California & Oregon Road Trip Planning

 "Sometimes you find yourself in the middle of nowhere, and sometimes in the middle of nowhere, you find yourself." -Unknown

Here We Begin Working Our Next Grand Adventure.....

I’m planning a 2 plus week road trip with my kids from the Bay Area in California to Oregon located in the Pacific Northwest. We are planning to traverse inland and part of pacific coast in our trip. The tentative itinerary I've come up with is to travel from home to Lassen Park, Shasta, Ashland, Eugene, Portland, Bend, Crater Lake, Redwood Trees National Park, Mendocino and back. Sounds easy? Well, not for me.

Here's what my planning stages look like:

It took me a couple of weeks to decide on the right road trip for my kids and me. My kids love to travel, but we’ve mostly gone on sightseeing trips to places like Cabo, Maui, Kauai, Paris, London, Tehran, and last summer to Washington DC. This time around I wondered if we should take another international journey to a country we hadn't visited yet? Na, not this time around - to be honest, it just wasn't in the budget this time around. Somewhere on east coast like New York City? Nope - I didn’t feel like flying and plus New York City could be as or more expensive than traveling to Europe. That and the east coast can be killer hot and humid during the summer.

We enjoy outdoor vacations and when it comes to family vacations, we've always preferred exploring the great outdoors. Hmmm. . . maybe we should check out the legendary Yellowstone Park? I nixed this idea because it's supposed to get really busy during the summer months and dealing with crowds of people doesn't appeal to me. Finally, after a couple of weeks of contemplating, I decided I didn’t want to go too far from home this time but still wanted it to be a special trip. I decided we'd take a road trip to Northern California and Oregon, a Pacific Northwest paradise filled with famed outdoor scenery. Since it's our neighboring state and we’ve never gone on a road trip before, the idea seemed very appealing. So, Okay, after spending a couple of weeks deciding where to go, I now have to figure out how long it's going to take, the best places to stay and visit. Our overnight accommodations will vary from tents and cabins to tree house and hotels depending on the places we are visiting. Yes, we are super excited to stay 2 nights at a tree house near the border of California and Oregon.

Trip planning, especially for outdoors can be very time consuming! In a series of upcoming blogs, I’m planning on sharing my research about the places that appeal to my family, hoping to save you some time when you decide to experience these destinations for yourself. 

Stay tuned and please feel free to let me know of any other outdoor places we must visit during our trip that's not in our above itinerary yet!