HaveKidsWillTravel

The Grand Circle

Surrounding the grand canyon – through Southern Utah, Northern Arizona and the corners of Colorado and New Mexico – is a circuit of desert highways with the highest concentration of National Parks in the USA, and a big slab of the most spectacular desert scenery in the world.

Think Road Runner and Wiley-Coyote, Dr Seuss and John Wayne, and you’ve got a fairly accurate mental picture – [read on...]

There’s nothing quite as American as driving across the country on the backroads, getting off the interstates and onto the network of old highways and scenic byways that wend their way across the USA – and nothing quite as American to do it in as a Chevy Suburban. [read on]

Paddling up the Yukon

We’d pulled over for the night in a wayside overlooking the Five Finger Rapids on the Yukon River, and Angus and I’d gotten up to get some early morning photos. We got chatting to a young German guy who happened to be there, and he told me the story of how last summer, he and a friend had built a raft out of recycled pallets, some plywood, an old sofa and a sail, and floated for 16 days down the Yukon river from Whitehorse to Dawson. They could hardly steer the thing, so just floated with the currents and had come within feet of smashing against the walls of these rapids – but had obviously lived to tell the tale.

Now we don’t have 15 spare days or an old sofa, but by the time we’d made it back to the RV, Angus and I did have a glint of a crazy idea in our eyes… [read on]

Wilderness really is a bit of an over-used term – even in national parks, theoretically set aside to remain ‘as nature intended’, things are well curated to keep the visitors experience sanitised and convenient, neatly packaged for human consumption. Keep to the trails, stay in defined campgrounds, use the rest facilities, and your stay will be pleasant and comfortable.

Denali is different – [read on...]

I have to admit – I’m a lousy fisherman. I only know one knot, and have a pretty limited repertoire of techniques, none of which had so far gotten me so much as an encouraging bite in Alaska. But I’m not shaving till I catch a salmon – [read on...]