I had already planned to go to Washington State to visit my sister at the end of June, so I went out there before closing on my house and had an amazing time. I went out a few years ago and did the North Cascade Loop after seeing Diablo Overlook in a Washington State travel guide (highly recommend).

Diablo Overlook, Washington State

This year I went even further west and further east. My sister and I went out to Olympic National Park and Neah Bay.

We hiked out 4.5 miles each way to see the Point of Arches and later that evening went to Cape Flattery, the north-westernmost point in the contiguous US. Also in the area west of Seattle, we hit up Crescent Beach and Whidbey Island.Words cannot describe it out there, so I’ll leave you with some photos (hover over to see where they were).

Point of Arches

Cape Flattery

Ebey’s Landing (Whidbey Island)

Crescent Beach

Point of Arches

Point of Arches

I left my sister (she had to work) and drove out to Lewiston, Idaho to do a Snake River tour (Snake Dancer Excursions – also highly recommend) out of Clarkston, Washington up to Hells Canyon (yes, it’s Lewis and Clark). The drive east was long (around 6 hours), but worth it.  I had a blast going up and down the river (rapids and all) in an aluminum boat. It was a refreshing way to spend a 100+ degree day. The tour took us through 3 states that the Snake River runs along/through: Washington, Idaho and Oregon.

Lewiston, ID and Clarkston, WA (after Lewis & Clark)

Monitoring the sturgeon

Hells Canyon Dam

Snake River

Small rapids

I was only out there for a week, but I felt like I accomplished quite a bit of sightseeing. I have a tendency to jam-pack itineraries – it keeps me going!

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I’m going to be posting about my travels around the world in the coming months, so wanted to start with a little background on how this travel came to be.

Three months ago I made the hardest decision I’ve had to make so far in my life…to keep a great job as a senior manager at a great company, or to stop working, sell my house, and travel. Reading what I just wrote, it was a no brainer…travel. But at the time, I was entering the unknown – and that was scary.

It took me a couple weeks to come to terms with what I had done… and multiple times asked myself ‘WTF did I just do?’ My house hadn’t sold yet, I was coming up on being unemployed and I was nervous. I knew this was the right thing to do though. I was ready for a change in my life. Both my roommates had moved out and I had always wanted to spend time seeing the world. I’m hoping to figure out exactly what it is I want to do in life as well as figure out where I want to live. I bit the bullet, took the plunge, however you want to call it. I did what many people are afraid to do…and it was just that – frightening.

Sidebar…if you need to sell your house – see if doing it yourself is worth it with companies like entryonly.com (I saved a LOT of money by doing it myself with Entry Only).

I ended up working out about an 8-week notice and I went into work for the last day on June 17^th. It was bittersweet. I was excited, but still a little scared at the same time. I had a tentative closing date on my house of July 8^th, so I still didn’t want to book or really plan any travel (I didn’t want to jinx myself). Fast forward to July – I closed on my house, moved in with my brother and started to plan travel.

Loose travel plans from there are Europe, US, Australia/New Zealand and hopefully the Caribbean and Central America. At this point, I’ve only booked Europe. I lived in Sweden for a year in high school as an exchange student, so have friends/family there that I want to see as well as friends in Germany. I started my planning around those areas and filled in the rest of the places from there.

Malmö, Sweden to Germany (Munich, Cham and Constanze) to Venice, Italy to France (Nice and Paris). Stay tuned for posts and photos!

Suggestions on where to go/visit in any of the locations I just listed? Comment! I’d love to hear about them!

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