It’s like a “choose your own adventure” book, except you’re choosing ours. 😉
After traveling 3/4 of a circle around the US, we’re now entering the final stretch of our RV adventure. We’re aiming to return to San Diego in May in order to give us time to sell Mayhem before heading abroad… we’ll talk more about those (exciting!) plans later, but for now we want to make sure we fit everything we can into these last few months!
Basically, we have between now and May to explore the southwestern part of the U.S., and we’d love your suggestions on what to see.
Our (Tentative) Route
We’re about to arrive in New Orleans and will be there until the end of February (yup, we’re deliberately avoiding Mardi Gras). We’re obviously going to check out the various districts, eat a ton of Cajun cuisine, and get our dance on while we’re there, but what else should we do? Take a ferry ride? A bike tour through the 9th Ward? Find some jazz clubs? There’s so much culture and history in this city, it’s difficult to know where to even begin!
After New Orleans we have ten days to make it over to Austin, TX. We don’t really have a set route; we’re considering driving west and meandering through the Mississippi River delta (and rural parts of Louisiana), or maybe going up through Baton Rouge and then camping for a few days in the Sabine National Forest.
We have to be in Austin by March 10th, though, and we’ll be there until the 26th for the annual South by Southwest conference. The awesome folks at Technomadia have organized a panel and meet-up for digital nomads and travel bloggers, so in addition to other work engagements we’re excited to meet a ton of cool folks while we’re there.
After Austin we’ll drive over to Albuquerque and Santa Fe. Other than visiting those two cities (and hopefully some family and friends), New Mexico is sort of a big blank for us. What to see?
From there we’re going to head north and visit Moab, UT, which we didn’t get around to seeing when we were in Salt Lake City last September. In addition to being a sort of off-road heaven, Moab is home to the famous Arches National Park. We’re also hoping Kali’s family will be able to make it over and camp with us for a few days – it would be the first time we’ve “hosted” anyone in Mayhem!
No road trip through the Southwest would be complete without a stop at the Grand Canyon, and we plan to check out either the north or south rim (or perhaps both?), plus maybe a whitewater rafting tour on the Colorado River. Following the Grand Canyon our next stop will be Sedona, AZ to see Red Rock Country.
After that, we’ll probably either head up to Las Vegas or down further into southern Arizona, but our plans are quite flexible at this point.
Finally, we’d like to visit either Joshua Tree National Park or Anza-Borrego Desert State Park in southeastern California, both places we’ve longed to visit but never made it out to during our two years living in SoCal.
Our last stop will be San Diego, where we’ll end this RVing adventure in the same place it began a year before (how poetic!).
Where You Come In
First, if you live along our tentative route and would like to meet up, please let us know! Drinks, coffee, cheap Indian food, a game of scrabble… we’re open to it all!
Finally, do you have any recommendations for places to eat, national parks to explore, or cities we should add to our list? We would love any and all suggestions of things to add to our itinerary… after all, Google and guidebooks can only get us so far. 🙂
