Where to Next? 2025
WHERE TO NEXT: March & More
We have a couple of trips planned (and booked) to visit two more National Parks in America before our big trip to London and the British Isles later this year…(see next article below)
We are going to visit Hot Springs, Arkansas. Why…you ask? Well, because Hot Springs National Park is located in Hot Springs, Arkansas, it will be our 44th national park to visit in America! I know it is not a well-known and popular park like other National Parks in America. However, it is still worth visiting because it happens to be a very unusual National Park. It was declared a National Park on March 4, 1921, and is the 18th National Park in America.
I have done a little research about this park and the bathhouses located on Bathhouse Row. There is a lot of history associated with all of the bathhouses. I have also reviewed some of the hiking trails and lookout points within the park. So, we thought, what the heck? Let’s go visit the park!
We will be staying in town (within 5 miles of the National Park’s Visitor Center), which, by the way, is conveniently located in the Fordyce Bath House!!
The Fordyce Bath House was operated from 1915 to 1962 and was the only bathhouse with a bowling alley located inside of the building. You could do a little bowling and then take a nice warm relaxing bath in thermal hot springs water! Sounds like a great thing to me!
All of the Victorian bathhouses were built between 1880 and 1888 and eventually rebuilt with fire-resistant brick and stucco. The Fordyce Bathhouse is no longer a working bathhouse and is now a Museum and Visitor’s Center. However, presently, there are still some bathhouses open to the public…Maybe we will have to try one of them out?
AND…
Our other trip we have planned (in a few months) is to St. Thomas in the Virgin Islands. We will be staying 3 nights at the Margaritaville Resort located on St. Thomas (near the ferry that takes you to the Island of St. Johns – it is only about a 35-minute boat ride one way). Why? Well, St. Johns in the Virgin Islands is where the Virgin Islands National Park is located!! It was named the 29th National Park in America the year I was born (1956).
We plan on booking a tour with a local company that takes us to many highlights in the National Park on St. Johns. I have already seen pictures of this National Park…IT IS VERY BEAUTIFUL!! (We are already packing our cameras, towels, swimsuits, and sunscreen!!)
So, the Virgin Islands National Park will be our 45th National Park to visit in America! (That is, if you are counting!!)
The Fordyce Bathhouse / Visitor's Center
St. Thomas, U.S. Virgin Islands
WHERE TO NEXT: London & British Isles Cruise
We are looking into taking a British Isle Cruise later this year. We want to fly into London to stay a few days in the city before we board a cruise ship to sail around the British Isles. (FYI: We had a great time in London 26 years ago when we toured London and Paris with our three children.
We are looking forward to seeing how much London has changed since then!)
The ship we are researching stops at many beautiful places in Ireland, Scotland, and Wales. It even stops at a port in France! We are looking forward to revisiting this part of Europe, especially London!
We are also looking into what I would call Cruise Ship Jumping! That is when you visit an area, go on a cruise, fly to another location (spend a few days), and then jump on another cruise ship for another week to ten days! Right now, the Greek Islands, or a combination of some wonderful places in Italy and Greece, are a very definite possibility. So, who knows? Maybe we will do a little Cruise Ship Jumping after our British Isle Cruise?
Also, later this year, we are looking into a return trip to Wyoming to revisit Yellowstone National Park, Grand Teton National Park, and Jackson(hole), Wyoming! We loved the entire area the last time we visited Wyoming. We would, however, like to add a short flight from Jackson, Wyoming, to Kalispell, Montana, so we can finally visit Glacier National Park (and check it off of our list of National Parks visited)! It would be number 44 for us!!
So, what are you waiting for? Make that special trip finally happen, and go do some TRAVELIN!!
Where to Next?
