If you placed two identical Coca-Colas in front of them and said Elvis Presley had touched one, they’d probably start taking selfies with it. Tourists. Our last two weeks of road-tripping were defined by the bizarre side of tourism — social media has created a world where people who actually hate travelling feel compelled to do it anyway.
Social media made people travel who actually hate travelling
“THIS IS NOT IN OUR PLAN. Stop taking pictures of stupid things and get up there! When we reach the top, you’ve got fifteen seconds to take your photo and then we’re running back. Got it?” screamed an American man at his wife, theatrically slamming his hat on the ground. The petite woman — clearly used to this — carried on photographing the wildflowers along the Grand Prismatic trail with admirable composure. He puffed up, fuming, and marched off.
Being at the most touristy spots on Earth became a guilty pleasure of ours during the final stretch of our trip. Sometimes you genuinely wonder why people travel when they look like it’s the greatest form of torture known to mankind. Probably for the Instagram photos, we reckon.
Why do tourists queue for a photo with a tree in a forest full of trees?
From Yosemite, we headed to Sequoia National Park. For a while, we couldn’t find any tourists. We thought it couldn’t be possible — they had to be somewhere. Then we spotted them, all gathered around one particular sequoia. Allegedly the largest sequoia in the world. Every single visitor was queuing up for their ten seconds of clowning around at the General Sherman Tree.
If you’re thinking it must have been a truly spectacular tree, let me assure you — you genuinely can’t tell it’s the oldest or the largest just by looking at it. So we stood there for a good while, watching with great amusement as people waited in a fifteen-minute queue for a photo with a sequoia… in a forest absolutely full of sequoias.
35°C is actually quite refreshing
Joshua Tree Park is a gorgeous and, luckily for us, underrated gem. It’s not exactly ideal for long walks in summer — temperatures soar through the roof and tourists try to spend as little time outside their cars as possible.
We could hardly believe we’d actually made it there. It meant our trusty Chiquita had survived to reach the southernmost point of our road trip — and also that our adventure was slowly coming to an end.
The heat wasn’t about to let up, and the tourists weren’t coming back any time soon. From the scorching, we drove straight into the even more scorching. And our car was about to face its ultimate test. We were heading to the lowest point in North America — Death Valley.
According to some sources, it’s the hottest place on Earth (though others point to Dasht-e Lut in Iran with its record 70.6°C). We had a lovely 47°C. True to our rather unfortunate habit, we arrived at precisely the worst possible time — when they advise you not to walk around at all. But it wouldn’t be the real Death Valley experience if you didn’t brave it in the middle of summer at peak heat. At least that’s what we kept telling ourselves. I’d been warning Lukáš it would feel like standing in front of a giant hair dryer, and sure enough, that’s exactly what it was. During our short walks through this hostile landscape, we could only hope we wouldn’t melt.
When you accidentally skip a national park, you know you’ve visited too many
It was the perfect preparation for Nevada, Arizona, and Utah, because from then on nothing ever felt quite as brutally hot. 35°C seemed like a pleasant breeze by comparison. We spent two days in Las Vegas pretending to be normal tourists, only to find ourselves on the third day — nursing a hangover — parking up and sleeping right next to the visitor centre at the North Rim of the Grand Canyon. We simply didn’t have the energy for anything else. If you’re curious about all the places we slept that weren’t exactly legal, well, this was one of them.
We didn’t linger for long — took a few shorter walks and hopped straight back into our Chiquita to keep moving. We still didn’t have the energy or the mood to trek anywhere properly, so we weren’t even cross with each other when we realised we’d accidentally skipped one of Utah’s national parks. We decided to make a small detour and go back for it.
Meet Horseshoe Bend, the most overrated spot in the USA
We didn’t expect quite such a pilgrimage when we decided to make a stop at the wildly popular Horseshoe Bend. The single most overrated place on our entire trip. Thousands of grumpy tourists streaming towards the exact same photo their mates had posted on Instagram. So naturally, we took one too. Research shows that people don’t actually like unfamiliar things — they’re most drawn to what they already know. The more they see a place in photos, the more beautiful it seems. The more famous, the more stunning. Our brains love the familiar. And so we headed to the next popular destination: Monument Valley.
