Adventuring through small towns, good books and coffee shops
While 12 days is a decent amount of time for a trip, we covered about 3000 miles so we weren’t able to get to all the hiking we would have liked. There were some hikes we cut due to time or others we didn’t even know about prior to getting to the locations. Because we loved our time in the Southwest and plan to visit again, we started to list our must do hikes for our next adventure through these beautiful states which you can find below.
We spent time in 5 states including Nevada, California, Utah, Arizona, and New Mexico. We visited 9 National Parks, 3 State Parks, as well as National Forests, Monuments, Preserves and Tribal Parks.
Valley of Fire State Park has been on my list of places to visit for about the last few years. I saw a picture of it online while researching a trip and knew I wanted to go when I would be in the area in a future. Fast forward a few years and on our Southwest Road Trip, I was able to finally visit!
Teddy and I both recently made a ranked list of all of the National Parks we’ve visited (21 for him and 38 for me). Zion is in both of our top 5 parks we’ve ever been to.
I shared earlier that this was a National Park we didn’t really expect much from but just the scenic drive itself was so impressive we know we will be back.
The closest I’ve ever felt to being on Mars was at Goblin Valley State Park.
When Teddy and I visited Arches National Park on our Southwest Road trip, we had just shy of a day to spend exploring the park. If you find yourself only having about one day in the area, here are our tips on how to spend your time.
We were able to do a few things in just over a full day’s time in the Page, AZ area. While we were able to do a lot, when we return to this area we already have a list of other things we’d like to do in the area. You can find both what we did and what we’re planning for next time below.
So while this post is how to spend a day in the park, you could spend only a few hours here and still get to see most of it.