Funny background story here. I was taking a bath on a Sunday afternoon and decided to put on a face mask. That reminded me of a time when my daughter and I were goofing off while wearing face masks on vacation (we often bring face masks with us when we travel). Then I started thinking about how that’s a fun way to relax on vacation and it doesn’t cost anything (at least not while you’re on vacation although you do have to buy the face mask either before you leave home or while you’re on vacation; still, face masks are generally not that expensive). Then I started thinking about all of the many things I like to do on vacation that are free or cost very little.
So now I’m sitting here at my computer post-face mask and bath beginning my list of 50 free or practically free things to do on vacation. I will also add that at one time or another I’ve done every single one of these things while on vacation. I’m always looking for ways to save money, whether I’m on vacation or not, most likely from my upbringing by a single mother without much money. Anyway, here’s what I’ve come up with for my list. I’m sure some will come as no surprise but maybe some things will surprise you. Some things do depend on where you are so you need to make the appropriate assumptions. Here goes!
Walking this sweet dog from an animal shelter in Hawaii was a great experience (#44)!
Go for a walk along the beach and look for cool shells along the way.
When you’re done with your beach walk, put all of the shells you collected into a pile and decide which one is your favorite. Keep just that one as a souvenir.
Go for a hike up a mountain.
Find a small, local grocery store and pick out one snack to buy that you’ve never seen or heard of before.
Find out where the best place is to watch the sunset and do that one evening.
A couple of days after watching a sunset, watch the sunrise one morning then decide which you enjoyed better, the sunset or sunrise. Did they even look different from one another?
Take a blanket or towel(s) with you and lie in the grass to stargaze one night.
Find an antiques store and browse all of the unique finds.
Have a picnic lunch at a place where there’s a water or mountain view.
Find a state or national park and see how many of the trails you can walk or hike in a day.
Go out your hotel or Airbnb property and walk in one direction with no real plan in mind other than to explore the area (make sure you’re in a safe area first).
Strike up a conversation with a local shop keeper.
Find a small local bookstore and browse their section on local books. Bonus if you’re in another country where English is not the first language!
Get a cup of coffee or tea and people watch from an outside table.
Find one of the most expensive clothing stores you can in the area and be amazed at the $4000 pair of wacky pants and $6000 dress you would never in a million years wear.
Eat breakfast from your hotel or Airbnb patio/balcony.
Go for a run with the intention to learn the area where you’re staying better.
If you’re in another country where they speak another language, watch local TV and try to follow along.
Put on a face mask, either one you brought from home or one you bought at a local drug store.
Do your own manicure and pedicure instead of paying someone else.
Go on a free walking tour; remember to tip your guide.
Buy a pastry from a bakery and find a spot outside with a nice view to enjoy your treat.
If it’s a hot day, find a cool stream to dip your feet in.
Play “Pooh sticks” if you have a child, where you each drop in a stick from a bridge over a fast-moving body of water and see whose stick makes it to the other side of the bridge first. Heck, you could do this with someone else even if they’re not a child. It’s still a fun game!
Swim in the ocean.
Find out what the highest point is where you’re staying and hike to the top.
Go shoe shopping but don’t buy any shoes.
Take a series of photos one day with something from each color of the rainbow represented (indigo is hard).
Read a book.
Have your own mini book club if you’re traveling with someone of the same reading ability as you and discuss a book you both read while on vacation.
Find a playground with swings, slides, etc. and play like a child even if you don’t have children.
See how many bridges you can spot in one 30-minute walk through the city.
Have breakfast in bed.
If you’re staying at an Airbnb, make pancakes for dinner and eat them in your pajamas.
Binge watch a show on Netflix or whatever streaming service you subscribe to.
If it’s winter and snowy, go for a walk through the snow.
Savor a cup of hot chocolate by the fire.
Browse the hair care aisle of the local drug store and see if you can find a product you’ve never seen before. If you’re feeling really brave, buy it and see if you like it.
Visit a small local farm and watch as the chickens come running out when called by the farmer (true story; they came running like puppies when the man called out to them. Apparently it’s a thing with chickens).
Walk through the farmer’s market and buy some local produce.
Go to some local art galleries to check out the art work.
Visit an art/science/history museum.
Visit a small local winery that gives free or low-cost tours.
Walk a puppy or dog at a public adoption place that encourages this, otherwise volunteer there for a couple of hours.
Volunteer at a soup kitchen.
Volunteer at a running/biking/swimming/triathlon race (you’ll probably have to sign up in advance).
Browse a local running store and see how it differs from your own local running store.
