I almost didn’t write about North Cascades. There’s a selfish part of me that wanted to keep quiet about the one national park where you can show up on a Friday in July and still find an empty trailhead. But that’s exactly why more people need to know — because this park is too extraordinary … Read more
I’ve stood at the edge of a lot of overlooks in this country, but nothing prepared me for that first glimpse of Crater Lake. You pull into the Rim Village parking lot, walk about thirty seconds toward the edge, and suddenly the ground just drops away beneath you — and there it is. This impossibly … Read more
I’d been driving east on US-50 through Nevada for two hours without passing a single gas station, restaurant, or town worth more than a paragraph in a guidebook. My Celestron SkyMaster binoculars rode shotgun, ready for the dark skies ahead. The highway stretched ahead like a gray ribbon unspooling across alkali flats, and my phone … Read more
I’ve been to a lot of mountain lakes. Living out of a van for the better part of two years means I’ve dipped my toes in alpine water from Glacier to Banff, and most of them blur together after a while. But Lake Tahoe is different. The first time I crested the ridge on Highway … Read more
I almost didn’t write this article. Not because the Catskills didn’t deserve it — but because I was halfway hoping nobody else would discover what I found during ten days last June, driving through Greene and Ulster Counties with no plan beyond “find water and follow it.” What I found was a mountain region two … Read more
I almost didn’t go to Boise. A friend mentioned it offhand at a barbecue last summer — something about a river running through downtown and a food scene that punches way above its weight class — and I filed it under “maybe someday.” But when I started planning a Pacific Northwest road trip for June … Read more
I showed up to New River Gorge with zero expectations. A friend had mentioned it offhand — something about a bridge and whitewater — and I figured I’d spend a long weekend poking around before heading somewhere more “destination-worthy.” That was three summers ago, and I’ve been back every year since. West Virginia’s newest national … Read more
I showed up in Saratoga Springs on a Tuesday afternoon in late July with zero expectations and a beat-up weekender bag that had seen better days. A friend had been telling me for years that this little upstate New York city was the crown jewel of East Coast summer travel, and I kept brushing it … Read more
I didn’t expect to fall for a place quite this hard. I rolled into Bend, Oregon on a Tuesday afternoon last June, windows down, the Deschutes River glinting through pine trees on my left, and by the time I hit downtown I was already recalculating my return trip. There’s something about this high-desert mountain town … Read more
I almost didn’t write this article. Not because Whitefish, Montana doesn’t deserve the attention — it absolutely does — but because part of me wants to keep it quiet. This is the kind of town that makes you reconsider your entire life plan, and I’m not entirely sure I want the secret getting out. But … Read more