Adventuring Beyond

Adventuring beyond through travel, food, and more.

You are here: Home / Archives for Kim Nelson

Kim Nelson

Essential National Park Packing List

By Leave a Comment

Essential National Park Packing List

National Park vacations have become more and more popular. This is evidenced by how much busier the parks have become since we started our goal in 2015 of visiting as many National Parks as possible before our kids graduate high school. When traveling to a National Park adventure there are some key items to pack whether you plan to rough it and camp at the park or whether you plan to relax at a nice home rental or hotel at the end of a long day of hiking. We as a family have visited 50 National Parks so far so we have a good idea of what we consider to be essentials for packing no matter the park we are visiting. We have compiled our essential National Park packing list for ANY National Park vacation.

…

Read More

3 Unique Days in the Crater Lake Area

By 1 Comment

Crater Lake National Park
Crater Lake National Park

Crater Lake is the deepest and one of the most beautiful lakes in the United States.  It is also both easy to visit and hard to experience.  It is easy to visit because as long as the road is plowed you can get to see the lake itself often.  It is hard to experience because the shore is approximately 900 feet below the rim drive and only one path leads down to the lake itself.  Making matters worse is that the trail, as well as the boat rides that leave from it, are not open to visit for as long as you would expect and the boat tour was still closed in late June when we visited.  

…

Read More

The Best Things to do in Voyageurs National Park with Kids

By Leave a Comment

Our tips for the best things to do with kids in Voyageurs National Park
Morning at our 2nd Houseboat Site

Our summer trip to Voyageurs National Park was perfect – it included beautiful sunsets, stunning lakes, great hikes, and some fun history.  We spent a total of 4 nights in the park, with 3 of those being on the water on our houseboat.  

As mentioned in our other post here on Voyageurs National Park, we went out on Crane Lake and as a result some of these things to see are on that side of the park, but we visited Kabetogema Lake Visitor Center and Rainy Lake Visitor Center as well so we got to two of the three Visitor Centers and did activities at each of them.  We have organized this post by the nearest visitor center so you can choose where you go and what to see in that area.  

…

Read More

20 Best Travel-Friendly Stocking Stuffers

By Leave a Comment

Our picks for the top 20 road-trip worthy stocking stuffers for anyone on your Christmas list. Great for the travel and national park lover in your life. #stockingstuffers #roadtrip #travelwithkids #christmaslist

I am always looking for fun stocking stuffers for my kids for Christmas and finding their stocking stuffers is more fun for me than finding their main gifts. Because of my love for stocking stuffers, we decided to compile a list of travel-friendly stocking stuffers that are perfect for anyone on your list who loves to travel and road trip like we do. Hope you find this helpful!

…

Read More

7 Summer Hikes in Death Valley National Park

By Leave a Comment

Our family’s picks for summer hikes in Death Valley

7 Summer Hikes in Death Valley

We use the term “hikes” very loosely in this post, as some of these are very short walks to an overlook or don’t really have a final destination per se, as you can go as far as you want (as in the Sand Dunes, for example). Also, while we rated the difficulty, some of these would not be moderate/difficult in normal temperatures.  As with most things in Death Valley, they are made more difficult by the heat and desert conditions so be mindful of the conditions and forecasted temperatures in your planning!

…

Read More

Kings Canyon National Park with Kids

By Leave a Comment

Our tips for visiting Kings Canyon National Park with kids.

Kings Canyon National Park with kids

We recently came back from our summer trip to some of California’s National Parks.  After one day in Sequoia National Park, we decided to visit Kings Canyon the following day.  While Kings Canyon and Sequoia National Parks are managed as one park, they are quite different and we found we liked Kings Canyon best.  Kings Canyon is so much less well known than Sequoia but it really does stand alone as the best kept secret in the area!Unfortunately for them, most visitors to Kings Canyon only visit the small part of the park that is home to the General Grant tree and the Grant Grove Village shopping area and Visitor Center and then call it a wrap.  What a shame!

…

Read More

Our Comprehensive, Non-Hikers Guide to Sequoia National Park

By 3 Comments

Our top picks for a non-hikers guide to Sequoia National Park. Note: We receive a small commission for purchases made through links in this post.

Non-hikers guide to Sequoia National Park

Beyond hiking in Sequoia, we enjoyed a few other sights that are worth visiting while in Sequoia.  These stops are perfect if you don’t have a lot of time in the park or are just driving through.  Beyond these quick stops, we would also recommend visiting Crescent Meadow and General Sherman tree which were quick little hikes.  You can read more about those hikes in this post. All of these stops were easy drives from our rental home in Three Rivers.

…

Read More

5 Best Family Hikes in Sequoia National Park

By Leave a Comment

The best family hikes in Sequoia National Park. Note: this post contains affiliate links. We receive a small commission if you purchase through a link at no additional cost to you.

Best family hikes in Sequoia National Park

We recently got back from our summer National Parks trip to California.  We did this trip a bit differently than we normally would in that we flew to Las Vegas and rented a car rather than driving from our home in Minnesota.  This presented a whole new set of packing challenges, but that is best saved for another post.  On this trip we went to Mojave National Preserve, Sequoia National Park, Kings Canyon National Park, Yosemite National Park, Mono Lake and the Eastern Sierras, and Death Valley National Park (along with a pleasant, though unplanned, stop at Ash Meadows National Wildlife Refuge).

…

Read More

The Best of Arches National Park with Kids

By Leave a Comment

Our best advice for hiking and viewing Arches National Park with kids.

Arches National Park with Kids

We recently returned home from a Spring Break trip to all of Utah’s National Parks – “The Mighty 5.”  It was an amazing trip, though a bit exhausting to try to fit it all into one week.  The kids were troopers as usual though!  We flew into Las Vegas and drove to the furthest parks first, which happened to be Arches and Canyonlands in the Moab area.  We spent our first day of hiking in Arches National Park because we were eager to get out and stretch the legs, and since Arches was closer it meant less car-time.

Whenever we travel west we like to try to stay on our home time-schedule to take advantage of getting to the parks early.  We drove straight to the hike we knew we wanted to do which was the famous Delicate Arch trail.  There are 2 different viewpoints for this arch (Lower Delicate Arch Viewpoint, 100 yard walk, and Upper Delicate Arch Viewpoint, 0.5 mi. walk with stairs) as well as a longer hike right up to the arch.  We chose to do the longer hike right up to the arch and were glad we did!  

…

Read More

3 Best Family Hikes in North Cascades National Park

By Leave a Comment

This post contains descriptions of our picks for the 3 best family hikes in North Cascades National Park.

3 best family hikes in North Cascades

The North Cascades are often called the American Alps, and for good reason! North Cascades National Park is a beautiful park and the mountains here are the most beautiful I’ve seen in all of our National Park travels.  Many of the trails were still closed when we visited this park in July, so we will include in this list all of the hikes we did and our take on each of them, since we weren’t able to do as many hikes in North Cascades as we did in the other ones. Don’t miss our complete itinerary for North Cascades National Park in this post.

…

Read More