Here, you’ll find all of our USA travel tips, posts on family travel, hiking, national parks, road trips, train & rail adventures, and top sights.
Focusing on the Pacific Northwest (Oregon & Washington) and Central Coast & Southern California.
Things to do in cities like Portland and San Diego, off-the-beaten-path places to visit, and more.
By his seventeenth it was pretty clear that Noe was starting to get bored with wineries, so we got on a plane and moved to Laos. While that might not be entirely true, the weather leaving Portland was a good sign it was time to move on.
We set out to explore historic Leach Botanical Garden, a hidden living-wonder in Portland’s less-trodden Outer Southeast.
It’s Sunday in Portland. The sun is shining. 1.5 million visitors are clogging the area’s highways, trails, and landmarks. And…your very pregnant wife is one day shy of her due date […]
It’s no secret that Portland is full of great hikes, both in and around the city. While we’ve racked up a fair amount of Portland trail mileage over the past 18 months, there’s no doubt […]
Trail, Tram, Trolley and Train! Portland’s 4T Trail is one of the best ways to get to know the city, via three modes of public transportation […]
A few weeks back we joined my parents on safari through a game reserve featuring over 70 species of exotic animals, including tigers, giraffes, zebras, lions, elephants, […]
We cover two of the Pacific Northwest’s best rail adventures in this post: The Mount Hood Railroad and the Seattle-Eugene portion of Amtrak’s Coast Starlight […]
Our Mirror Lake & Trillium Lake Hike report — a worthwhile alternative to Columbia River Gorge hiking at the foot of Oregon’s majestic Mt. Hood.
Another one of Portland’s best kept secrets…well, at least from us. Ever since Lori first caught wind of the Crystal Springs Rhododendron Garden in deep Southeast […]
View of downtown Portland from Mt. Tabor. Lori’s parents came up to Portland a few weeks back in mid-April to hang out and check on the status of the belly […]
In addition to visiting Smith Rock State Park in Terrebonne (near Redmond), we also made a few trips into Bend. We walked about three miles of Bend’s one-of-a-kind Deschutes River Walk […]
We took a last-minute weekend trip to Central Oregon to take advantage of the abundant sunshine and warmer temps forecast there […]
Another great open-skies hike in the eastern Gorge, perfect for a sunny day of hiking in early spring! The weather was more than kind to us, with sunny skies […]
We took a drive out east to tackle Coyote Wall and the Labyrinth. Just an hour outside of Portland, the landscape changes dramatically, offering countless […]
Happy Year of the Monkey! This month marks one year in Portland for us, and our second Chinese New Years celebration at Lan Su Chinese Garden in Portland […]
Reflections through the seasons on an eventful year at Portland’s Lan Su Chinese Garden — a very unique and special corner of this city that has become an integral part of our lives since moving back to the PacNW.
The last day of our California Coast Babymoon road trip began in San Diego and ended 200 miles and 4,000 feet in elevation on the summit of the notorious Grapevine, covering 95% of the mileage after sunset. It would have been a […]
Ah. San Diego. Good to be back. It’s been about 12 years since my last visit and to my eyes the city has changed very little — which is a very good thing. Why mess with perfection, right? Of course […]
