#CashnersTakePNW

Well, it's a rainy, gloomy day in San Diego, so what better time to write the first of many posts about our extensive road trip! This post is more of an outline of the entire trip to give you an idea of how we started the initial planning for the trip and also help guide you through what the following posts will entail.

I found this article the other day about the importance of travel for our health and well being, and I completely agree with it! Travel is great for gaining independence, building relationships, learning more about yourself, and making you eager for more! Check it out here.

So obviously the first step of this process was figuring out the places we definitely wanted to go, when we could go, and how long we could be gone. Initially, we had about 12-13 spots we wanted to hit but realized it would be impossible to get the chance to enjoy each location in the time frame we were working with, which ended up being just shy of 3 weeks (18 days).

My husband and I use OneNote for EVERYTHING! Grocery lists, gift ideas, house to-do's, bucket lists, recipes, workouts, etc. So, of course, it came in very handy for planning this trip and packing! If you've never used OneNote, then you need to get on that NOW! It will literally change your life. I am a thousand times more organized thanks to this, and THERE'S AN APP!

Anywho, we decided our "turnaround point" would be 4 days in Seattle because we were planning to meet up with my brother-in-law and my now future sister-in-law (!) there for a few days. Since we had a place and a date for that, we were able to piece together the rest of the trip. Below is a simple outline of where we went, where we stayed and how long we stayed in each location. In later posts, I will go into detail about each location - what we did and saw, where we ate, our opinions on where we stayed and everything else, and I will include links for the things I recommend!



Northern Route: click here for the map

• Yosemite - 3 nights
• 1 night at Upper Pines Campground
• 1 night backpacking on the Pohono Trail
• 1 night at The Majestic Yosemite Hotel

• South Lake Tahoe - 2 nights at The Coachman Hotel

• Bend - 2 nights at the Mill Inn Bed & Breakfast

• Seattle - 4 nights at the Grand Hyatt downtown Seattle

Southern Route: click here for the map

• Silver Falls State Park - 1 night camping

• Del Norte Coast Redwoods State Park - 1 night camping

• San Francisco - 1 night at The Holiday Inn Express & Suites Fisherman's Wharf

• Big Basin Redwood State Park - 2 nights camping

• Big Sur - 2 nights at The Treebones Resort (we only stayed one because we were exhausted and missed our fur babies!)

Our travel time ranged from about 2 hours to almost 8 hours between locations, but we tried to split it up so we wouldn't have many long driving days back-to-back. We also stopped in Portland to have lunch with one of my college friends between Bend and Seattle, which was a nice little break from the car and great to catch up with her!

Here's a table of the drive times estimated by Google Maps:

To Yosemite	7:38
To Tahoe	4:24
To Crater Lake	6:04
To Bend	2:09
To Portland	3:14
To Seattle	2:46
To Silver Falls	3:55
To Del Norte	5:40
To San Fran	5:59
To Big Basin	1:38
To Big Sur	3:23
To Home	7:15

Once we had our locations and dates decided, we worked on figuring out where we would pitch the tent and where it would be easier to stay in a hotel or B&B. Then came the budget... We used OneNote to form a table of how much lodging would cost at each location, how much we would likely spend on gas, and then budgeted money for food and other activities.

We also included a few packing lists on OneNote: what to pack for the car, what to pack for camping, and what to pack in bags for the hotels. We used storage bins for most of our camping gear, which was a huge help with keeping everything organized. I will definitely do a post solely on packing and laundry! 

As you may have already guessed, there are sooooo many posts to come because there are a million things I learned on this trip and even just planning it. Please comment if you have any specific requests or questions for me, and definitely stay tuned for more posts! The next 2 posts will dive into the specifics of our Yosemite trip - how and when to book a campsite, how to plan an overnight hike, what gear we used, and maybe even a little something about bears...