NOVEMBER-Viking Cruise-Europe
We booked a trip to visit the European Christmas Markets later this year. We are flying to Basel, Switzerland and then boarding a Viking River Cruise so we can visit a lot of the wonderful Christmas Markets along the Rhine River. We will be stopping at many beautiful towns in Germany (including Mannheim so we can visit “Heidelberg at Christmas”,Koblenz so we can visit the “Ehrenbreitsen Fortress” and the beautiful town of Cologne). We also have a stop in Strasbourg, France and Dordrecht, The Netherlands. We will also spend two extra days in Amsterdam before we fly back home. This will be our first trip traveling on a Viking River Cruise ship and we are really looking forward to the trip!
Before our fun European trip, we also hope we can visit a few more National Parks in America that we have not yet had the pleasure to visit. So, wish us luck! (The forecast this year is not that great for our Florida hurricane season.) Hopefully, we can still get away for a few days this Summer…we only have 20 more National Parks to visit until we (officially) have hiked them all!
Where to Next?
JULY-Niagara Falls here we come...
We have booked a trip to meet some wonderful friends from Arlington, Texas, at Niagara Falls. (He was the Best Man at our wedding almost 48 years ago!) We are spending three nights at the Marriott Fallsview Hotel, 6740 Fallsview Blvd., in Ontario, Canada. This hotel has fabulous unobstructed views of the Falls from your hotel window; nothing sits between you and those fabulous views! We plan to visit both the USA side of the Falls and the Canadian side. We are currently booking a tour that takes us on the famous Maid of the Mist boat, up to the top of the Skylon Tower in a glass elevator, Whirlpool State Park, and back across the border to the American side of the Falls.
We also plan on ziplining at the Falls! (We have never ziplined before and look forward to the adventure at Niagara Falls!!) It should be a super fun experience! I am sure we will get quite wet! I hope to record our ziplining tour of the Falls with my cell phone. I have a waterproof (clear) holder that goes around my neck and keeps my camera from getting wet. Hopefully, the tour company will let me wear it and turn it on before I start the zip-across!
If we have time, we may even book a wine tour to Niagara-on-the-Lake. FYI: We plan to fly into Buffalo Niagara International Airport and hire ground transportation to take us across the border to our hotel in Ontario, Canada. It is my understanding that The Marriott Fallsview Hotel is only about 30 miles away from the Buffalo airport. The hotel looks fabulous…it is located right in front of the Falls! It should be a wonderful trip!
Where to Next?
MAY 2024
We booked a trip (in May) to visit our 42nd and 43rd National Parks. We are flying to Phoenix, then renting a vehicle so we can drive to Joshua Tree National Park in California. After a few days at Joshua Tree (Twenty-nine Palms) area, we are heading to St. George, Utah. (We usually stop for a day or two in Las Vegas, however, this trip we decided to stay in St. George instead.) St. George has several State Parks we are interested in visiting and hiking for the first time. Then after two days in St. George, we are heading to Great Basin National Park near Ely, Nevada We plan to stay two days in Ely and then head to Salt Lake City, Utah for one night before we return home. We are so looking forward to visiting two more new National Parks!!
Stay tuned for my blog about this trip!
Great Basin National Park-An International Dark Sky Park
Where to Next?
MARCH 2024
We booked a trip (in March) to visit our 41st National Park. March is not a month we usually like to travel and, we hope the weather is not too terrible. However, we feel like we need to get away for just a few days, so, St. Louis, Missouri, here we come...The old 1945 movie “Meet Me in St. Louis” comes to mind, and, honestly, that’s about the only thing (other than Gateway Arch National Park) we know about St. Louie! I am currently researching the area (doing some homework) to see if there is anything else (besides the Arch at the National Park) we would like to see and do while we are visiting the city. We are staying at a hotel that is located very close to the Arch (within walking distance), and our room is supposed to have an “Arch View”! Sounds quite wonderful to me! I would love to see the Arch all lit up from our hotel room at night.
