2024 Year in Review

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We like to round out the year every December by looking back at our travels over the last 12 months. It’s a good opportunity for us to take account of everything we did both personally and professionally in terms of travel. 

Sometimes we are amazed at just how much we packed in. Other times we discover unplanned “trends” in our trips.

The takeaway this year: we did not travel nearly as much as we usually do.

That was mostly due to our big summer trip to the Caribbean national parks, which really put a dent in our budget. We even wrote an article outlining exactly how much we spent on that trip (keep reading). I also spent more time visiting family in Tallahassee.

A man and woman carry large backpacks while walking along a boardwalk.
Selfie on the way to the seaplane terminal in Christiansted, St. Croix.

Additionally, our income from this web site is down following’s Google hit on small publishers like us over the last year or so. Essentially, our articles are not showing up in search results like they used to. This means fewer people find and read our content. That has reduced our ad revenue which, in turn, affects our travel budget. 

Of course, not traveling also means we don’t have as much to write about. So, we’ve spent some time updating old articles to make sure information is still accurate. Theoretically, that should make Google “happy” but it doesn’t seem to be helping too much.

But enough about Google, for now. 

While we didn’t travel as much as we usually do, we still took some great trips this year. So, let’s dive in and take a look at where all we wandered to in 2024.

(Disclaimer: When we link to places where you can buy our stuff or places we stayed, we are using special codes that earn us commissions on the sales at no additional cost to you. Please see our Review Policy  for more information.)

January – Texas Road Trip

We rang in the New Year in Austin, TX, on the tail end of our road trip through Texas. Our itinerary followed a portion of the Best of the Lone Star State route in our guidebook, USA RV Adventures

That trip took us along the Texas Gulf Coast, from Galveston to Aransas National Wildlife Refuge and Padre Island National Seashore. From there, we headed inland to San Antonio and the Hill Country, including a visit to the LBJ Ranch at Lyndon B. Johnson National Historical Park.

Our time in Austin was brief, but it did give us enough time to stroll down Congress Street and check out all the restaurants and shops that line it. We even got in a New Year’s Day hike on the Barton Creek Greenbelt, which we recommend in our book.

After that, we made stops in Waco and at the Fort Worth Stockyards before heading home.

The itinerary really showcases all the different things that you can do in Texas!

April – Washington, DC

We didn’t travel again until early April for Spring Break. For that trip, we took the RV to Washington, DC to check out the plethora of National Park Service sites in the nation’s capital.

While we had been to Washington, DC before, it had been many years, before we got serious about visiting every National Park and before we started blogging. So, this was a great opportunity for us to “check off” a lot of park sites and add content to our site.

We even got to experience the tail end of the Cherry Blossom Festival!

The spring is a great time to see Japanese cherry blossoms in Washington DC and the Tidal Basin is where most of the trees are concentrated.
The Jefferson Memorial framed by cherry blossoms along the Tidal Basin.

In and around Washington, DC you’ll find a wide variety of park sites, from historical sites to outdoor spaces and even the White House. You’ll also find some unique name designations and oddly organized and managed sites. 

One of the highlights for us was Great Falls Park, which is just one small part of the George Washington Memorial Parkway. This dramatic waterfall along the Potomac River is just a short drive from downtown Washington, DC. But you will feel a world away as you take in the waterfall from several different viewing platforms or enjoy a hike along the river.

Great Falls Park is part of the George Washington Memorial Parkway
Great Falls of the Potomac River from Overlook 1.

We also enjoyed learning about a few pivotal people touring sites such as the Clara Barton National Historic Site, Frederick Douglass National Historic Site and Mary McLeod Bethune Council House National Historic Site. Barton founded the American Red Cross. Douglass was born into slavery and eventually became a leader for equality and abolition. Bethune founded the National Council of Negro Women.

Finally, no visit to Washington, DC would be complete without walking around the National Mall and taking in all the monuments and memorials. And we thoroughly enjoyed touring the White House and US Capitol.

