Roadtrippin´ with my Two Favourite Allies

Oh America, not only are you the best in the world at freedom; it turns out you are best at nature as well. After lapping the world over the past 4 months, it was a bit ironic that the most impressive landscape witnessed to date was arguably to be found within the contiguous 48 states. More specifically: the sandstones of Southern Utah and Northern Arizona, including but not limited to national parks such as Zion, Bryce Canyon, Arches, Canyonlands and Grand Canyon. Our two week roadtrip in a refurbished Dodge Caravan would prove to be one of the absolute highlights of our entire journey.

After our longest travel day of the trip, flying from Brisbane to LAX with a Korea connection (Oskar Fulvio was a total champ), we rested in an airport hotel for 24 hours before setting sail. The rented Jucy Campervan could easily sleep four adults, two within the vehicle and two “upstairs.” It also included a gas stove, a sink, a mini fridge and a portable DVD player (an absolutely redundant product). I had made a rough itinerary which we were to polish along the road as we received advice from fellow travelers at various campsites and diners.

First off, Vegas Baby. We spent a night there, strolling around various casinos on the strip and feeling like big misfits with our toddler traveling partner. Felt a bit weird hanging out in Vegas this time with no gambling, no strippers and very little booze, but always worth a stop. We loaded up on some In-N-Out Burger next day before heading to Zion.

From this point on, everything is pretty much a haze of amazingness, bar a $75 dollar poop stop at a gas station in Navajo country (Oskar Fulvio decided to dump a ceramic vase on the ground; if you ask me that thing was worth $20 tops). I won´t bore you with details of every park visit, so here is a picture summary instead:

Zion

Bryce Canyon Campsite with Drive In Theatre Showing Cannonball Run

Burr Trail

Moab with Usman and Maya

Canyonlands

Arches

Valley of the Gods

Monument Valley

Lake Powell (incl. Horseshoe Bend and Antelope Canyon)

Grand Canyon

Flintstones Campsite

Sedona/Jerome, AZ

Phoenix

Los Angeles

2000+ miles later our roadtrip was completed. It is kind of funny how people travel all over the place and tend to forget how great the US national parks are. Swedes are a pretty well travelled people but I don´t think any of my friends have visited this part of the US (trips to the west tend to focus on LA/San Francisco/San Diego/Vegas).

On numerous occasions I was trying to rank the sites in order of awesome, but realized that I would just put whichever park last visited as number 1. So I tried something different…

Best Hike: Angel´s Landing (Zion)

Best View: Wow, tough one…Obviously Grand Canyon gotta be up there, but I kind of liked Canyonlands

Most Beautiful: Equally tough…will have to go with Antelope Canyon

Best Spot for a Climbing Loving Toddler: Arches

Most “We are no Longer on Earth” Landscape: Bryce Canyon

Best Campsite: Valley of the Gods (not an actual campsite but good enough for the Jucy)

Most Fun Camping: Canyonlands weekend with Usman and Maya

Best Drive: Burr Trail

Best Random Fun Thing: Shooting Star RV Resort (The drive in theatre campsite)

Coolest Town: Sedona, AZ and Jerome, AZ

Most Eurotrash per m3: Grand Canyon

We decided to stick around the States for another month post roadtrip, spreading time between Adric´s bachelor party in Venice Beach, Jamal and Jamie´s house in San Diego, and Usman´s apartment in NYC. After all the travels, we really just hit funemployment mode with limited planned activities and greater focus on relaxation. Definitely made us realize how much we already miss the States and that our time in this nation is far from over.

And with that, onto the last leg of our trip. After all the funemployment, we just needed one more adventure. Our last month will be spent in Ecuador and we are ending it all with Galapagos. More on that later.

Island Hopping in Paradise

There is a reason Filipino cuisine never conquered the world. All major global cities and most minor have its assortment of Thai, Chinese, Japanese, Indian and Vietnamese restaurants, maybe even a few Malaysian and Cambodian. You rarely hear of a Filipino restaurant – in fact, in all of New York City, only a single one springs to mind. Thus, in a period of six days spent in Manila, I ended up consuming more McDonalds than in 4 years in NYC. All of a sudden, biting into a Big Mac brought out happy memories of a childhood long before taste buds and stomach had evolved to steer me away from the Golden Arches. Manila is not your typical tourist destination, but we enjoyed our time relaxing with Icelandic friends in preparation for the two weeks of island hopping adventures awaiting in Palawan in Western Philippines. At first we flew to Coron in the Northern region of Palawan. We met up with my Swedish friend Wictor, who was quick to make fun of our Western style dinner selections, while he proceeded to order local, authentic grilled chicken. Nine days later, after 24 hours of unintterruped vomiting and a night spent hugging our hostel toilet, Wictor was a defeated man and unable to even look at a grilled squid. His final Filippino meal was a pizza. Luckily, in the days prior to his day of misfortune, Palawan had proven to be quite the place that made me this happy: I won’t bore you with too much detail and instead let the pictures do the talking, but basically we flew into Coron, think Mordor meats Neverland, where we spent three or four days renting small bangkas (boats) and driving around stunning lagoons and snorkeling areas. Besides a minor mishap when somehow the misconstructed Filipino boat I was paddling together with Oskar Fulvio decided to take in water and sink, and Oskar Fulvio had to be paddled to safety by the local park guard, things were pretty great. Next we were heading to El Nido, the tourist hub of the region, but instead of jumping on the 8 hour straight boat ride, we booked an island hopping tour that stopped at beaches and snorkeling areas in between and halted for 3 nights at a tented paradise resort on the island of Ginto, which we used as base for further island exploration. This area between the more popular Coron and El Nido was fantastic and completely void of other tourists. It is also known to have some of the clearest water in the world and we experienced some fantastic snorkeling. Finally, we reached El Nido…the place that 5 years ago was what Thailand was 25 years ago. Surrounded by an archipelago of breathtaking islands with dramatic cliffs and (not so) hidden lagoons. So more island hopping on the agenda obviously. No longer a secret from the tourist masses, we had to be a little clever and I think we did quite well in avoiding the packs of orange life vests carrying lagoon clogging Asian tourists. After almost a whole month in the Philippines, we had to say goodbye to Southeast Asia and the third world as we were moving onwards to Australia. No more island hopping adventures, no more meals under $5 and no more locals with random t-shirts carrying important messages such as “Voted most likely to wear this shirt” or “I´m the loud one.” Palawan was an absolute highlight and a worthy end to the first half of our six month trip. But we were also looking forward to the comforts of the western world, and to eating lots of meatpies. So far I think I have had 17.