Trip reports about the places Christopher Elliott and his family have visited over the years.
In Alaska, they save the best for last.
Whether it’s the final boat tour of a glacier, the last nights in a cabin outside a remote national park, or the final Inside Passage cruise of the season, the Last Frontier loves its endings.
If you really want to see Alaska, you need wheels.
Most visitors come to the Last Frontier on a cruise ship or a plane. A motorcoach picks them up at the airport and delivers them to a hotel, to an airstrip or a national park, and they only see a small sliver of this state.
It’s a beautiful sliver, to be sure — but too small considering Alaska’s vast size.
Washington State’s Puget Sound area is famous for its moderate climate and postcard-perfect views of the Olympic mountain range. You’ve probably seen those gorgeous images of kayaks in the bay, a whale splashing in the distance, and, behind it all, snow-capped mountains.
Oregon’s cool and mysterious coast isn’t a what-you-see-is-what-you-get kind of place. Only repeated visits allow you to discover why it’s one of America’s most underrated destinations.
Bend, Ore., is the kind of place you can come back to again and again and always discover something new. My latest adventure was no exception.
Reno, Nev., used to be my favorite road stop on the way to Lake Tahoe. I had a preferred 7-11 service station where I could check the tread on my snow tires and fuel up, an In-N-Out Burger joint, and within a few minutes, I was on my way to some of the world’s best skiing.
Silicon Valley draws me to it like a powerful magnet, with its Mediterranean climate, irresistible culture of innovation and iconic technology brands that have defined a generation. It pulls in my whole family, which, like many Americans, lives in a world defined by Apple, Facebook and Google.
Blink and you’ll miss Buellton, Calif., a tiny town a two-hour drive north of Los Angeles. And maybe that’s just fine with Buellton, one of those undiscovered destinations where everyone expects you to stay a few exits south, in touristy Santa Barbara, or just keep driving through to nearby Hearst Castle.
For days, the Humpback whales had been taunting us from the bay as if they knew what we wanted. Every now and then they’d breach the surface or send a spout of water high into the mist, as if to say, “Catch us — if you can.” The rare sea otters teased us, too, playfully popping their heads above the surface near the Monterey Bay Aquarium.
A week before we visited Yosemite National Park, Alex Honnold became the first person to free-climb the near-vertical 3,000-foot face of El Capitan.
