Despite all of the positive moments, travel does not always have fully glamorous moments either. You can’t always compare the Instagram highlights to the hurdles with every adventures. Here are some of the lowlights of the past year of travel.
Lesson: Hands at 10 & 2 and Eyes on the Road – especially when driving remote desert roads
In Palm Springs, I was enjoying driving the deserted desert roads surrounded by rolling hills of sand and towering mountains. Driving along on back roads, enjoying the sites, I hit the equivalent of the Grand Canyon, causing a 3 inch gash in the tire and the aluminum wheel on the car to bend. Luckily, I had AAA, so I waited 45 minutes for them to come change the tire in 110 degree sunlight. This ended up being a $800 mistake for carelessly enjoying the beautiful landscape.
Lesson: Unlike Utah where there’s free camping everywhere, you CAN’T camp along the Pacific Coast Highway in California.
By now, I should be better about having advanced camping reservations and planning. However, over the weekend, I was traveling 12 hours down the Pacific Coast Highway from San Francisco to Los Angeles. The views were incredible until around 7:30PM as the twisty roads around cliffs on a single-lane road without any lighting caused me to start panicking on sleeping arrangements. Faced with the choice of camping in the Rooftop Tent behind the guard rail or the State Park, I decided to ignore the “No Camping” sign in favor of the safer option. About 11PM, Park Rangers wake me up, run my license, and give me the option of driving 90 minutes to the nearest hotel, or pay $100 to sleep overnight in the park. That was the most expensive camping spot I’ve paid!
Lesson: Directions and full tank of gas is important.
The National Parks of Utah are HUGE with Canyonlands NP cover 527 square miles. When in Moab, you should NOT, under any circumstances, think it’s a good idea on half a tank of gas to just search the name of the park. If you do this, Google Maps will route you randomly to the center of the park where there likely won’t be any Visitor Centers or any true attractions – instead, it’s just a placeholder for the location on the map. You should always search for a “Visitor Center” within the NP boundary as that’ll be the most touristy and best attractions. Also, if you suffer from even slight anxiety, ensure your tank is full before you drive 90 minutes away from civilization with low fuel.
(PS – not learning my lesson, the very next day also failed to type in “Visitor Center” on the map at Capitol Reef, but luckily this took us to the entrance).
Lesson: Dry heat is still hot – and deserts don’t cool off at night.
The all-too-famous phrase “Deserts aren’t that hot…it’s just a dry heat and will cool off at night.” This is false. July 4th Weekend at Arches National Park was a balmy 115 degrees during the daytime, but we scored free camping just 1 mile from the park entrance on Bureau of Land Management acreage. I vividly remember trying to sleep, counting the hours, tossing and turning while profusely sweating. At midnight, the temperate had finally dropped to a restful 92 degrees. Deserts are hot; dehydration is real.
Do you have any other comedic moments or lessons learned while traveling?
Hi Kyle! Cool stories on here! I have a somewhat odd request that would mean a great deal to me. My girlfriend and I have been traveling to national parks together and buying matching tshirts. We went to Yosemite separately and I have the same shirt you’re wearing in the first photo of this article (the one with the orange outline). I would love to see if you’re willing to sell your tshirt to me. It would mean a lot to keep our matching tshirt tradition going and I can’t find this shirt anywhere else online. Would you be able to share your email address with me to further this convo? Thanks! Erin