Spending my summer vacation visiting several National Parks, Italy’s Cinque Terre, and the coast of Alaska gave me a lot of new travel experiences. Here are my key travel takeaways from each trip:

National Parks:

I was delighted to visit these National Parks: Yellowstone, Grand Tetons (both in Wyoming), Theodore Roosevelt (in North Dakota), Badlands (South Dakota) and Mt. Rushmore (which is considered a National Memorial, not a park), as well as the Scott’s Bluff National Monument in Nebraska.

Driving through these parks put me on scenery overload! We searched for all the animals and got lucky seeing wolves in both Yellowstone and Grand Tetons, plus bear, elk, and moose. There are a lot of bison in North and South Dakota. And prairie dogs. We went to Wyoming at the beginning of June, just before all the crowds arrived, even having a snowy morning. We went to the Dakotas in September, after most crowds had left and temperatures were cooling off.  I would recommend these “shoulder seasons” for better experiences.

Key Takeaway #1:

Get the Just Ahead app.

I downloaded the free trial, but then quickly paid the $30 for the whole app. Just Ahead are audio guides for various national parks that work with your car’s GPS (and will work offline) that give you information and sightseeing suggestions as you drive through the parks. We used many of the suggestions for taking the side roads, and even restaurant recommendations. The app has about 15 parks and hopefully will add more. This made the driving interesting and we could make decisions about where to pull off and where to drive on more easily.  Then have fun counting how many times you hear the tour guide say, “Just ahead…”

Italy’s Cinque Terre Region

This area-northwest of Pisa on the Ligurian coast is quintessential Italy: small towns, narrow streets, excellent restaurants and refreshing Aperol Spritz. Everything goes uphill from the water, so be prepared for that. I took this trip later in June, which meant the crowds were building up and the temperatures were hot. While I love almost everything about Italy, I did not like the heat!

I didn’t bring the right clothes-somehow I thought it would be cooler along the coast, especially at night. Luckily, we were based in the town of Monterosso, which has a lot of good linen clothing stores. I bought a whole new wardrobe-well, enough to keep me cool for the week, anyway.

Key Takeaways #2, #3, #4:

Pay attention to forecasts, but be prepared to buy the stuff you need.

Don’t suffer!

Pack light in case you do need to add to your wardrobe.

Alaska Inside Passage Cruise

An opportunity came up for us to host a small group on the Azamara Quest in July. Sailing from Seward to Vancouver over 11 days, with 8 ports-of-call, we hoped we would see whales from the ship, as well as bald eagles. We would dock at many small towns along the Inside Passage and learn about native cultures and art.

On an Alaska cruise you can take shore excursions to go glacier hiking, whale watching, kayaking, flight seeing, bear watching, and more.

I had always wanted to take the White Pass & Yukon Route Scenic Railway excursion into the mountains from Skagway. People heading to the gold fields in the 1800s had to cross these mountains and then travel hundreds of miles more to the gold.  The scenery is jaw-dropping. I booked this excursion online ahead of sailing. I know that sometimes excursions sell out, and I definitely wanted to do this one.

It turned out that we didn’t go on any other shore excursions (except for our private group tour of Sitka, AK). We could walk off the ship whenever we wanted, wander the towns, taking our time and could head back to the ship early. It was relaxing.

Key Takeaway #5:

If you have a definite shore excursion wish, book this ahead of time.  Then let serendipity guide you. It is ok to have down time and not rush around trying to see and do every last thing. You can check with the Shore Excursion desk to plan for excursions while you are sailing if you feel like you want to be more active.

I loved each of my summer trips and learned something new about how to travel better from each one.

What was your favorite summer trip?

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