Some information regarding Gateway Arch National Park:
Gateway Arch was built as a memorial to Thomas Jefferson’s role in the Westward Expansion of the United States in the nineteenth century, and the park is located smack in the middle of a big city. It is not the usual park we like to visit, where we can hike on some wilderness trails in the great outdoors. However, it is one of America’s National Parks! We would eventually visit the Arch one of these days, so we thought, why not now? The National Park covers only 91 acres of land, and the Arch itself is 630 feet tall (63 stories high). The Arch was completed on October 28, 1965, and it has two trams that can take you up to the top of it so you can take in some wonderful sights in all directions.
So, I bet you can guess what we will be doing…We will (definitely) be going up to the top on one of those trams to the “observation platform” to take some great pictures! Heck, this is indoors and only 630 feet up! It is not like climbing the Sydney Harbor Bridge in Australia (which we did in 2018) or walking across the New River Gorge Bridge, 876 feet in the air (which we just did last year)! This should be a cakewalk, or should I say, an easy tram ride up to the top!! No exertion at all is required! We are keeping our fingers crossed that our flight to St. Louis goes as planned. We also hope the weather will cooperate so we can “check off” another park from our long list of National Parks we have already visited in the United States! May the “Luck of the Irish” in March be with us!!
Where to Next?
We are looking at three trips (out West) we have tentatively researched and planned for the near future.
It all depends on my mother’s health (she will be 98 early next year), the weather in the areas we would like to travel, and how much time we will need to be away to visit everything we want to see (and hike)! As you probably know by now, we usually like to travel in May and September to avoid crowds at the National Parks.
We have wanted to revisit the Jackson Hole, Wyoming, area so we can visit Yellowstone and Grand Teton National Park at least once more. However, we would also like to drive from Wyoming through Montana to visit Glacier National Park for the first time. I have wanted to visit Montana for at least four years!
Some of you may already know that Glacier National Park is one of the parks that can have inclement weather that closes sections of the park until mid-June or even mid-July! This trip would have to be planned in summer rather than May! We could even do this trip in early September.
We also have another trip planned…we fly into Seattle, rent a car and drive to the following six National Parks: Olympic National Park, Mt. Rainier National Park (take a little detour to see the Columbia River Gorge area and Multnomah Falls near Portland), Crater Lake National Park, Redwood National Park, Lassen Volcanic National Park, and Pinnacles National Park. Needless to say, this trip will take at least 3 weeks to complete and that is a pretty long time to be away from everything!
Another trip we have planned is to Salt Lake City, Utah, where we rent a car and drive to Great Basin National Park. Then, we finally get to see the Grand Staircase-Escalante area, the Vermillion Cliffs National Monument, Antelope Canyon/Horseshoe Bend area (this area can only be visited with an Indian Tour Guide!), Sunset Crater (we have only tried to stop at Sunset Crater 3 times…we always decide to detour to the South Rim of the Grand Canyon instead!!), and Joshua Tree National Park. This trip will take us around two weeks to do.
So, right now, we are not sure where we are headed next…but you know it will be somewhere totally scenic and fun because life is way too short to just stay home!!
So, what are you waiting for?
Plan that trip you have been thinking about taking now!
Where am I headed next???
I am currently having a lot of fun planning our next hiking trip. We are heading to 4 new National Parks this Fall! We will visit Indiana Dunes, Cuyahoga Valley, New River Gorge, and Shenandoah National Parks.
New River Gorge has a Bridge Walk Tour over the big Gorge under the active bridge. You walk on 24-inch wide planks and are harnessed by a wire overhead so you can't fall into the Gorge! Sounds fantastic, and I bet our pictures will be fabulous...and Cuyahoga Valley has a pretty cool-looking train ride through the National Park! It sounds like a ton of fun to me, and if we get to go on the trip (you never know about flights nowadays), we will add four more National Parks to our list!! That would put us at 40 National Parks visited and hiked in the USA!! (Cool beans!!) You know I love our National Parks! I'm keeping my fingers crossed that everything works out. We need some fingers crossed! Please send me some of your adventures from any of these parks here!