How Profitable a $15k Prize From T+L Led Me to Purchase an RV and Go to 20 Nationwide Parks Across the U.S.

The white was blindingly vivid in opposition to the blue, cloudless sky. But it surely wasn’t contemporary snowfall; we had been within the desert of New Mexico. It was gypsum—undulating dunes of gypsum sand, one after the opposite, stretching throughout the horizon. We had been in White Sands Nationwide Park.

The solar appeared gold on a distant spire. It may have been a golden temple in Thailand, but it surely was a distant mountain glowing at nightfall. We had been in Demise Valley Nationwide Park. 

The timber dripped. The ocean under heaved. But it surely was quiet underneath the redwoods, their girth dwarfing our truck and trailer. We would pushed to Redwood Nationwide Park in northern California on the street journey of a lifetime. 

White Sands, Demise Valley, Redwood—we visited 20 U.S. nationwide parks and monuments on an 11,000-mile, two-month journey via southern and western America. And now we have Journey + Leisure to thank for it.

I entered T+L’s World’s Greatest Awards survey by ranking accommodations we would stayed at in Singapore and Thailand. Then, I forgot about it. Months later, I obtained an electronic mail saying I might need gained a prize. I assumed it was a rip-off. But it surely wasn’t: I had gained $15,000. I assumed, what may I do with $15,000? I may make a journey. In 48 years of marriage, we would traveled to Europe, the Caribbean, Hawaii, Mexico, Canada, Thailand, and China. We would been to resorts and on cruises. However aside from the Grand Canyon, I’d by no means been to the nationwide parks. It needed to be a street journey, and it required a touring “dwelling,” a leisure car.

The prize cash from T+L helped us purchase Rosie, a small tenting trailer named for her likeness to the robotic maid in The Jetsons. She had every part we would have liked: a queen-sized mattress, a diminutive kitchen with a dinette, and a toilet simply large enough for Superman to alter in.

We left our dwelling in Grand Rapids, Michigan, on Nov. 25, 2024. Our first nationwide park was the smallest one: Gateway Arch in St. Louis, Missouri. We took the ratcheting little elevator as much as the highest of the world’s tallest arch at 630 ft. The view from above St. Louis was fairly, however I discovered the one from under, on the base of the chrome steel monument designed by Eero Saarinen, to be even higher.

We spent Thanksgiving close to Oklahoma Metropolis, and had steak, consuming native, as an alternative of turkey.

After a protracted drive following Route 66 via Texas and New Mexico, we visited Petrified Forest Nationwide Park in Arizona. Total timber, some 200 ft tall, left the place they fell within the Painted Desert greater than 200 million years in the past, at the moment are crystalline.

Getting into Demise Valley Nationwide Park, we stopped on the first overlook, Zabriskie Level. The view was surprising: miles and miles of rock—mudstone badlands—filling the horizon. Individuals had been scrabbling over these monumental piles far off within the distance.

It was simply earlier than Christmas, and The Inn at Demise Valley, a restored adobe compound set in a desert-oasis backyard, was adorned with pinyon pine. Frank Sinatra’s voice, singing Christmas songs, wafted within the air.

From our first view of El Capitan and Half Dome, Yosemite felt large—large sky, large climbs, large views. The valley is ringed by monumental granite partitions, made well-known by photographer Ansel Adams. On our second evening, we visited The Ahwahnee lodge for dinner. Strolling into the eating room, we had been overwhelmed by the peak of the home windows at one finish and the timbered ceiling beams above us. Once we left Yosemite, snow was simply beginning to fall.

Our final nationwide park earlier than the vacations was the Redwood. It was moist with rain, however silent underneath the safety of the large timber. We hiked quietly via the park, the one sounds the squishing of our footwear and the dripping of water onto our heads.

In January, we visited Sequoia Nationwide Park, California wine nation, and Palm Springs, adopted by Joshua Tree and Saguaro nationwide parks. In Carlsbad Caverns, we walked 750 ft down into the earth, met at each flip with calcite formations.

Large Bend Nationwide Park is within the southwest nook of Texas, alongside the Rio Grande. It is one of many largest and most distant nationwide parks, with 1,250 sq. miles that features the Chihuahuan Desert, the Chisos Mountains, and spectacular river canyons. We hiked Santa Elena Canyon, its sheer partitions rising in Mexico barely a stone’s throw away.

Our final park was a nationwide parkway, the Natchez Hint, which follows an historical path utilized by Native People and explorers resembling Daniel Boone, from Natchez, Mississippi, to Memphis, Tennessee. We hiked elements of the Sunken Hint, a portion so deeply worn down that its partitions can attain as much as 15 ft above the path.

We arrived again in Michigan on Feb. 1, 2025. Rosie is now in storage, ready for the subsequent journey. And I’m itching to get again out once more. The nationwide parks restored in me a childlike sense of marvel. Every single day introduced one thing new to see.

You need to go. And once you see the subsequent T+L contest, enter it. You is likely to be shocked by what occurs subsequent.