A few people have expressed interest in reading about my trip, so I figured that I might as well throw together a blog to record my journey. I don’t know how frequently I’ll post – maybe daily, maybe weekly. Will I even have much internet access? Probably not!

I anticipate my trip taking about 3 months, from mid-July through mid-October. I have a huge list of sites I’d like to see, but I’d prefer to determine the rate day-by-day… if there’s one place I want to explore I can stay a few days longer, or if something turns out less interesting than I anticipated, I can keep moving. Infuriating, I’m sure, for people I plan on meeting along the way (I do apologize!). That said, I do have an itinerary planned out:

Here’s the highlights I’d really like to see:

• Badlands NP
• Wind Cave/Jewel Cave NP
• Custer State Park (South Dakota)
• Grand Teton NP
• Yellowstone NP
• Seattle
• Olympic Peninsula
• Portland, Oregon
• Oregon Coast
• Crater Lake NP
• Redwood NP
• San Francisco
• Yosemite NP
• King’s Canyon NP
• Sequoia NP
• Joshua Tree NP
• Grand Canyon NP
• Bryce Canyon NP
• Zion NP
• Canyonlands NP
• Capitol Reef NP
• Arches NP
• Denver/Boulder
• Rocky Mountain NP
• Cheyenne, Wyoming
• Colombus, Ohio

Ambitious? Maybe, and those are just the highlights… there are plenty of places I want to see that don’t even make the list. I’d prefer to spend the most time in South Dakota, California & Utah. Based on previous trips, Utah is my favorite state and South Dakota the most underrated; I’ve never been to California. Half the sites are vague memories from my childhood; the other half will be brand-new to me.