One year ago…

One year ago today, I set out on the road in my van for my summer road trip. The first night, I headed south into West Virginia and found a quiet place to sleep, then set out for the Monongahela National Forest the next day.

My summer trip took me through 46 states and 3 countries. It was a few years’ worth of life experiences crammed into a few months.

The parts that stand out most at this point are all the national parks and scenery, and all the big cities like Seattle and New Orleans. I feel like I completely understand the whole country now. I know what the deserts of Arizona and the forests of Vermont and the mountains of Utah and the fields of Kansas look like.

Here’s a full list of national parks by state, with articles about my adventures in each.

I haven’t been able to travel as much since then, though I’m definitely planning some small summer trips to nearby cities – St. Louis or Milwaukee, if nothing else. Europe is the next obvious frontier, but that seems to be a couple years (and a full-time job) away.

Here’s a video I put together with pictures and music describing my year on the road. I have a feeling YouTube will pull it down because of the music, so enjoy it while you can!

SUMMER 2009 ROAD TRIP VIDEO