Unique digital nomad travel adventures from around the U.S.
R and I spent six weeks living, working and playing in Savannah, Georgia, in January and February. It really was a dream. Here are our trip recommendations for Savannah if you will be traveling there during the winter season: Trees, squares, architecture and food Savannah, …
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If your Instagram feed looks anything like mine, you will have seen an ad for Suav shoes. I must confess the ads got me and I bought a pair. Below is my review of the Suav Zilker shoes for travel, in case you also are …
Wondering how to plan your fun as a digital nomad? We have a simple but effective approach. Hint: it starts with a pen and piece of paper. That’s right. We recommend you go old school here and write down your list of things to see and do. That way you can hang it on the fridge or put it on the coffee table. Having it in plain sight means you will be more likely to make stuff happen.
Whenever R and I show up to a new location to stay and play, we start a list. The research begins before we arrive, but the list is what keeps us on track and helps us plan our adventures. We like to break our list into categories like shopping, food and activities, but do whatever works best for you. We also add to the list as we go along if we read about something fun or get a good recommendation from a local.
I have found that periodically looking at the list and making a plan to check something off is one the best ways to experience a new location. It’s also a flexible approach to making plans since nothing on the list is set in stone, at least not until we make reservations.
Of course, not everything on the list can be done at all hours of every day. You may have to make reservations or adjust your work schedule. We like to take advantage of our weekends to explore nearby areas and that usually requires some extra planning. But planning is part of the fun in my opinion.
We knew we wanted to visit St. Augustine, Florida, during a recent six-month digital nomad stint in Savannah, Georgia. Given that St. Augustine is about three hours from Savannah, we had to find the right weekend to make the trip south. We needed to rent a car, find a hotel room and make some plans. It was not a heavy lift, but it required some coordination. But that coordination was totally worth it to check St. Augustine off our bucket lists.
The best part of the list is checking things off. I love looking at the list towards the end of a trip to see everything we have gotten to see and do…and eat. We sometimes have to make a push to get everything checked off, but we’re committed like that.
If you are staying and playing as a digital nomad in a new location, I suggest you write down your fun and keep it somewhere where you can see it often. Then get busy having fun and checking things off.
Charleston, South Carolina, one of the best cities in the south brimming with American history, charming boutiques, and tasty restaurants. President’s Day Weekend in Charleston is a terrific time of the year to visit. Background I have been fortunate enough to spend President’s Day Weekend in …
Weekend getaways and microtrips are a great way to do more exploring. We recently enjoyed a quick weekend getaway to the compact and historic city of St. Augustine, Florida. Below are our recommendations from that trip. Spending six weeks living and working remotely in Savannah, …
Last January and February B and I headed to the southern coast for the second half of winter. We both love Idaho winters: skiing, snowshoeing, and watching fluffy white flakes of snow fall while bundled up in a blanket drinking hot chocolate. However, after a couple months of winter wonderland…we’re over it. 60 miles of white sand beach as a digital nomad in Myrtle Beach, SC, was an excellent trade to 42 days of white snow on the roads.
We landed on Myrtle Beach because of an affordable rental, beach access, and proximity to a decent sized city. We learned from our experience in Pass Christian, Mississippi, that all are needed to sustain a comfortable digital nomad journey.
Myrtle Beach, SC, is primarily known as a spring break party town. My first spring break trip was when I was 9 and we traveled down to Myrtle Beach from North Carolina. The party hasn’t changed much in the ensuing 30 years. However, January and February in Myrtle Beach are a much quieter affair, mainly full of retirees enjoying their high-rise condos with views of pelicans flying up and down the coastline.
With its proximity to other fun coastal towns and daily walks on the beach, it was glorious to spend the dog days of winter being a digital nomad in Myrtle Beach.
I’m going to talk a lot about the beach in this post. That’s because it is really nice. I would wake up at 8 (6:00 a.m. in my work time zone) and take a leisurely stroll up and down the coast most mornings. Sometimes the tide was high and the beach was more crowded with walking groups of senior citizens. Sometimes the tide was low and birds out-populated people. Every time I was able to breathe the sea air and look at what the ocean churned up over night in the form of seashells and shark teeth. Speaking of shark teeth, shark teeth hunting is a thing. B became a black belt in it and amassed a very impressive collection of the black fossilized teeth from sharks of yesteryear.
Myrtle Beach also has a robust boardwalk area with shops, restaurants, and bars. There are a couple of mini-amusement parks with carnival rides. These were quiet during the off-season we were there, but I imagine lots of squealing kids riding them once the crowds showed up.
