Accomplishing Goals: Part 2 (Travel)

Our second goal during retirement was to travel especially to national parks. Our Travel and Activities page documents where we have been. Currently, our travels can be divided into several categories:

1. Visiting national parks (currently 38 out of 63).

2. Visiting specific locales (New Orleans, Key West, Las Vegas, Charleston, Savannah, Branson).

3. Visiting family in Texas and Michigan.

4. Visiting in-state or near state locations (e.g., state parks, beach condos, entertainment venues, waterfalls).

The majority of our travel involves driving either our own minivan or a rental car. On a recent trip to California, we flew into Arizona where we rented a car, then drove the rental car into California and visited all 9 national parks that were located there. We put on nearly 5,000 miles on the rental car.

We have been taking at least one major national park trip each year since we have retired. These trips take a lot of planning and involve visiting as few as 3 national parks and as many as 12 national parks.

We split the planning responsibilities for these trips. I plan the itinerary of which parks to visit, what to do and see in each park, how long to spend in each park, and the travel time and distance to the next park. Tammie then makes the arrangements for hotel stays, rental car, and airline tickets if needed.

In the future we anticipate that we will be flying more and doing less driving. We are also looking forward to including some cruise trips in the not too distant future.