Mesa Verde isn’t exactly a tourist hotspot, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t worth a stop. From 550 AD to 1300, this was home to the Ancestral Puebloans, who could scale cliffs like nobody else. They’d carve tiny toeholds into the rock and scramble up sheer cliff faces.
Our last first time. We got kicked out of town
From Colorado, we headed into Utah, which we’d been dreading most because of the high temperatures. Turns out that after Death Valley, we’d built up quite an immunity. In Canyonlands and Arches, we strolled about as if the air wasn’t well above 35°C. Our base was the town of Moab, which gave us our very last “first” — the one we’d been waiting for over two months.
At 2 a.m., a police officer knocked on our car window and kicked us out of town. Me with heart palpitations and Lukáš with his eyelids glued shut, we spent half past two in the morning searching for somewhere to sleep, 20 minutes outside town.
And we nearly drowned…
On the way to Bryce National Park, we drove through Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument. Because we always think we can outsmart everyone and find more beautiful places without paying, we picked Zebra Slot Canyon as our next destination. And we nearly drowned, because it was flooded. Video here
https://www.facebook.com/LoudavymKrokem/videos/1409339759182076/
In Zion and Bryce, we played it safe. At Bryce, we walked all the main trails. In Zion, we chose Observation Point over Angel’s Landing — better views, fewer people.
The adorable Mormon sect
Our stop at Mormon HQ was a welcome change of pace. Suddenly, it was as if you’d left America and stepped into a different, far friendlier world belonging to this adorable sect. They’d already tried to convert us back in Alaska, so armed with a Book of Mormon, we set off to explore the mothership. We wandered around to the sound of piano music, admiring the lavish headquarters of the faith that’s taken over the entire state of Utah. Had we not discovered a café plastered with comic book characters and blessed with lightning-fast Wi-Fi, we’d tell you Temple Square is the best thing in all of Salt Lake City. Unfortunately (or fortunately), we found it.
Holes into the Earth’s core. The most magical place in the USA
We thought nothing could impress us any more, and Lukáš was doing everything he could to cut our trip short. When I told him we needed at least four days in Yellowstone, he gave me a deeply suspicious look. That lasted about ten minutes — until he found himself staring into stinking lakes of every conceivable colour. Holes straight into the Earth’s core.
Yellowstone isn’t really a place for long hikes. You mostly squeeze along wooden boardwalks past turquoise pools at 90°C, waiting for the next geyser to surprise you. But here, the crowds of tourists fade into the background — once the geysers start their show, you couldn’t care less if there are a thousand other spectators around you.
We knew Yellowstone was the golden pinnacle of our travels. The grand finale, as it should be. Yet there was still one obligatory stop waiting for us — our beloved parks along the US-Canada border. But Glacier National Park and Waterton were engulfed in wildfire smoke that had been following us for the last thousand kilometres from Yellowstone.
Life is better in Banff
We didn’t give up on Glacier National Park entirely — we at least hiked up to Grinnell Glacier, a glacier that won’t exist in 20 years’ time. After that, with tears in our eyes, we drove back to our friends in Calgary. Our journey was over.
“But I still liked Banff the best,” Lukáš declared as we returned to Calgary after 2.5 months of living and travelling in our car. We’d driven 20,000 kilometres, walked 800 kilometres, only to confirm that there’s no better place in North America than Banff.
Tips and Tricks for Your Vacation
Don’t Overpay for Flights
Search for flights on Kayak. It’s our favorite search engine because it scans the websites of all airlines and always finds the cheapest connection.
Book Your Accommodation Smartly
The best experiences we’ve had when looking for accommodation (from Alaska to Morocco) are with Booking.com, where hotels, apartments, and entire houses are usually the cheapest and most widely available.
Don’t Forget Travel Insurance
Good travel insurance will protect you against illness, accidents, theft, or flight cancellations. We’ve had a few hospital visits abroad, so we know how important it is to have proper insurance arranged.
Where we insure ourselves: SafetyWing (best for everyone) and TrueTraveller (for extra-long trips).
Why don’t we recommend any Czech insurance company? Because they have too many restrictions. They set limits on the number of days abroad, travel insurance via a credit card often requires you to pay medical expenses only with that card, and they frequently limit the number of returns to the Czech Republic.
Find the Best Experiences
Get Your Guide is a huge online marketplace where you can book guided walks, trips, skip-the-line tickets, tours, and much more. We always find some extra fun there!
