In July 2024, my husband and I road-tripped to Montana to visit Glacier National Park, one of America's national parks. It immediately became one of our favorite parks for both of us. (If you keep reading, I share the top 3 parks for each of us below!)

Since my review of my summer 2023 cruise on the Norwegian Prima  is by far my travel diary with the most questions, I wanted to compile all the questions into a blog post in case anyone else has the same questions and is googling to find answers! In Ålesund, Norway, with the Prima in the background

True story:  One of my biggest regrets of the last few years is that my husband and I didn't buy an RV in our early 30s to see more of the United States. Here's the view from Schwabacher Landing in Grand Teton National Park

Recently I was  looking for ways to honor one of my friends. He loved hiking, so my husband and I decided to complete a hike in his memory. While in previous years my husband and I hiked in Maine ,  Yosemite National Park , and even Greece , this wo uld be our first hike of 2022.  We scoured the mid-Atlantic region for a hike that would be worthy of our objective and decided upon Chimney Top in West Virginia. So we decided to drive to West Virginia after work on Friday, complete the hike Saturday morning, and drive back to Virginia afterwards.

I honestly don't know why it's taken me so long to recap our 2020 trip to Maine because Maine is one of my favorite  states in the U.S. I grew up visiting my father's family in Island Falls during the summer, and during college I learned to snowboard at Sunday River ski resort in Newry.

After years of talking about taking an Alaskan cruise, I finally had the chance to cruise Alaska earlier this month! My husband became a fan of cruising after our cruise on the Jade  around Greece  last October, so before we even disembarked that ship, we put down deposits for future cruises. I used the opportunity to push for Alaska, and we ended up booking for mid-May because my husband was so impatient to have our next cruise on the calendar rather than waiting until later in the summer, haha! Note: This post contains affiliate links. That means that if you make a purchase after clicking on a link, I may earn a small commission at no extra cost to you.

In October 2021, I took my first trip to Greece, via my first cruise ever... hopefully the first of many more such trips! I've said before that because I didn't travel very much until 2017 or so, I like to hit many different places in one trip to see as much as possible. However, during  our vacation to Mexico , my husband realized how much he enjoyed being able to unpack and stay in one place, and he really wanted another vacation where we weren't constantly on the go, lugging suitcases. A cruise was our compromise -- we'd be able to visit multiple locations, but without having to pack and unpack or deal with all the time and costs involved with moving cities or countries. So we booked a week around the Greek islands on the Norwegian Jade -- and we loved  it! 

At the end of August 2021, I had the opportunity to visit one of my best friends in Washington state. I've said it before in other travel diaries, but a fter visiting  New Zealand in 2020 , I knew I wanted to see more of the beauty of the United States. This was my first time visiting the state of Washington --  before 2021, the farthest west I'd been in the U.S. was L.A., Las Vegas, and Denver --  and it did not disappoint! You can see Mt. Rainier rising up in the distance in the top left of the photo!

After my honeymoon in New Zealand in 2020, I realized I wanted to see more of the beauty within my own country; then, like millions of other Americans, the COVID pandemic further increased my desire to get outdoors . So when I scheduled a Labor Day trip to visit one of my best friends in Washington state, I was hoping we'd get to do a hike with stunning views -- and I lucked out with a thru-hike of the Enchantments! 

I think this post may actually beat my New Zealand posts as my most photo-heavy post -- because Yosemite is one of the most stunning places I have ever visited.  Travel has made me so much more aware of how incredible our planet is. After visiting New Zealand on my honeymoon in 2020 and marveling at the beauty of the country, I became determined to see more of my own country's beauty -- and Yosemite lived up to the hype.