Southwest Winter Road Trip- How I Planned It

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I'm a Type A Virgo to the Max

This was definitely the most extensive as far as planning has gone for any of my trips. I started planning in September 2022 for February 2023, mostly because I was already looking for ways to escape the Missouri winter before fall had even begun to set in. With the goal of visiting as many National Parks in one sitting as I could fit in a trip, I basically looked at a map and connected the dots (literally, on Google Maps). I figured out where I wanted to go, how long I wanted to stay, and made a Word document of day-by-day which hikes, how long travel would be between stops, and links to the places I'd be staying along the way. I don't camp alone, not yet anyway (I lack experience and like being warm), so I BnB it instead. This Word document became a detailed itinerary I was then able to send to my friends before I left so they would have an idea of where I would be, and what hikes I'd be doing that day. 

Researching the Hikes Themselves 

After getting an idea of where I wanted to be and when, I wanted to know what I was in for on each hike, what to expect in the winter specifically, and how long the hikes were expected to take so I could fit as much into a day as possible. AllTrails became my slight obsession for this purpose. I went back to Feb 2022 trail reviews and looked what others had said about conditions, recommendations, things they wish they would have done differently, how long the hikes took them and so forth. This was VERY important, as I had never hiked in the desert in the winter, and turns out there's a lot of snow and ice, so I was able to plan for that. I also looked up some travel blogs and tried to prepare the best I could. Ultimately, and thankfully, I did a pretty good job and was never without anything I needed. 

I stuck some more information about hiking in these posts: Special Desert Winter Hiking Considerations, and Going Solo


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