May – Weekend Camping Near Chattanooga

One of our only quick weekend getaways was a trip to the Chattanooga, TN area for the Lula Lake Hike, Bike and Brew with some friends. 

A waterfall as seen from below.
Lula Falls

The Lula Lake Land Trust preserves a small tract of land with a nice waterfall at Lookout Mountain in northwest Georgia. A couple of times a year they do a fundraiser allowing visitors to hike or bike the property while sampling a variety of local beer along the way. 

The hike and beer tasting is always a great time but what made it most memorable this year was seeing the Northern Lights from our campground! 

Seeing the Northern Lights has been on our bucket list for a while. But when you live in the Atlanta area, the opportunities are limited. Getting this unexpected showing was a real treat that we will cherish for a long time!

Northern lights over a campground.
Northern Lights at Raccoon Mountain Caverns and Campground

June – East Coast Road Trip

In early June we spent about 10 days taking a short road trip to several National Park Service sites along the southeast coast. 

We started at Congaree National Park, one of the most unique National Parks. You can explore this old-growth forest by walking a boardwalk through the often-flooded forest floor or paddling one of several different rivers. Of course, we suggest doing both!

A boardwalk trail passing through tall trees.
On the Boardwalk Trail in Congaree National Park

The landscape isn’t as breathtaking as you’ll find at Yellowstone National Park or the Grand Canyon. But, it is peaceful and restorative. It’s also easily accessible from Columbia, SC.

From there, we drove up to southern Virginia to visit Fort Monroe National Monument. We then made our way down the coast, spending a few days in Charleston before continuing south to the Georgia coast. 

Cumberland Island National Seashore was a real treat, though it was incredibly hot in early June. We definitely want to return when it’s a little cooler. Maybe we’ll even try to tent camp for a night or two. 

A sandy road leading to the ruins of a mansion.
The ruins of Dungeness

It feels good to have finally visited every National Park Service site in our home state! Yes, even we sometimes struggle to be “tourists” in our local area.

July – Caribbean National Parks

Our biggest trip of the year, by far, was our July trip to Puerto Rico and the US Virgin Islands. Overall, we spent 18 days attending a conference and visiting the six National Park sites in the Caribbean. We even added in a National Forest and National Wildlife Refuge.

While this trip was much shorter than most of our summer trips it was quite a bit more expensive. Between flights, hotels, rental cars, food and more, this trip consumed the majority of our 2024 travel budget.

Looking over the island of St. Thomas approaching on a seaplane.
Coming into Saint Thomas on the seaplane.

But it was also a bucket list trip that was absolutely worth it! Yes, I’m sure we could have saved money by staying in different hotels or choosing different restaurants. But we wanted to enjoy the islands without skimping too much. We did redeem some travel rewards to reduce expenses.

Take a look at our exact expenses to visit the Caribbean national park sites.

Our favorite experiences from this trip included snorkeling at Buck Island Reef National Monument in St Croix, beachfront glamping at Virgin Islands National Park on St. John, and learning more about the history of Puerto Rico at San Juan National Historic Site. 

A large permanent tent on a platform with a picnic table in front. The turquoise blue water of the Caribbean peeks through trees in the background.
Our glamping tent at Cinnamon Bay Beach and Campground… Yes, that’s the water right there!

Whether you are just looking for a Caribbean getaway or are visiting the national park sites, we highly recommend a trip to Puerto Rico and the US Virgin Islands! 

September – Rainbow Bridge and Cedar Breaks National Monuments

Originally, we had planned on visiting both Rainbow Bridge and Cedar Breaks national monuments in northern Arizona and southern Utah but, alas, our tour to Rainbow Bridge National Monument was canceled.

In terms of National Park Service units, Rainbow Bridge National Monument is one of the more difficult to get to. You can either hike in 14+ miles each way through the desert or you can take an eight-hour boat tour on Lake Powell to get there.