In all my travels, I have never seen a larger collection of miniature golf courses in a square radius as what there are in Myrtle Beach. These are not the type we have back home either, these courses are varied and intricate and have multiple stories. I enjoy putt-putt, but am not passionate about the sport, so we only tried out one course. We were quite impressed with the thematic course and have no doubt the other courses were just as robust.
The main concentration of activities in Myrtle Beach are centered around the boardwalk and the ocean, but the city has branched out in a couple of areas that have fun shopping, eating/drinking, and entertainment. The Market Common was cute, with a communal feel with houses and retail mixed together. Broadway at the Beach seems to be a competitor with the boardwalk area for entertainment. It is (ironically) a couple miles from the beach.
I’ll bring up shark tooth hunting again in the not-so-obvious things to do because it is not obvious what people are doing when they are looking for these little fossils. Some people have tools (some manufactured and some modified) that are essentially poles with a mesh bag at the end. They scoop up the sand and sift the teeth from the chaff as it were.
As a tourist town, Myrtle Beach has plenty of accommodations. We ended up in a townhouse complex two blocks from the beach. This rental was through VRBO and was $2900 for 6 weeks for a two bedroom, two bath home. It was conveniently located one block from a Walmart grocery store. This is super important if you don’t have wheels or public transport! When working while traveling you’ll need to make sure the internet is reliable. Read reviews to make sure this is in working order before you make a reservation.
There were many restaurants that were closed when we first arrived in town, but as we got closer to the Spring Break time, the town was slowly awaking. As we were on the coast, B of course made sure to get some seafood. If you enjoy carnival/fair food, you will also finds lots of options.
Sadly for B, the ice cream shop that sold Swedish Fish flavored ice cream was closed for the season, but I bet she would highly recommend Rita’s if they are open.
The shopping up and down the boardwalk area is not great, unless you are in the market for kitschy coastal chotchkes. However, there were some nice regional stores at the Market Common and at Myrtle Beach’s mall.
Public transportation exists in Myrtle Beach. This stretch of coastline a couple of miles surrounding Myrtle Beach is called the Strand. However, the Strand’s public transport consists of one bus that makes a slow loop around the area. Unlike some bigger cities, there was no bike share system. Instead, I bought a used bike my first weekend in town and then sold it before I left. I was able to cruise around for about $20 net. Our VRBO was conveniently located within walking distance of the airport. This allowed us to rent a car easily, which we did whenever we felt like going on an adventure.
Myrtle Beach is close to a lot of cool places to explore.
I was able to check off another national park by driving 2.5 hours to Congaree National Park in the middle of South Carolina. This national park was slightly flooded when I visited but I was able to see the beautiful hardwood forest on the Boardwalk Trail. I learned afterwards that a couple of weeks later the mosquitoes emerged for the year, but my time at the park was lovely.
B and I wanted to check out what was to the north of Myrtle Beach, so we cruised about 1.5 hours north to Wilmington, North Carolina. This town is really cute. It is now famous for being the setting of tons of shows/movies such as Dawson’s Creek. We arrived and ate some very tasty food and walked around the boutiques that are sprinkled throughout the town. The highlight of the trip was definitely visiting the Stanley Rehder Carnivorous Plant Garden. This area of the Atlantic coast is the only place where Venus Fly Traps are natively found. We saw several of them and other carnivorous plants on a little walking trail.
Charleston, South Carolina, is two hours south of Myrtle Beach. This wonderful southern city could fill several posts. If you haven’t been there before, go. We spent the weekend eating, shopping, and my favorite: soaking up all the history of this incredibly historic town. We almost missed the boat (literally) when we got to town and boarded a ferry tour to Ft. Sumter. This fort is famously the place where the Civil War started. We also spent a sobering hour at a The Old Slave Mart Museum This spot was formerly a slave market and the small museum was powerful and thought provoking. We made sure to go take in some live music at the revived Riviera Theater. In between all these activities we walked through the streets and marveled at houses that dated back to the Revolutionary War.
We were able to explore much of the area around Myrtle Beach by renting cars and driving. If our VRBO was further from the airport we would have spent a lot of money shuttling back and forth to the car rental at the airport. In bigger cities, there are more central options for car rental facilities that aren’t at the airport. If you plan on renting cars a lot, you should think about how much of a hassle it will be to get to the car rental facility.
I knew Myrtle Beach as a Spring Break party town. What I didn’t realize was how many retirees there are. I loved seeing all the older folks in walking groups strutting up and down the beach. It made me really want to be retired.
B and I were really pleased with our mid-winter getaway. The weather in the South can be oppressive, so going in winter is really the only time we would be comfortable. While we can’t really be called snowbirds, since we were working while we ventured south for the winter, I can see the appeal of this migratory lifestyle. Being a digital nomad in Myrtle Beach provided a terrific beach to walk on and a central location to visit other areas in this region.
