I thought I’d put together a list of all the places we’ve visited along our trip through the various United States. They will be in order of appearance and if we happened to stay overnight, I’ll note it. Also, as a way to keep a list of the various attractions we saw in each place, we’ll put those here as well. For the record, stopping for gas does not earn a spot on this list. We would have to have actually spent some time in the location and interacted with the people or the place in some way.
[NOTE: We’re WAY behind in posting travel pics and blog posts because of the nature of our travel since leaving Texas. We’ve been practically non stop traveling, touring, and exploring without any down time to process images or write blog posts. In some cases, we’ve traveled 10 days straight without even an internet connection. We WILL update the blog as soon as we can. In reality, as I write this, we’re past 14,000 miles and are in Chicago, on our way back to Alberta. (updated May 22, 2010) We made it home safe and sound and will continue to update the blog as we process the images and write the posts.]
Montana
Great Falls (overnight)
Butte
Clancy
Idaho
Idaho Falls (overnight)
Utah
Salt Lake City (overnight)
Nevada
Mesquite (overnight)
Pahrump (3 nights in Preferred RV Park)
- Amargosa Opera House, Amargosa Hotel
- Zabriskie point death valley
- Rhyolite ghost town
- Sand Dunes
- Dante’s Point
- Bad Water
- Natural Bridge
California
Death Valley Junction
Furnace Creek
Rhyolite Ghost Town
Beatty
Stovepipe Wells
Arizona
Goodyear (30 days in Destiny RV Park)
- Apache Trail
- Goldfield ghost town
- Tortilla Flats
- Roosevelt Dam
- Meteor Crater
- Winslow Arizona
- Grand Canyon
- Williams
Tucson (3 nights in Whispering Palms RV Park)
Benson
Tombstone (3 nights in Stampede RV Park)
New Mexico
Texas
El Paso
Van Horn (one night at the KOA Campground)
San Antonio (1 night at Hidden Valley RV Park, 6 nights at Braunig Lake RV Park)
Corpus Christi / Portland
- USS Lexington
- Padre Island
- Whooping Crane Birding Tour on the Wharf Cat
- Fish Fry and Willie Nelson concert
- Fulton Oysterfest
- Goliad
- Spanish Mission of Goliad (Espiritu Santu)
Beaumont – 1 night at Hidden Lake RV Resort
Mexico
- Walked across border into Progeso
Louisianna
New Orleans – 7 days at Pontchartrain Landing RV park
- Plantation Tours
- Swamp Tour
- St Patricks Day Parade
- Garden District walking tour
- Mississippi Paddleboat ride
- Ninth Ward tour (Hurricane Katrina damage)
Florida
Kissimmee – 8 days at Mill Creek RV Resort
Georgia
Savannah – 9 days at the South Savannah KOA campground
- Tybee Island ( saw the Tybee Island Lighthouse)
- Cemetery Tour
- Photographed in Chipewaa Square by Tim Zeilenbach, otherwise known as the Forest Gump square.
- Bonaventure Cemetery
- Georgia Guidestones
- Drove back to Titusville Florida to see the Space Shuttle launch at 6:21 am Monday April 5th
- St Augustine and area (during shuttle launch road trip)
North Carolina
Wilson – 5 days at Kampers Lodge
(will update asap. Whirlwind traveling and exploring since North Carolina, without time for any blog updates. Since NC, been to DC, Philly and New York City (a week before the Times Square attempted bombing). Then to Cape Cod and Martha’s Vinyard. Then to Plymouth Rock, Bangor Maine (where we pulled the RV up in front of Stephen Kings house for a picture). Then we passed back into Canada from Maine to New Brunswick. We drove into the Maritimes spending a day in Peggys Cove and a day in Prince Edward Island. Then we drove 3 days to Mont Tremblant Quebec with a 4 hour visit to the city of Quebec in the province of Quebec.
After a 5 day convention in Mont Tremblant, we toured Montreal for 3 days visiting with an old home town friend of Rob’s.
Then back into the US, to Rochester NY and from there, a day trip to Niagra Falls, Niagra on the lake and St Catherines before being hastled at the border by a border guard not quite understanding that our RV was in the US and we were going back to it.
Then we drove 2 days to get to Chicago where we currently have spent 2 days touring, seeing the Blues Brothers filming locations and Al Capone historical stuff. Tomorrow some Route 66 things around here, and then we start our 7 day trip back towards Edmonton with a 2 day stop in Unity Saskatchewan and a day or two in Calgary to visit Grammy and some relatives there. It’s May 22 as I write this… we’ll update the blog as soon as we get some time off from actually looking at stuff and photographing it)
What a travel log. Did you stop at random or planned your stop sites? Reserved ahead of time or what? Thanks.
Ginger Spalding
We plan our longer stays ahead of time and the days we just need a one night stop over just fly by the seat of our pants, or do a Walmart thing. We use http://www.rvparkreviews.com/ a lot to check on reviews of a park, as well as the Good Sam rating.
Dar is quite the researcher. When we first began our trip, she would plan out all the details about where we’d be camping for 3 or 4 days ahead. She looks at Good Sam parks, Passport America parks and then reads the reviews from other campers on the RVparksreview.com before finalizing her decisions.
Towards the end of our trip, 120+ days in a row, we still do the same thing, but are much quicker at it and dont do it quite so far ahead anymore. Our plans kept changing every few days based on circumstance.
As we drove up the East coast, friends began offering us a campsite on their property for a few days at a time, so that was great too.
Dar will be writing a post about how we choose rv campsites in the future.
Thanks for asking.
Wow. Came across an article you did in Good Sam’s Highways of Sea Breeze and one thing led to another, I’ve now spent an hour reading your site 😉
I’m traveling the US myself trying to hit all 50 states in 2 years, so will be checking back for insights to some of the places you stayed as they’re geographically on my list as well.
In the meantime – can I just say that I LOVE your photography? I’d like to say its because I’m from New Orleans and was smitten with some favorite personal memories, but the truth is that your variety of techniques are just so darn cool…like the fire truck (the first one head on is my fave but the paint by lights was so friggin cool). Is it all in the techniques, or do you have mac daddy equipment too? I always wonder what’s possible for the layman. In any case, I hadn’t seen anything about whether or not you have a website where you sell your photos. I can see you have them watermarked (wise) so maybe I just missed it somewhere.
Just curious, thx and good luck getting all caught up!
Thanks for the comment Sara. The New Orleans post you saw here at the moment, is the first day of a weeks worth of photography. There should be at least 4 more posts on New Orleans.
I’ll let Dar answer the photo questions.
and thanks on the “good luck getting caught up” (ha!)
FYI for all Young Snowbirds readers: Road Trip calendars for 2011 are now available on my site. I had so many images and requests to have them that I have created a calendar of some of my favorites from the road. You can see all the images in the calendar and order one here https://www.youngsnowbirds.com/miscellaneous/road-trip-2011-calendars/
Thanks for so much useful information. I’m leaving in two weeks for a cross-country trip and will hit some of those you’ve written about. I see you did not include the Northwest US but if you plan that trip let me know, I live here and know it well. MBR
@Mary Beth, please define “the Northwest” for me. We next want to make our way West to BC, then south through Washington and Oregon into California, then over to Phoenix and make sure we get to see New Mexico next time. We had to blast through it in a day in order to make a seminar date in San Antonio.
I get a kick out of the “Mid West” which is so far east, it’s silly. What is the North West US exactly lol?