For many years, the severe drought has made it to where the tour boat could not dock at the monument. Finally, after a lot of snow in the Rockies, the monument was accessible again. We booked a tour, booked a trip with plans to visit several other sites in the area.

And then the tour operator just randomly decided to cancel the tour… so we canceled our trip. It just wasn’t worth it to us to spend the money to get out there and still have to return to visit that one site later.

December – Road Trip to Southern California

Our final trip of the year is a 17-day road trip to the California Desert Parks. 

We’ve had this trip high on our “to-do list” since researching the route for our book. It is the only route in the book that we have not traveled at all. We wanted to fix that before our second edition. 

Since we are currently working to finalize the contract for that second edition, we figured it was time to make this trip a reality. 

Sale
Moon USA RV Adventures: 25 Epic Routes (Travel Guide)
  • Sinclair, Bonnie (Author)
  • English (Publication Language)
  • 560 Pages – 02/28/2023 (Publication Date) – Moon Travel (Publisher)

And we are very thankful to actually be on the road as I write this article. 

Despite months of planning, the trip almost didn’t happen due to the threat of the federal government shutdown. In fact, we left home on December 20 while the US House of Representatives battled over the spending bill. 

Failure to pass a bill likely would have closed the National Parks, forcing us to rework our entire trip.

We decided that we were ready to hit the road regardless. While we love the national parks and plan almost all of our travel around visiting NPS sites, we know there are plenty of great state parks and other areas we could make the focus of our trip. 

Sunset on the interstate in New Mexico
Sunset while driving west on I-40 in New Mexico

So, we packed up the truck and headed west, keeping an eye on the news. Good news came as we neared Memphis, TN that the House had passed a spending bill.

Still, we went to sleep in Little Rock, AR that night waiting to find out if the Senate would follow suit. 

Thankfully, we woke up to good news and continued our trip as planned. 

Our first official stop was Petrified Forest National Park in Arizona. While we have visited it previously, we didn’t get to do as much as we wanted because it was literally a detour off I-40 while towing the camper. We also had our cat, Alee, with us. 

This time, we enjoyed a couple of hikes, which was a welcome relief after driving roughly 1,600 miles in less than 48 hours!

A paved trail through badland formations
Hiking the Blue Mesa Trail in Petrified Forest NP

From there, we will continue west to the Southern California desert. We’ll spend a few days each in Death Valley and Joshua Tree National Parks. We’ll also visit Mojave National Preserve, Castle Mountains National Monument and Manzanar National Monument. 

Finally, we’ll spend New Year’s Eve in Las Vegas and visit a couple of park sites there before heading home and back to work.

Be sure to follow us on social media for updates from our trip. We’ll have complete coverage for you on all of these parks early in 2025.

What’s Coming Up in 2025

Since 2024 was a fairly light travel year, we hope to make up for that in 2025. 

In February, we’ll enjoy a week-long Southern Caribbean cruise on the Norwegian Viva. We sail out of San Juan and will visit the Dominican Republic, Aruba, Curacao, St. Kitts and St. Lucia. We booked this cruise nearly two years ago while on the Norwegian Breakaway for a Western Caribbean cruise.

The Viva is one of Norwegian’s newest ships and we are excited to check out its unique layout, modern design and, of course, the three-level speedway!

Sunset from a cruise ship
Sunset from the Waterfront on the Norwegian Breakaway.

In April, I am leading a school tour to Tokyo, Japan. Grant and I, along with two other teachers, will take 26 students and parents on a STEM-focused nine-day tour of Tokyo. This will be our first trip to Asia and we are beyond excited for this trip!

Traveling with students is always exhausting. But it will be worth it to introduce them to a new culture and help them learn how to travel. (We’ve previously taken students to Italy, Greece and London.)

Read more about student travel with EF Tours.

Our group touring the Colosseum.
Our EF Tours group touring the Colosseum.

