Note: Orion's favorites are in green, Rafael's favorites are in orange, and Elizabeth's favorites are in blue. If there's a link then clicking that will send you to the related post.
Most Beautiful National Park (Traditional Beauty Category): Crater Lake National Park in Oregon; Banff/Lake Louise for the giant mountains and beautiful lakes that look like Switzerland; Banff in Canada
Most Beautiful National Park (Other Category): Joshua Tree for the unique flora and fauna; Badlands for the "only place on earth" feeling I got; Zion for the beautiful scenery and largest sandstone walls in the world
Favorite View: view from Angel's Landing in Zion; pretty much all the views along the Oregon coast; Lake Louise in Banff
Favorite Experience: sandboarding the dunes in Florence, Oregon; impromptu sledding down multiple mountains at Crater Lake; sea kayaking off the coast of Anacortes, WA
Favorite Beach: Ruby Beach for the climbing and the huge rock formations; Cannon Beach and the nice town; Oswald State Park in Oregon for the cliffs framing the beach, surfers, and the right amount of people
Favorite Wildlife Sighting: the grey wolf in Yellowstone NP; seeing a seal and a few bald eagles while sea kayaking the San Juan Islands; the bear and her cub running along a ridge in Glacier National Park
Favorite City (to visit): Whistler; Vancouver; San Francisco
Favorite City (to possibly live in the future): San Diego; San Francisco area or San Diego; Seattle
Most Disappointing City: Phoenix because I had pretty high expectations; Missoula, MT since after seeing Bozeman, MT I had high expectations for the other big city in MT; Calgary, Alberta because it looked like a bad suburb in the U.S.
Favorite "Section" of Driving: the drive from Devil's Tower to Yellowstone National Park; the drive from Banff to Whistler; the drive from Jackson, WY to Bozeman, MT
Favorite Campground: Lake Jennings near San Diego because of the view; Revelstoke's campground for the waterfall, river, and amenities; Lake Macdonald in Glacier for the view of the lake
Favorite Brewery: Full Sail because I liked the view and it was the first beer tasting; Deschutes in Portland, OR for the sampler, good location in the Pearl District, and since soccer was on TV; Full Sail Brewing in Hood River, OR for the combination of good beers and the view of the Hood River
Favorite Coffeehouse: the coffeehouse in Bozeman, MT for the comfy couches and the amazing caramel mocha; the coffeehouse in Granville Island (Vancouver) because it had an artsy, nice vibe and good espresso; Kiva Koffeehouse in Escalante, UT for the view of the canyons and free refills on iced coffee!
We hope this list gives a better insight into what we currently see as the best aspects of our roughly two month trek across the U.S. and Canada. After coming up with this list, we want to note that we feel this trip was truly epic and it goes down as our favorite road trip ever.
Thanks again for reading!
