by Matt Knight
Thursday September 26, 2019 • 3 min read
We learned so much during our first few months of our quest to visit all 419 National Parks in the US - let's recap!
Video
This blog post accompanies our Season 1 recap video on YouTube. Make sure to check it out!
Hitting the Road
In the 5 years or so before we hit the road, Diana and I had visited about 35 National Park Units together. It was these visits that gave us the inspiration and motivation to visit them all!
So last summer, in 2018, we left our home in the Bay Area of California and moved into a 25ft travel trailer. Other than a couple of short test trips, our first journey was to travel all the way down to Texas!
Basing ourselves in Livingston, TX for a few weeks, we established legal domicile as Texas residents. We also used this time to do some major electrical upgrades on our RV and get it ready for some off-grid camping.
We then used our new-found freedom to spend 6 weeks in Europe, visiting the UK for my brother's wedding and seeing Diana's family in Latvia. While there we spent some time exploring Scotland and also managed to visit National Parks in the UK and Latvia - in fact, we visited ALL the National Parks in Latvia!
Arriving back in the US on October 1st, we next headed to New Mexico for the Albuquerque International Balloon Fiesta. We had been the prior year but just for a weekend - this time we dry-camped for the full 10 days!
From Albuquerque we headed to Wellington, TX for NomadFEST, before heading down towards Lubbock, TX to prepare for our first National Park....
National Park Units
In Season 1, we focused our travels in the south-western states of the US, and visited 14 National Park Units in total.
- Carlsbad Caverns National Park
- Guadalupe Mountains National Park
- Chamizal National Memorial
- White Sands National Monument
- Gila Cliff Dwellings National Monument
- Fort Bowie National Historic Site
- Chiricahua National Monument
- Coronado National Memorial
- Tumacácori National Historical Park
- Saguaro National Park
- Casa Grande Ruins National Monument
- Tonto National Monument
- Hohokam Pima National Monument
- Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument
Make sure to check out our Season 1 recap video as we tell the story of our journey. In it, we fill in the gaps between the units, explain what we did during the government shutdown, and share some of the other highlights that didn't make it into our blog posts or videos.
Continuing the Journey
Obviously we have a long way to go - another 405 more National Park Units to be precise! But we've never been more inspired to get out and explore these beautiful places.
If you'd like to join us on the journey then be sure to subscribe to our weekly newsletter and our YouTube channel!
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