Join a local running group for a run (check Facebook or Meetup).
Buy a postcard and mail it from the local post office. See if you make it home before your postcard arrives at your friend or relative’s house.
Practice your drawing skills with some paper and a pencil.
The chickens that came running to greet us when the farmer called them (from #39 above)
I could probably go on, honestly but that seems like a lot so I’ll stop here. Have you done any of these things or do you regularly do any of them on vacation? What is your favorite free or low-cost thing to do on vacation?
Stop me if you’ve heard this story before: In 2020, I was supposed to take a big vacation and then all of a sudden this thing called Covid-19 hit, causing worldwide shutdowns. I know I’m not the only person who had to cancel plans when the pandemic started. I’m also not the only person who thought, “Surely this will be over in a couple of months and I can just postpone my trip until then.”
I was supposed to go to southern Spain and southern Portugal for a week each in June of 2020. When borders were closed I pushed back those plans a couple of months to August, only to finally cancel indefinitely. Once vaccinations and treatments were available and borders were starting to open again in 2021, I made plans to go to just Portugal (so no Spain this time) for a week during my daughter’s spring break in 2022.
I’m not going to go into detail here about all of the COVID testing requirements and regulations since I already wrote about that here: International Travel as an American During COVID Isn’t Easy but needless to say it was stressful. It turns out the stress didn’t stop there. When we arrived in Lisbon we were told there was too much fog that morning to fly safely into Faro. The airline, TAP Portugal was going to bus us all to Faro, or we could rent cars ourselves if we chose to do so (on our own dime). The ironic part is the fog lifted fairly quickly and we could have easily flown to Faro and we would have gotten there sooner, even with waiting a few hours. We were told it would be about a three hour bus ride.
After much standing around in the Lisbon airport for hours and being told time after time, “We’re still working on getting the buses here,” we finally boarded the buses (we all fit in two buses after many people left and rented vehicles on their own) and began the drive to Faro airport. Of course there was a lot of complaining by passengers in the meantime but I was just happy to get to Faro that same day. They could have easily told us we would have to wait until the next day to fly out.
I should mention never once did anyone from the airline (TAP Portugal) tell us we were entitled to any form of compensation or even a free lunch for our troubles, despite many people angrily demanding something in return. I know when it’s a weather-related delay airlines can pretty much do what they want. Since our flight from New York was an overnight one, I was exhausted by now and slept on the bus most of the way. The few times I did look out the window there didn’t seem to be much to see anyway other than normal highway sights.
Our temporary home in Portugal was perfect!
FINALLY in Faro (that should have been the title of my post), I picked up the rental car and about an hour later we arrived in Ferragudo at the Airbnb, a beautiful townhouse with several balconies including a rooftop balcony with bouganvillea spilling over the front of the property. Ferragudo turned out to be the perfect area to stay because it was a fairly central location in the Algarve, only an hour from the southwestern tip of Portugal and an hour from the southern border with Spain.
Things to Do- Hiking
Since the water was still chilly (I saw surfers wearing wet suits and children in the water but that was it) the plan was to spend most of our time hiking and generally checking out all that we could in a week without spending a ton of time in the car. We were very close to two incredible trails, The Seven Hanging Valleys Trail (Percurso dos Sete Vales Suspensos) and Trail of the Headlands (Caminho dos Promontórios).
The Seven Hanging Valleys Trail has been voted the best trail in Europe and I can see why. It’s around 12 kilometers (about 7.5 miles) and stretches from Praia da Marinha to Praia do Vale de Centeanes (Praia means “beach” in Portuguese). The trail is one-way so either you have a car pick you up at the end or you turn around and go back the way you came. Along the way you go past one of the most famous beaches in Portugal, Praia de Benagil. The trail was a little difficult to follow at times so pay attention when you come to businesses, since one part of the trail goes right through a restaurant at one point, and bring water, snacks, and sunscreen. There are some restaurants along the way but if you’re there during the winter they may not be open.
Hiking along the coast was one of my favorite things to do- it was so beautiful!
The Trail of the Headlands is about 6 kilometers and you can park at Praia do Molhe in Ferragudo to begin. There’s a wonderful restaurant by this beach that we ate dinner at on both our first and last days and I highly recommend it (the restaurant is called O Molhe). The trail is another out-and-back trail where you’ll see the rugged limestone cliffs with the azure blue water below but it was notably less busy when we were there than when we hiked the Seven Hanging Valleys Trail. Although many of the beaches along this trail are inaccessible, you can reach Praia do Pintadinho and Praia dos Caneiros.