Why work and travel in Omaha, Nebraska? I have three reasons for you: midwest nice (it’s a real thing), tasty food (except for something awful called a Runza) and sports (I have never seen volleyball fans like I saw in Nebraska). But wait…there’s more! R …
Whether you call it digital nomading, location independent, extreme remote work or something else, this not-so-new lifestyle is something that a lot of new people are choosing. My best friend and I are two such people. We are living and working remotely from various places …
The Idaho State Parks Challenge consists of visiting all of Idaho’s state parks in one year. We made up this challenge to see a bit more of our beautiful state and help alleviate the restlessness caused by Covid-19 travel restrictions. It was maybe the best decision we made in 2020.
Idaho is a pretty big state. With an area of 83,570 square miles, it is the 14th largest state in the U.S. It is also an odd shape and covers some diverse landscapes. There are a lot of mountains. There are also dense forests, alpine lakes, large lava fields, acres of farmland (those potatoes have to come from somewhere) and so many hot springs. The only thing we do not have a lot of is people and cities, and we are not complaining about that.
With so much natural wonder to see in Idaho, it can be a little daunting to know where to start. May I suggest our state parks? There are 27 of them located all over the state and a visit to them will introduce you to a whole new Idaho. And if you want to geek out like us, try the Idaho State Parks Challenge.
Note: the number of state parks in Idaho has changed over the years. You may see a sign or read a list with misinformation. The number 27 comes directly from the Idaho Department of Parks and Rec website. I would check with them if you have any questions about current and former state parks.
When the pandemic ruined all of our travel plans for the foreseeable future, we needed something to look forward to. In an effort to make some sort of travel plans, I mentioned, more in passing, that we could attempt to visit all of Idaho’s state parks. R answered immediately: “Mission accepted.”
We decided to see if we could visit all of Idaho’s state parks in less than a year and I think this decision saved 2020 for me. We spent the summer planning and going on adventures. Most were just weekend getaways and microtrips, but they alleviated the travel itch in a big way. I remember standing at the top of one of the sand dunes in Bruneau Dunes State Park and laughing out loud. It was hot. My feet were on fire and the wind was blowing sand into my face. But I was so happy in that moment simply because I was on an adventure. I was an hour away from my house, but it felt like I was much, much further.
I am vocal about the love I have for my home state. But this challenge taught me more about Idaho than I could have imagined. If you choose to complete the Idaho State Parks challenge, you will explore landscapes so vast and different that you will have a hard time believing you are still in the same state.
By visiting Idaho’s state parks you will…
Have I convinced you to start planning yet?
If you are feeling super ambitious and you have the time, you could plan one epic road trip to visit all of the parks. Driving time would be around 45 hours.
We broke our challenge into six separate trips. They were all weekend getaways except for one longer trip to upstate Idaho. Given the time it takes to drive that far north for us and the number of parks in that part of the state, we opted to tackle it in one big trip. But the other trips we were able to do over a weekend and did not require us to take any time off work.
Note: click on the name of each park below to read specifics about that park and our experience there.
One fun thing about our trips is that we didn’t just visit state parks. We managed to do and see other fun things as well. R got to see Balanced Rock for the first time. We bought beautiful rings with opals mined in Spencer, Idaho. I checked off my last Idaho county. If you are going to be visiting a particular area, it is worth seeing what else might be nearby.
Side note: every challenge needs a good checklist. Since I could not find one that I liked, I created my own. If you too are looking for a good checklist for your Idaho State Parks Challenge, check out this option in my Etsy store.
Today! Honestly, anytime is the right time to visit Idaho’s state parks. However, there are a few things to keep in mind.
If you visit in the wintertime, please note that some parks will not be open or will only be partially open. For example, Bruneau Dunes State Park is home to the Bruneau Dunes Observatory. But your only option to experience it is after the sun goes down in the summertime.
With that in mind, winter can also be a wonderful time to explore Idaho. Many state parks have winter activities like snowmobiling, cross-country skiing, and snowshoeing. The crowds will be a lot smaller and you may have an entire park to yourself.
If you enjoy spending time on the water, then summer is your best bet. We experience all four seasons in Idaho and it is not pleasant to go swimming during three of them. R and I ended up completing our Idaho State Parks Challenge in one summer. This meant that we enjoyed a lot of lake time. But it also meant that things were hot. There were a few times when I wished it had been a little (or a lot) cooler.
I suggest you figure out what you like to do and plan your park visits around that.
The amount of time you spend in each park will depend on the size of the park and the activities you want to do. Thousand Springs State Park, for example, is made up of seven different units. If you want to see them all (and they are unique and worth a visit), an hour or two is not going to cut it. However, there were plenty of parks where all we did was enjoy a picnic and a stroll. An hour was fine in that case. Below is a chart depicting each park, how much time we spent there, which activities we enjoyed, which activities we missed, and an assessment of our visit.
