Preparing for Our Journey

 The web address for our blog is called "travelingvtjs", which refers to Traveling Vermonters Julie and John. The purpose for this blog is to share all the wonderful places that we visited along our journey.

In early 2023, we started planning for a cross-country trip to visit family. Our plan was to leave in mid-April and use Airbnb and Hipcamp to find places to stay along the way. Experience using TripAdvisor, AAA TripTiK, and Google Maps for planning vacations and places to visit helped. Purchasing Wanderlog and DayOne were also useful to plan and record. Because National Parks and camping were on the list, we used Recreation.gov for reference and planning too. Being a veteran I was able to purchase a lifetime pass to National Parks for $10 (processing fee & handling charges); it allows us in to all National Parks where a fee is charged.

We are both in our mid-sixties so we knew that we did not want to spend all day in a car. We were excited to see family on the West Coast because we had two newborns on the way; we also knew that this would most likely be the only time that we drove cross-country so we wanted to take our time and see some sights. We had a lot of items for camping, bought a new, bigger tent, and cots. We wanted a tent that we could stand up in, with large windows. We also didn't want to sleep on the ground, so bought cots with padding.

We identified our common interests; covered bridges, architecture, historical sites, nature preserves, waterfalls, horticulture, hiking, and good food. I had a desire to see Monument Valley Navajo Tribal Park and Julie had a desire to see Mesa Verde National Park.

The days were planned for 6 hours of driving time with stops every 2 hours to explore points of interest. AAA TripTik was very useful for plotting out 2 hour stops, and Wanderlog, Google Maps, and TripAdvisor were useful in identifying points of interest (POI). Our evening stays were planned 24hrs before reaching our daily destination. Our apps we used were PictureThis for identifying plants and flowers and Merlin for identifying birds.

Julie has a cousin in Nebraska, so our first goal was their house. The route planned was a 6 day, almost direct route with some deviations for POI. We learned from this experience and it helped with future planning. We are both country people and do not like Big City driving. There are features in both Google Maps and Waze that you can choose to avoid highways, freeways, dirt roads, and toll roads. We will use those features in future planning.

All set! We are ready to go!



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