A bit further west near Lagos is the Fisherman’s Trail (Trilho dos Pescadores). This 11-kilometer trail goes from Luz Beach to the train station in Lagos and like the other trails in the Algarve discussed here, has views of limestone cliffs with the blue water below. You’ll go past a famous area called Ponte da Piedade with its rock formations, caves, and grottos. There was once a Roman temple, a Moorish temple, a Christian hermitage, a fortification to protect Torrinha’s fishing tackle, and even a lighthouse here.
Beaches
As I mentioned earlier, the word beach in Portuguese is “Praia.” Honestly, I could never say here, “These are the best beaches in the Algarve” because 1) I’m certainly no expert on this and 2) That’s a pretty subjective matter. I will say this, two of the more popular beaches, Praia do Carvalho and Praia da Marinha get crowded. We managed to find a tiny beach one day, Praia da Afurada, that was near where we were staying in Ferragudo and not a single other person was there the entire time we were there, reading on the beach. It’s hard to go wrong with the over 100 beaches in the Algarve.
Ria Formosa Nature Park
The Ria Formosa Nature Park is near the town of Olhão. I suggest you stop in town first to get cash if you don’t have any since the nature park has an entry fee and they don’t accept credit cards. There’s also no food or drinks for sale in the park. We were there just before lunch so I found a small restaurant that turned out to be interesting. I asked for a menu and the person working there pointed to a small chalkboard with three things written on it: carne de porco, frango, and peixe (pork, chicken, and fish). Good thing my daughter and I are adventurous eaters! I chose the chicken for both of us and we received steaming plates of tender chicken with a creamy yellow sauce and fried potatoes on the side. It was delicious and tasted a bit like yellow curry but I honestly have no idea what it was and we didn’t get sick later.
Flamingos but not pink. Not sure what the birds in the trees were (upper right).
The Nature Park has a small parking lot where you park and pay for entry then it’s all self-guided trails. I didn’t find the trails especially well-marked and got turned around a few times, despite having a map given to me at the entrance. It’s full of a bunch of loops that go around one another so while it’s virtually impossible to get completely lost and not find your way back, you may end up like we did going in circles the wrong way a few times. We saw some flamingos and many other birds that I have no idea what they were since I’m not familiar with Portuguese birds but no other animals. We went past some salt pans but they were disappointingly not picturesque, unfortunately. It’s a nice place to walk around for a couple of hours, especially if you’re a nature-lover, and this doesn’t seem like a place that gets overly-crowded.
I’m going to end my post on southern Portugal here since it seems like a nice place to end. I’ll pick up with a post on some of the restaurants, shopping, and other things we enjoyed and some other things that happened to us (not all good) on our Portuguese adventure!
Have you been to Southern Portugal? If so, where did you go? Happy travels!
I’m an avid hiker and have hiked all over the United States, Europe, the Caribbean, South America, Canada, New Zealand, and well, just about everywhere I’ve ever visited. Many things have also gone badly when I’ve been hiking. Too many times to remember I’ve missed a turn and gotten lost, had a bear suddenly approach me (only once, thank goodness), been without water or snacks when I needed them, been without cell phone coverage or a map, had the weather turn suddenly, and these are all things off the top of my head that have happened.
I’ve lived and learned by my own mistakes and I’m writing this post in the hopes that you may also learn from my mistakes. Yes, sometimes things go wrong even when you’ve done everything you could to prepare but as they say, a little preparation goes a long way. Of course you should always try to be prepared well in advance before you even leave for your hike, not when you’re standing at the trail head or arrive at the parking lot. Here are some things you can do to prepare.
This trail in Chile was like an enchanted forest
You should first check the weather forecast to make sure a storm isn’t supposed to blow in or something like that and make sure you’re appropriately dressed for the temperature. If you’ll be hiking up a steep mountain for example, the type where there’s snow at the top even though it’s sunny and warm at the bottom, bring a jacket and even gloves and a hat depending on the circumstances. And please, women, make sure you have appropriate shoes, meaning no sandals (unless they’re Chaco or others meant for hiking), no high heels, and absolutely no flip flops. I hate to single out the ladies but I can’t tell you how many times I’ve seen women wearing shoes clearly not meant to be worn when hiking.
Bring water and snacks if there’s even a slight chance you’ll be out for more than an hour. I’ve found it’s always better to have it and not eat or drink it than not have it and be dying of thirst or hunger. Other good things to bring include a small first aid kit, sunscreen, bug spray, emergency blanket, and bear spray if there are bears in the area.
