california Archives - RV Wanderlust

19 Favorite Moments of 2019, Our Sixth Year as Full-time RVers

December 31, 2019 by BrittanyHighland Leave a Comment

It’s been an incredible year-our sixth as full-time RVers. We’ve traveled so quickly that between work and family commitments, microblogging on Instagram has been most manageable! I’m excited to finally share these experiences with you here.

This is the companion piece to “2019 in Review: Stats and Camping Costs.” Make sure you read that article for a big picture view of our year.

And now, you’re in for a treat! We’re counting down from #19 to #1, with #1 being our top highlight of 2019. How many of these places have you visited?

[Read more…]

3 Unforgettable 2-Mile Hikes in Yosemite

June 19, 2019 by BrittanyHighland Leave a Comment

Best Two-mile Hikes in Yosemite National Park

We recently spent a week wild camping a few miles outside the border of Yosemite National Park in California. We spent one full Sunday in the park, then visited two other times for more hiking.

Within five days, toddler Caspian hiked six miles unaided. Each of these three two-mile hikes were memorable, with varying scenery and levels of difficulty.

I love the two-mile chunk, when it comes to hiking. Yes, it’s something Caspian can manage on his own now. But it’s also a distance we can usually fit in after work, or during a packed Saturday of sight-seeing.

If two miles sounds good to you, too, then read on. Here’s are the three unforgettable two-mile hikes we did at Yosemite National Park.

[Read more…]

2016 in Review: Stats, Photos, Adventures

January 15, 2017 by BrittanyHighland Leave a Comment

As we enter the month of February, we close out three years as full-time RVers, and enter our fourth year! These stats describe our travels from January-December of 2016, the year of our “Grand Loop Trip:”

Number of States: 8 (6 new states with the RV: Arizona, Nevada, California, Oregon, Washington and Montana)

Number of Overnight Stops: 26

Where We Stayed: 1 BLM dry camping, 1 national forest, 1 national recreation area, 1 county park, 1 state park, 1 service center, 4 parking lots (hotel, restaurant, Walmart), 4 military bases, 12 private campgrounds [Read more…]

RV Park Review: Premier RV Resorts Redding, CA

June 3, 2016 by Eric Highland 4 Comments

Brittany and I have been on an incredible adventure this year. Our faithful readers know we’ve been calling it our “Grand Loop Trip.” For those new to our blog, welcome!

We started from Austin, Texas and we’re currently making our way up to Seattle to visit family for the summer.

Eric Brittany Highland Lassen Volcanic National Park

We found fallen and falling snow only an hour away from Redding at Lassen Volcanic National Park

We like to keep our trips between spots really short. Really short! We typically travel 250 miles every two weeks. So it takes us a long time to get anywhere but, we get to discover little gems we’d never otherwise find. We know other full-time RVers can relate to this.

However, short trips between spots doesn’t mean that we stay just anywhere. On the contrary! Since we’re staying for two weeks at each stop, and quite often in a small town, we take our time choosing each destination carefully.

So, when we were doing our research into places to stay along the I-5 corridor in northern California, we were happy to find the easily accessible Premier RV Resorts Campground in Redding, CA. [Read more…]

Our Favorite Finds in San Francisco and the Bay Area

May 18, 2016 by BrittanyHighland 4 Comments

I had never been to San Francisco, save for a swing through during a family vacation in high school, which involved a foggy drive across the Golden Gate Bridge and a late-night ride on a trolley car. Not quite the full experience. Eric had spent some time in the city a number of years ago, but his expertise was mostly the nightlife scene (as sailors go). Again, not quite the full experience.

So once we were set up at the military campground at TRACEN Petaluma (highly recommended, for those of you with access), we decided to spend the next day in San Francisco. One day there, and we’d both rank it among our favorite big cities. [Read more…]

RVing Through Monterey, CA and Along the Pacific Coast

May 12, 2016 by BrittanyHighland 2 Comments

Partington Cove on Pacific Coast Highway in Big Sur

Pulling into Monterey on April 16, 2016 meant we had officially driven coast-to-coast with Meriwether! I don’t know why, but I was expecting the city to be large and bustling with tourists-closer to San Francisco or Los Angeles. Instead, we found a laid-back marina town that was intimate and in an amazing location for exploring the Pacific Coast. [Read more…]

Sequoia National Park in One Day

April 21, 2016 by BrittanyHighland 4 Comments

Sequoia National Park and co-located Kings Canyon National Park often get overlooked because of their more popular neighbor two and half hours to the north, Yosemite. But after our one-day visit this month, we will be life-long fans. We can’t recommend enough that you visit if you’re ever in the area. The sequoia trees are breath-taking in their size, and their natural characteristics result in a deep respect. We can now say that we’ve seen the largest living thing on earth! [Read more…]

Death Valley National Park in One Day

April 4, 2016 by BrittanyHighland 11 Comments

This is our first year of being intentional about visiting all of the National Park Service sites near us as we travel. In the past, we practically drove right past a ton of places because we forgot to research our surroundings. Or-even worse for this slightly-OCD girl-we went, but forgot to get our passport stamp!

One tool has made it simple to track our proximity to NPS sites lately, and that’s the free mobile app, National Parks by Chimani. We use the map view to zoom into our location and see what’s around us. Then we can click on each location for more information. And once we’ve visited, we can record the year we were there. Totally fun for NPS-lovers and list-makers.

Thanks to the app, I know we’ve visited four national parks, three national monuments and one national recreation area so far in 2016. The latest: Death Valley National Park. [Read more…]

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