Each park is unique. However, there are some that are more memorable than others and for different reasons. In fact, R and I have different must-see lists.
If you are visiting the state parks during the summer like we did, do not forget your sunscreen. Idaho has decent elevation and you do not want to run around without sun protection. Also, you are going to need a swimsuit. Many of Idaho’s state parks are located on rivers, lakes and reservoirs. And if it is hot, you are going to want to get in the water. Drinking water and insect repellent are also must haves.
If you go exploring in the winter, dress warm and be prepared for all four seasons. We get snow in Idaho and a lot of it in some parts. The last thing you want to do is get stuck in a blizzard without proper clothing.
No matter the time of year, I recommend you pack some basic provisions and a first aid kit. A lot of Idaho’s state parks are off the beaten track and far from towns. You want to be prepared for anything. We often had a picnic packed since we never knew if we would be around a town when we got hungry. Make sure you have drinking water, food and a full tank of gas.
Gas and lodging will be your biggest expenses. If you like camping, then Idaho’s state parks are where it is at. Head to the reservation system to book your spot today. R hates to camp and I don’t love it. So we mostly stayed in hotels and Airbnbs near the state parks. We even crashed at my folk’s house one night.
Some of the parks have sleeping options like yurts and cabins. We did take advantage of a couple of these overnight stays. In fact, the yurts at Winchester Lake State Park are lovely and even come with the use of a canoe. The whole experience made Winchester Lake one of my favorite state parks experiences. Overnight stays can be a little hard to book during busy times, so you will want to book as soon as possible.
The Idaho State Parks Passport is not a fun booklet that lets you get stamps in each state park (unfortunately). There is no such official program in Idaho. Instead, the passport is a $10 sticker that provides unlimited day-use access to every Idaho State Park. It is only available to Idaho residents and is good for one year (perfect for the Idaho State Parks Challenge). If you do not get the passport, each park will set you back $5.
If you are not from Idaho, you have the option to purchase a Motor Vehicle Entry Fee sticker for $80. You can purchase this sticker at any Idaho state park (with a visitor’s center) or online.
In Idaho, we deal with wildfires. For the most part, wildfires ruin views with haze and smoke. But every once in a while they ruin plans. We had a lot of trouble with a wildfire when we visited Dworshak. You can read about that story in my blog post about Dworshak State Park.
We have rattlesnakes in Idaho. Thankfully, we didn’t see any, but there are plenty of parks where you need to keep your eyes peeled.
We also have bears and moose, neither of which you want a close encounter with. We saw moose at a distance from the safety of our vehicle in Harriman State Park and we were warned of possible bear sightings at Henrys Lake. Thankfully, we did not encounter any.
The Idaho Department of Parks and Rec website is a great place to research each park. If you have a question about a park that you cannot find online, don’t hesitate to reach out to the park directly. The park rangers are very friendly and passionate about their parks. Asking what their favorite thing to do in the park is a good way to learn something new.
Jake Davis, a park ranger at Dworshak State Park, shared all kinds of useful information with me including the following:
“Certainly though, the most unique thing about this park is the dramatic water level fluctuation. Full pool is 1600’ and minimum pool is about 1450’. I don’t believe there is any other water body in Idaho that experiences fluctuations of this magnitude.”
Who knows what else you may learn by reaching out to the park? Give it a shot and see.
To be fair, not everything you will see in Idaho will be amazing. There will be times when you understand exactly why early immigrants moved right on through to get to Oregon. It’s okay to not love every park you visit. And not everything we experienced was all sunshine and roses. Just like any trip, things went wrong. A hotel lost our reservation one night and we had to scramble to find a place to stay (they still charged me as well so I had to deal with that after we got home). Google maps took us down a cow trail instead of a road and what should have been a 10-15 minute drive took us about an hour. A wind storm and wildfire caused us a whole heap of trouble and anxiety at two different parks.
However, all of the setbacks were worth the trouble when I think back to riding horses in historic Harriman, looking down at the Oregon trail wagon ruts near Thousand Springs, swimming in the turquoise blue waters of Bear Lake and riding a tandem bike on the Trail of the Coeur d’Alenes. Idaho made 2020 not just bearable, but a wonderful experience.
If you are looking for a new challenge or goal or you just want some new insight into the 43rd state, I recommend the Idaho State Parks Challenge.
State park selfies…
Missing Idaho State Parks Overview When B and I started our Idaho State Parks Challenge we were a little confused on how many state parks there actually are in Idaho. It seems like this should be pretty clear. So our first step was to get …