The Canary Islands aren’t just known for their beaches- the hiking is incredible there!
Download a map of the area in Google maps so in the likely event you don’t have cell coverage you’ll still have a map of the area. If you can’t do that pick up a paper map of the trails or print one out before you leave. It’s also a good idea to choose which trail(s) you’ll be hiking before you go out. If you’re going to a national park, check out https://www.nps.gov/index.htm or if you’re going to a state park, look that up online to read about the trail lengths and difficulty. Another good source is https://www.alltrails.com/.
What if you’ve done everything you possibly could to prepare in advance and something still goes badly on your hike? Now what? It depends on the circumstance but I’ll give you some examples of what can go wrong and what you can do.
One of the most common things to go wrong on a trail is people get lost. You miss a turn or aren’t paying attention and wander off the trail. This happened to me when I was pregnant and hiking in Arizona (I was in my first trimester and not even showing then). My husband and I missed a turn and the next thing I knew I was looking down a sheer drop. We slowly back-tracked the way we had come and after a while saw where we had gotten off the marked trail. Of course this works best if you’re not wandering off-trail for very long but still, do your best to remember your surroundings and try to back-track the way you came.
Hiking in Great Smoky Mountains National Park was exhilarating!
This brings me to another thing you can do to help prevent yourself from getting lost in the first place: pay attention. When you’re hiking, it’s easy to just get lost in your surroundings and before you know it, all the trees look the same. This can be very dangerous, however, if you do get lost and have absolutely no idea how to find your way back. If you know you’re not very observant (or even if you are) you can leave markings along the way so you could potentially follow them if you needed to. Some great ones that don’t harm the environment are chalk marks on trees, rock piles, pinecones, or sticks piled in specific ways set by you that you will remember. You also need to pay attention to the trail markings set by who ever made and maintains the trail. If you start off on a trail marked with blue diamonds, you need to stay on that trail.
If you find yourself taking much longer than you expected and you’re getting dehydrated, if you brought along a LifeStraw or other type of water filter, you can use that to safely drink lake or river water from. Never drink water straight from the source without first filtering it because it could have microorganisms that can make you sick. No one wants to have diarrhea or stomach cramps when they’re hiking. Unless you’re an expert at foraging, I don’t recommend randomly picking wild mushrooms or berries because again, they can make you sick if you don’t know which ones are the edible ones and which ones are poisonous.
Hiking in Grand Teton National Park was almost as much fun as doing standup paddleboarding on the lake there!
Another good thing to bring along is a space blanket. These fold neatly into a little square so they don’t take up much space in a backpack but they can literally save a life. For example, say the person you’re hiking with falls into a river accidentally and the water is freezing. You can whip out the space blanket and wrap it around them to quickly warm them up. It’s also good to have if you find yourself so lost you can’t get back to your car before it gets dark and you have to spend the night on the trail.
My final word of advice is never go hiking alone unless you’re a thoroughly seasoned hiker, know first aid and personal safety, and have a way of contacting others in the event of an emergency. If you fall into that category, I suspect you won’t be reading this blog post, however.
What about you? Have you been on a hike and things went badly? Do you avoid hiking because you’re worried about the dangers?
Even though I’m sure I visited Great Smoky Mountains National Park at least once if not twice before my recent trip, I honestly didn’t remember any part of it. Nothing looked familiar, none of the trail names sounded familiar, and no parts of it seemed vaguely familiar to me. Granted, my first visit would have been roughly 22 years ago and the other visit around 19 years ago, but still, I would have thought I would have remembered at least some of it. Then again, the first time I was with a friend of mine in high school and her family so I would have just been driven around by her parents, totally clueless about my whereabouts. The second time would have been a quick trip so I’m sure I didn’t spend much time in the area and certainly wouldn’t have had time to do as much hiking as I did this time.
I feel like I really didn’t give the park enough justice before when I was there but this time, I thoroughly got some hiking miles in and saw at least a big chunk of the park. That being said, Great Smoky Mountains National Park covers over 500,000 acres divided between Tennessee and North Carolina (so maybe just a little chunk of it). It is the most visited national park by far, with more than double the number of visitors at the second most visited park, the Grand Canyon. The elevation ranges from 875 feet at the mouth of Abrams Creek to 6,643 feet at Clingmans Dome; sixteen mountain peaks exceed 6,000 feet in elevation.
