2023 Travel Recap

The last two years, Teddy and I have wrapped up our year by doing a recap of our travels which you can find here for 2021 and 2022. The questions are pretty similar each year, but change a bit depending on what type of travel we did for this year.

In 2023, we traveled to Alaska for our wedding and honeymoon, to the South Central part of the United States for Teddy to complete his goal to finish all 50 states, and then went on a weekend trip to Indiana for a Penn State game. We also took some weekend camping trips, did a visit to the Pocono Mountains, and went with Teddy’s family to the beach for a few weekends.

Separately, Teddy was able to go to Kansas for his annual hunting trip and took a weekend to visit his friends in Georgia and went on a weekend camping trip. I was able to visit Arizona on a solo trip as well as Charleston, and to go to Virginia with friends. We didn’t include either any of our solo trip adventures in the answers below since we wanted to share our thoughts on the places we both experienced together.

What you will find below are our reflections on the year!

Top 5 Experiences from the Year

Teddy

Getting married on a glacier
Float plane trip with the bears
The day in Fort Worth Stockyards
Kenai Fjords Boat Tour
Penn State Game in Illinois

Steph

Getting married on a Glacier
My first helicopter ride
Seeing bears up close on our fishing trip
Actually getting to see Denali
Boat tour into Kenai Fjords

Top 5 Overnight Stays

Teddy

Steph

Texican Court
Princess Lodge in Cooper’s Landing, AK
Airbnb in Palmer, AK
Baycest Lodge in Homer, AK
Our RV – Maybe a lame answer but I love camping in our RV.

Favorite National Park

Both of our favorites from the year were both in Alaska! We only visited 5 total, so there weren’t as many to choose from this year as in years past.

Teddy – Denali National Park - The wildlife, seeing Mount Denali, and just the views made it a favorite.
Steph – Kenai Fjords National Park – I loved the boat ride we did through the park and hiking Exit Glacier.

Top 3 Hikes

I’d love to say we had unique answers here, but we didn’t except for my runner up.

Teddy

40 Foot Hole in the Wichita Mountains
Savage River Loop in Denali National Park
Spencer Glacier in Chugach National Forest

Steph

40 Foot Hole in the Wichita Mountains
Savage River Loop in Denali National Park
Spencer Glacier in Chugach National Forest
Runner Up – Hawk Falls in Hickory Run State Park

Favorite State Parks Inside PA

Teddy – Hickory Run State Park. The waterfall and hike with the dogs was enjoyable.
Steph – Codorus State Park or Hickory Run State Park. Both of these have rhododendron bushes and there’s just something about parks with water with those plants that I love.

Wildlife Encounters

Teddy – Fishing with Bears
Steph – The bears were cool but the bubble net feeding whales were incredible too!

Favorite Camping Experiences

Teddy – His favorite campsite view was at Otter Lake. His favorite campground was Bellefonte and his favorite camping weekend was at Gettysburg.
Steph – Otter Lake was the most beautiful view. We were right on the lake and had the best sunset views. I also really like the campground and amenities at Hershey Road. For a campground their bathrooms are beautiful and smell good. That’s not always the case. We have also enjoyed mini golf and the pond views.

Favorite View

Teddy – Getting married on a glacier with the beautiful mountains in the background.
Steph – The view of multiple glaciers from the side of a mountain right after we said our vows beside Teddy. We will never have an experience like that again.

Favorite Glacier

We both loved Knik Glacier and it will always hold a special place for us since we got married there.

Teddy – Knick Glacier
Steph – Knik Glacier

Favorite Method of Transportation

Teddy – The helicopter on our wedding day.
Steph – The helicopter over the glacier on our wedding day was incredible but I also really enjoyed the Alaska Railroad. And also the Tram that took us up Alyeska.

Favorite Scenic Drive

Teddy – The bus ride through Denali to see the wildlife. We saw bears, caribou, and Dall Sheep.
Steph – The drive down the Seward Highway was beautiful to see both water and mountains.

Favorite Breakfast

Teddy – Sticky Bun from The Purple Moose in Palmer, AK
Steph – Reindeer Sausage Burrito at the Purple Moose in Palmer, AK or the burrito from Rise Up Coffee in OCMD

Favorite Lunch

Teddy – Pork chops at The Old Plantation Restaurant in Medicine Park, OK
Steph – The Prime Delmonico Sandwich at Sullivan’s Steakhouse in Naperville, IL

Favorite Dinners

Teddy – The Ribeye at the Cattleman’s Steakhouse and the Raven’s Roost caribou medallions
Steph – Shrimp and Grits at Gris Gris in New Orleans or the Jalapeno Business Pizza from Moose’s Tooth. It had fried chicken, fresh jalapeños, goat cheese, pickled jalapeños, raspberry sauce, green onions, cream cheese, mozzarella, provolone. YUM.