We are tentatively planning an RV trip to Upstate New York and the Atlantic Coast for the summer. We will be following portions of two routes in our book… Upstate New York: Hudson River to Niagara Falls and US 1 and the East Coast. We are hoping to finalize that trip in the next month or two, once I know if I will be grading AP Exams.

That’s all we have planned so far. But, we hope to add in more trips in September (perhaps we will try again to visit Rainbow Bridge National Monument!), November and December as our school calendar allows. We may also try to do a few short weekend trips. 

Whatever we do, we’ll be sharing on social media and writing articles to help you plan your travels as well. Stay tuned to see where 2025 takes us!


Travel Resources
What do you use to find a flight?

We use Skyscanner to find deals on flights. Skyscanner has a great interface and compares tons of airlines for the best pricing and routing. That said, it does not always have every airline and some airlines will have better deals on their website. Still, Skyscanner is a great place to start.
Click here to search for a flight.

What do you use to find a hotel?

We typically stay at Hilton properties, so we use the Hilton website. You can find good Hilton Honors discounts or AAA discounts for a hotel there. We make great use of our free night certificates from our Hilton Honors American Express.
Click here to book a Hilton property.

If there are no Hilton properties available, we use TripAdvisor to read reviews and book the hotel. We find we can get the best price that way.
Click here to search for a hotel.

We recently partnered with Stay22 to add interactive maps to each of our destination posts. This will allow you to see a plethora of hotels and vacation rentals all in one responsive map of the area.
Click here to search an interactive map.

What if I need more space than I can get at a hotel?

We use Vrbo for the times when we have rented a cabin for a weekend getaway, like this cabin in Townsend, TN, or needed to rent a house for a large family vacation. We had a great experience with them in terms of refunding deposits when COVID hit and will continue to use them.
Click here to search for a vacation rental.

Who do you use for rental cars?

As a general rule, we book with Hertz for rental cars. We have had nothing but good experiences with them. Plus, we really like unlimited mileage and not worrying about crossing state lines. We have even rented from Hertz overseas in both Slovenia and Croatia.
Click here to book a rental car.

How about booking a cruise?

We have found some amazing prices for booking a cruise through Cruise Direct. We have saved a lot of money on our cruises compared to what we found elsewhere, making a last-minute Bahamas cruise even cheaper.
Click here to book a cruise.

What if I want to rent an RV?

We highly recommend Outdoorsy for RV rentals. We rented a camper van for a week to visit Rocky Mountain National Park for the elk rut and Custer State Park for the Buffalo Round-Up and had a blast. The program was easy to use and we really enjoyed the freedom of having a camper van for that trip.
Click here to rent an RV.

What do you use for booking tours?

We don’t often book tours. Typically, we like to do stuff on our own. That said, there are some experiences you can’t have any other way. So, when we do want to book a tour, we always check Viator first.
Click here to book a tour.

Do you use anything to get discounts on the road?

We make extensive use of both Good Sam and AAA on the road. Good Sam is normally regarded as a discount card for RVers at campgrounds and Camping World but anyone can use the 5 cents off a gallon at the pump at both Pilot and Flying J.
Click here to get a Good Sam membership.
We have had AAA as long as we have been married and it has more than paid for itself in discounts at hotels, aside from the peace of mind of having roadside assistance. Add in paper maps and the ability to get an international driver’s license and it is more than worth it for any traveler out there.
Click here to get a AAA membership.

Where can I get Travel Insurance?

We have partnered with Global Rescue for travel and evacuation insurance. This provider will put you out of the worst situations and get you to medical care promptly. You can even purchase “cancel for any reason” insurance from Global Rescue. This is our go-to provider of travel insurance. Traveling somewhere dangerous? They will even extract you if war were to break out on your trip.
Click here to get Global Rescue for your upcoming trip.

Photo with text overlay. Text reads "2024 Year in Review." Image shows a couple posing on the beach at sunset.

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