Trips recommended for the summer time.
Back Road from Apple Valley to Big Bear using 3N14: Are you looking for a classic back road adventure in Southern California? There are several in the San Bernardino Mountains near Big Bear Lake but one road trip in particular stands out because of its Joshua-to-Pine tree scenery. This dirt road will take you from […]
This is a great summertime trip because it takes you into the cooler regions of the San Gabriel Mountains of the Los Angeles area. This entire trip can be done in a single day and is broken into two sections. The first section explores a dirt road that runs along Blue Ridge above Mountain High and Wrightwood. […]
The Burr Trail is yet another wonderful back road through the scenic red rock country of Southern Utah. Burr Trail stretches 68 miles from the small town of Boulder, Utah, located along Hwy 12, to Bullfrog located on the shores of Lake Powell. Along the way, Burr Trail passes through Grand Staircase Escalante National Monument […]
Cactus Flats is an area in the San Bernardino Mountains just east of Big Bear Lake that lives up to its name – it’s a flat area full of cactus. The cactus they refer to, however, is not really a cactus at all. It is the iconic Joshua tree which is, technically, a member of […]
This wild collection of waterfalls and cascades east of Quebec City, in Quebec Provence, Canada, is quite an unusual attraction. High suspension bridges and overhanging decks allow for some thrilling views of the torrents below. Our visit to Sainte-Anne occurred in early October, just when the fall colors were at their prime adding more brilliance […]
When it’s hot during the summertime, we all look to the mountains nearby for relief and if you head up to Big Bear in Southern California, one great hiking option is to Castle Rock. It is one of the most popular hikes in the Big Bear Lake region and for good reason: it passes through […]
Our road trip this time takes you into the Cathedral Valley area of Capitol Reef National Park in Utah. The Park itself can be divided into three sections: the southern section that is accessed using the Burr Trail and Notom-Bullfrog Road; the middle section where you’ll find the popular points of interest including Capitol Gorge, […]
A visit to Kenai Fjords is an microcosm of what Alaska is all about – big, wild, rugged and beautiful. The landscape of Kenai was formed by the same mammoth force that created many other beautiful landscapes of Alaska – ice – and lots of it – in the form of glaciers. Just like Alaska’s […]
Go on a driving tour along the western half of the Denali Highway in Alaska, near the entrance to Denali National Park and see the amazing and brilliant fall colors which normally peaks in late August. Denali Highway (Hwy 8) was the original dirt road built in 1957 to access Denali National Park and Denali, […]
On this trip, we are trading in our usual dirt-road travel for something on two iron rails. Join us as we take this unique train trip on a seldom-traveled route through remote Northern California and Oregon aboard a collection of historic railcars. Our three-day excursion starts in Sacramento and goes through the Feather River Canyon, […]
On the eve of the American Civil War, the largest gold rush in Southern California was taking place in Holcomb Valley of the San Bernardino Mountains. Holcomb Valley is a mountain-top valley just north of Bear Valley where the popular resort of Big Bear Lake is located today. A trip into Holcomb Valley offers a […]
Our back roads exploration this time takes us to where there are no roads as we visit the massive icefield and many glaciers behind Alaska’s capital city of Juneau. Join us as we take to the air via helicopter to not only see this magnificent sea of ice but to also walk on it. Click […]
The Kaiparowits Plateau is a remote mountaintop region in south-central Utah that is inside the Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument and recently renowned for its treasure chest of dinosaur fossils. The plateau also offers a combination of road trips, either leaving out of the towns of Big Water or Escalante. On the trip showcased here, we’ll […]
Oregon is a great place to explore during a week-long road trip. It makes a perfect vacation for anyone that needs to get away from work. When compared to other states, Oregon boasts some beautiful and unique scenery including its Cascade Mountains, which are full of ghastly volcanic features, moist and mossy rain forests, scores […]
2N33 aka Pilot Rock Road, Riding High Over Silverwood Lake: Where the Mojave Desert meets the San Bernardino Mountains, there are a number of unknown back roads where you can enjoy the transition from the desert vegetation to the mountain shrubbery. One such road is seldom used and offers great scenery while transitioning from desert […]
Just north of busy San Francisco is a quiet, peaceful seaside region known as the Point Reyes National Seashore. With its many bays, inlets and estuaries, the Point Reyes area offers plenty of scenic places to explore. There are also dozens of sleepy little towns tucked into the rolling, forested hills here. Point Reyes is […]
In central Utah there are several superb Native American rock art sites and the Rochester Panel is probably one of the most spectacular. While most rock art sites have a smattering of petroglyphs or pictographs, the Rochester Panel is a large concentration of petroglyphs of many different designs. You will leave the site scratching your […]
Along with our other road trips along California’s San Andreas Fault, this tour takes us through the streets of San Bernardino, Highland, Yucaipa and Oak Glen, which are all cities within the region known as the Inland Empire east of Los Angeles. Similar to our tour of the San Francisco Peninsula showcasing the San Andreas, […]
We are going to take you on a tour of the San Andreas Fault, starting in the Cajon Pass, through Wrightwood and Big Pines, then along the north side of the San Gabriel Mountains. California is world-famous for many things and one of them is earthquakes. This introduction to a small section of the infamous San […]
We’ve taken our readers on tours of the San Andreas Fault before, this time however, we’re going to take you on an urban back roads tour of where the fault can be seen along the San Francisco Peninsula. Our tour starts near Stanford University in Palo Alto, and ends where the fault plunges into the […]