Favorite Dessert

Teddy – Our wedding cake or the Whiskey Cake in TX. So good!
Steph – Our wedding cake was divine. I’ve never had a better cake in my life. Runner up was the Whiskey Cake from WhiskeyCake that we had in Houston.

Favorite Drink

Teddy – Chai at Purple Moose in Palmer, AK. He asked to go back every day we were there.
Steph – Coffee at Magnolia Press in Waco, Tx or the Lotus Drink in Palmer, AK. I couldn’t pick just one in Alaska. I have now found some places local to us in PA that have them that we can visit!

Favorite Snack

Teddy – Beaver Nuggets from Buc-ees. (Also Teddy pronounced this “Boose-ease” for for the GPS and it made me laugh so hard)
Steph – The blueberry donuts from Bowerman Blueberries Farm Market in Holland, Michigan.

Favorite Sunset

We usually include a sunrise and sunset spot on this list but in Alaska, the sun rose around 3:30 AM and set around 12:30 AM. We didn’t get up for sunrise. But did enjoy some beautiful sunsets!

Teddy – The sunset in Denali National Park around midnight. We drove into the park after our ATV tour outside the park and it had great coloring.
Steph – Otter Lake Campground. With our site right on the lake, it was the perfect spot to watch the sunset.

Historial Site

This is the first year for this category but we went to some more historical sites like Vicksburg, Gettysburg, and learned the history in New Orleans and around it. We both picked the same place though.

Teddy – Gettysburg National Park
Steph – Gettysburg National Park - This audio tour made it perfect to learn and drive around the sites.

Favorite Town

Teddy – Homer, Alaska. Teddy had been here once before a few years ago and loved it and really enjoyed it when we went back. Stay at the Baycrest Lodge if you go.
Steph – Talkeetna. Although one of my disappointments on the trip happened here, I really loved the small town feel and the art stores. I got some of my favorite post cards and ornaments on the trip from the shops downtown. It would have been even more ideal if we would have been able to see Denali from our lodging or in town.

Favorite City

We don’t do a lot of “cities” but did a few this year. New Orleans, Dallas/Fort Worth, Oklahoma City, Ocean City in Maryland, Anchorage, and a few others.

Teddy – Ft. Worth Stockyards.
Steph – Ft. Worth Stockyards. It felt like a small town in the city. We loved the stockyards and watching the cattle drive. We learned history about the area, and got to browse various shops. We had a wonderful breakfast and lunch here.

Biggest Disappointment

Teddy – Indiana Sand Dunes National Park. While it’s a pretty view, it’s not continuous since it’s a newer park and there’s big industrial buildings right next to the park.
Steph – Spinach Bread in Talkeetna. I had seen this on so many videos and people raved about it. I was so disappointed in it. I’m hopeful it was because I was recovering from being sick, but nothing else tasted that bad to me on the trip so I’m not sure. The other was Anchorage. I didn’t have high expectations for it, but it really was my least favorite part of Alaska.

Most Overhyped Places

Teddy – Oklahoma City. You can tell they put a lot of money in to make it a destination. It was more for families it felt like.
Steph – New Orleans. I’d been before and it wasn’t on the places I wanted to return. We did since Teddy had never been. I just didn’t get the best vibe there. We did love our stay and food while there, just not somewhere I desire to go to back to.

Most Surprising

Teddy – Hot Springs National Park. The history, historic drive, promenade, and town were all cool.
Steph – I have two answers for this. First was a random art show we walked into into outside of Chicago. I bought two prints from one of the photographers that I’m in love with. The other was just how beautiful the Wichita Mountains are. I loved hiking out there.

The Stats

Miles Driving – 4952
Miles Hiked – 65
New States – 6
New National Parks – 5
New PA State Parks – 20
Road Trips – 3
Camping Trips – 9
Nights Away From Home – 58 (Most being holidays and weekends!)
Wedding Ceremony on a Glacier – 1

I say this each year, but we really have had an incredible time traveling together since we met. This year was the year we got married in Alaska and had a road trip honeymoon will be one we will remember forever. Teddy got to round out his visit to ALL 50 states! We got to really lean into the PA State Parks this year with our camper and have enjoyed the slow weekends. We even got to take Remington on his first of many camping trips early this year and now the 4 of us get to travel together. While not included in these stats and trips, we also both got to prioritize trips by ourselves or with friends which is important to us too.

Each trip we go on, we learn more about ourselves, each other, the state, the people living there, and the history. We are incredibly thankful to be able to travel and have loved having our dogs along for the adventures!