I’ve traveled to over 35 countries and lived on 3 continents. There is nothing I love more than discovering new places. With each trip, I learn something new about myself. Over the years, I’ve discovered that I much prefer the adventures of the great outdoors than spending all day touring museums and dining at restaurants.

There is nothing more satisfying than time spent exploring the outdoors. My best nights of sleep are had in the wild, under the starry skies. This year marks 100 years of the National Park Services. In 2016, there are 16 days when you can visit National Park Service sites that normally charge admission for free. The first of these free admission days was this past Monday. While you mark your calendar for the other 15 days, I wanted to share photos of some of my favorite national parks. These are definitely worth a visit, or a long weekend stay.

Yosemite National Park, California: best for stunning views and overnight camping. Great all year round.

When Southwest Adventure Tours reached out about sending me to Utah on their Mighty 5 tour, I was thrilled. I had been to Utah before - two years ago when Alex and I first moved to the US and decided to visit a few national parks over Thanksgiving. I loved the parks the first time around, but driving 4+ hours a day left us exhausted that we often had to cut our hikes short. And when we did get around to hiking the parks, I only had Google Image search and TripAdvisor to help me decide which trails were worth hitting up.

My return to Utah would prove very different, not just because Southwest Adventure took over all the planning but I had a guide, Robin, who became my trusty source of information. After driving through Canyonlands, Arches, and Capitol Reef, we ended the tour with Bryce National Park and Zion National Park, my two favorites of the trip.



In Zion, the clouds hung low as thunderstorms loomed near. The mountains in Zion smoldered through the defense fog. Zion is picturesque at every turn, but if you want to know the best hikes and lookouts, then you need to ask someone who knows the park. At Robin’s counsel, some of us opted to hike Angel’s Landing despite the chance of rain. I had seen photos of the view from the top and was determined to reach it. After completing last mile using chains as we navigated the narrow, and rocky “fin” with thousand feet drops on each side, there was nothing more satisfying than standing at the summit when the rain started to pour.

While I often overhear people remarking that Zion was their favorite stop of the trip, I longed to spend more time in Bryce. I had been looking forward to the return to Bryce since my visit there 2 winters ago. There is something magical about the hoo doos in the park, and they looked even more surreal in the early sunlight when Robin took the group out to catch sunrise at Inspiration Point. As our small group cuddled together in the cool morning air, we would point out glimpses of glowing red light that each other had spotted against spires in the amphitheater. Anyone who has ventured on a guided tour knows the quality of the guide can make or break the experience. As a photographer, I want a guide who can answer my questions and give me an experience tailored to my perspective of a photographer. Later on in the day, Robin took us into the canyon for a hike, another activity I had missed out on when I visited Bryce during the winter and was glad to try. It’s one thing to stand at the top of a viewpoint and study the park below, but there’s something about being on the floor of the canyons that makes me feel at one with the place. The spires towered over us as we passed by “Thor’s Hammer” and circled around arches that had formed as the sedimentary rocks eroded. With every step, I remained in awe of Bryce.





Disclaimer: Southwest Adventure Tours invited me to join their Mighty 5 tour as their guest, but they did not request that I write a favorable review or spend way many hours running into the sunset in the Mighty 5. 

A bump in the road woke me up from my nap in the car. As I slowly come back around, I realized from the different terrain that we were no longer in Moab. Now, we were driving through the desert in a landscape that looked simply jurassic. I had flown to Salt Lake City a few days earlier to embark on the Mighty 5 Tour with Southwest Adventure Tours. Zion, Bryce, Capitol Reef, Arches, and Canyonlands are the five iconic national parks that make for a perfect week-long trip through the state of Utah.

Our 10-person group actually did the trip backwards, beginning in Canyonlands and Arches National Park before driving through Capitol Reef and traversing south until we hit Bryce National Park and Zion National Park before heading back to Salt Lake City. I hadn’t travelled like this before. Typically I travel with a small group of friends or, sometimes with only my camera. In recent years, Alex and I have also taken a liking to guided private tours for just the two of us and our crazy demands to see sunsets and sunrises. But a small group tour for 6 days, including hours spent in the car together as we drive across Utah - it was a first.


In addition to myself, the group consisted of 3 Canadians, two best friends, a couple of international exchange students, and a pair of endearing grandparents who were checking Utah off of their bucket list. This line reads like the introduction to a Hollywood comedy, but for 1 week, this group of people became my travel family. Somehow, this unlikely all over survived the trip with only minor bruises and beautiful memories.

