Canyon and Sedona, we headed to Arkansas for a late fall adventure. Since starting our Thanksgiving travels, we’ve since been to Williams AZ, Stone Mountain GA, Cherokee NC, Asheville NC, New Orleans LA, Myrtle Beach SC, Bentonville AR, and Detroit MI. This year we returned to Arkansas to explore Little Rock and a return visit to Hot Springs.   We have a tendency as travelers to push as far and as fast as possible on each day of our travel. It’s a great way to get far from home very fast and see a lot. But we also stress ourselves with tight time lines and unrealistic expectations. As we embark on a 16-day epic tour of the northeast, our goal was simple, slow down and enjoy it.
 Most people we know head to the beach for Spring Break. We instead headed west for the second Spring Break. Last year, it was Death Valley, Zion, and Las Vegas. This year: New Mexico. The Land of Enchantment is spot on; where else in one week could we visit six NPS sites, spelunk, sand sled, explore cliff dwellings, visit Manhattan Project sites, climb through stunning art installations, dine in one of the best food cities in the world, and visit a site with roots outside this world?
 Inside the Fort at Dry Tortuga Yes, it's true. You did already see a 2021 post about the Keys. We visited in March with a great plan to snorkel, visit Biscayne Bay and Dry Tortuga's National Parks, and exp[ore the reefs and keys. We did have a great time in March with our friends and seeing some of the sights, but the weather wasn't ideal for all of our adventures. So we took a family vote.
 We've been fortunate to camp a lot this spring and summer. Here is an overview of where we've been from Easter through Independence Day. We've had great spots in Tennessee, Kentucky, Missouri, Indiana, and our home state of Illinois recently.
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AuthorsShane and Jessica 
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December 2024
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