When you meet a fellow traveler, it’s an unspoken social custom to share your stories of the road. Over lunches and dinners, I learned about the Canadians’ hiking trip to Guatemala a few years before, grandma and grandpa had vacationed in Egypt and Israel, and the exchange students had taken a summer in college to backpack in Southeast Asia. These conversations were always followed by questions about possible future trips, and exchanging ideas for how we could use our next vacation days to our advantage. Between chats, I instinctively reach for my passport and pat the pocket to check that it’s there. Over long drives between parks, we learned about the each other’s families, childhoods, and love for adventure. Not before long, I was looking through photos of family members on smartphones.

An incomplete group photo.

I have to admit, as much as I am a champion of solo travel, the desert can be a lonely place and I wouldn’t have wanted to spend 5 days doing the Mighty 5 alone. And I definitely would not have had any energy left to hike on top of driving 2-4 hours each day. Although the popular trails were quite busy at this time of the year, the ever changing weather sometimes deterred most tourists. I was glad to have a few companions with me on the longer hikes in the winding canyons. Together, we braved the hurried showers one minute and shielded our eyes from the sun the next. On the second day, half of us got lost off trail and took a 1 mile detour. As one of the girls would later retell this story to others in the car, on one of the last hikes in Zion, we had to use chains to pull ourselves up Angel’s Landing when the wind really picked up. In the sudden wind, I almost got blown away, but thankfully my fellow travelers held me down.

Follow Southwest Adventure Tours online to see more snaps from my trip:
Facebook: www.facebook.com/SouthwestAdventureToursLLC
Instagram: @swatours
Twitter: @swatours

Disclaimer: I was invited to join the tour as a guest of Southwest Adventures, but all opinions written, friendships made, and knees scraped are my own. 

One of my favorite trips in North America was when Alex and I drive through Nevada, Utah, and Arizona - visiting four amazing canyons in just four days. We were chasing sunlight endlessly, driving down miles of empty highways that screamed freedom.

This week I’m returning to Utah for a week to discover the secrets of the wonderful Utah Might 5. I cannot wait for the week-long hike under the beaming sun and through the canyon lands. I hope to spend the desert nights counting the stars. I can’t wait!

The trip to Utah will be the longest trip I've taken this year. Other than a few days in Harrison Hot Springs and a staycation in New York City, Alex and I have been staying put since our 2 month long trip through China, Hong Kong, and Japan last summer. I always like the idea of being back home again after a long trip, I get to put my suitcase away, buy fresh flowers for my apartment, and revisit my favorite watering holes in the neighborhood. But I can always count on the itch to go exploring returns after a few months. The only catch is, with time, my ideal way to travel changes. For at least this very moment, all I want is an adventure out in the wild - me, the elements of nature, and my camera. I don't care much for backpacking through the cultural epicenter of Europe, or a week on a beach in an all-inclusive resort. I want to run up to the top of a volcano in Bali, bike through the Canadian Rockies, and hike through the parks of Utah.

Here are my photos from the last time I was in beautiful Utah.

We chased the last bit of sunlight as Alex pulled into a small town off the Arizona highway. I felt half dead as I dragged myself out of the car.

We had spent longer than expected at the rental car center in the Las Vegas airport, and had to give up going to Zion National Park as a result. Day 1 of a four day road trip across Utah and Arizona proved to be a rough start. Already, we would only be seeing 4 canyons instead of 5.

Day two took us to the Bryce Canyon National Park, ascending over an endless amphitheater of hoodoos that appeared out of the thick distant fog. We were ill-prepared for the snowy trek across the park but delighted by the white blankets that laid in front of us.



Shivering after a cold morning in Bryce Canyon, we raced to Antelope Canyon where, back in the state of Arizona, snow turned into a wintery chill. In upper Antelope Canyon,  wind gushed by us as we drove to the slot canyon entrance. Inside, we stood mesmerized by the afternoon light and the shades of red and orange that painted the canyon. The canyon walls with all its beauty towered over me.

We could not embark on a trip to canyon hop in America without stopping by the Grand Canyon. As we pulled into the parking lot, I could tell something was different. Grand Canyon national park bared no resemblance to its usual appearance. Thick cloud and fog covered the entire canyon in a rare and strange weather phenomenon. I couldn’t see 20 feet ahead of me, let alone anything else. The canyon that I had driven so far to see had escaped me. Above the wall of clouds, a thin layer of the canyon peaked over the fog and taunted me.

Knowing that a trip always has its ups and down, we wore on.




On the last day, we made our way from Flagstaff to Sedona Canyon. We were ready to shed our layers of winter clothes for shorts and sunglasses. The last leg of our canyon hopping trip, Sedona brought us back from driving across dessert with no end in sight to a popular gathering spot that’s perfect for resting our feet.

My clothes were covered in dirt. The car was filled with empty coffee cups and granola bar wrappers. I was tired of smelling gasoline and even more tired of napping in the car. My neck yearned for a pillow. My heart yearned for another road trip soon.