Trails in Great Smoky Mountains National Park
I’m primarily going to go over the trails we hiked since that’s the vast majority of how we spent our time at the park. We spent five full days plus a partial day hiking in Great Smoky Mountains National Park and went to the Oconaluftee Visitor Center on our first day. This was a good place to start because you can get a feel for the history in the park. Many years ago, log buildings were gathered from various places in the Smoky Mountains and preserved at places like this visitor center. We saw a historical house, barn, applehouse, springhouse, smokehouse, and blacksmith shop. The Oconaluftee River Trail is easy and short at 1.5 miles from the museum entrance. We were also excited to see an elk by the visitor center as we were leaving.
We also visited the Sugarlands Visitor Center, on our second day. There’s a short and easy trail to Cataract Falls, but I felt like the waterfall was pretty small and disappointing (good thing it wasn’t a long, strenuous hike). One of the more popular trails we hiked is the Alum Cave Trail, a moderate hike of 4.5 miles. On this trail we saw Arch Rock and Alum Cave. After a quick lunch of sandwiches we had previously bought that morning, we hiked Chimney Tops Trail. This was listed as moderate and is only 3 miles, but it’s extremely steep with only a few switchbacks so it felt like we were climbing straight up the mountain. We saw plenty of rhododendron and wildflowers but not a whole lot else.
Highlights from Chimney Tops and Alum Cave Trails
On our third day, we did the Roaring Fork Auto Tour. For this, you turn onto Historic Nature Trail, which merges with Cherokee Orchard Road. Our first stop was the Noah “Bud” Ogle Place, a historic house. There was a short nature trail behind the house that we took but somehow we ended up on a much longer trail, the Gatlinburg Trail, which we hadn’t planned on hiking and we ended up having to get back to the main road and walk back that way rather than backtracking, which would have taken much longer.
Next stop on the Roaring Fork Auto Tour was Rainbow Falls Trail. This trail is 2.8 miles each way, if you can actually find parking close to the trailhead, which we couldn’t, so we ended up hiking more like 6.5 miles total. There is a much smaller falls area just before (maybe 0.5 miles) you get to the actual Rainbow Falls. Don’t make the mistake of stopping at the first waterfall, as we almost did, but keep going until you see a massive waterfall.
After another quick lunch of previously purchased sandwiches, our next stop was the Trillium Gap Trail, also known as Grotto Falls Trail. This hike was pretty easy compared to the others in the area and is 1.3 miles each way. The waterfall was one of the best we had seen so far and absolutely worth the hike. We also saw a bear! It was slowly lumbering around the long line of cars, not paying any attention to any of the people. We were walking to our car when we saw it and it was far enough away from us that I wasn’t scared. That would come later during our second bear encounter.
Sights seen along the Roaring Fork Auto Tour
There were historical sites next on the drive but we only stopped at Ephraim Bales Place. By now most of the historical sites seemed the same- small two-room log cabins, completely empty, with low ceilings and maybe one window (to save money on wood and windows). We probably would have stopped at the most “modern” of the historical sites on the drive, Alfred Reagan Place, but there were only three parking spaces and they were all occupied, so we skipped it.
The final stop on the drive is at Place of a Thousand Drips. This is a unique waterfall, as the flow of water splits into numerous channels, cascading around rocks and “creating a thousand drips.” There were several people climbing around the waterfall and of course my teenage daughter wanted to climb up. I chose to watch from the bottom and was glad for my decision when I saw so many people slipping and/or falling (my daughter was fine and never fell but said it was extremely slippery coming back down).
On our fourth day, we hiked Laurel Falls Trail, the most popular hike in GSMNP. It’s one of the few longish paved trails in the park, at 2.6 miles roundtrip. It’s an easy hike and the payoff is big, with a 25-foot waterfall that seems even bigger than that, after just 1.3 miles of easy walking. After lunch (yes, you guessed it, sandwiches we had previously purchased) we drove to Jakes Creek Trail, near the village of Elkmont in a historic district referred to as “Daisy Town.” The Little River Lumber Company logged the area into the mid-1920’s. Adjacent Daisy Town was an escape for the elite people of Knoxville. Currently, the park is restoring 19 of the former 74 homes. You can walk through some of the former homes, which we did before starting out on the trail. Jakes Creek Trail is 3.7 miles each way and runs along Jake’s Creek for a huge portion of the trail, giving plenty of water views and the sound of water flowing all around you as you hike. There was hardly anyone else on the trail, so it was quiet and peaceful.
Jakes Creek and Laurel Falls Trail Highlights
Our last full day in the park was the most exciting, as you will see. The longest single hike for us was Ramsey Cascades Trail, at 8 miles long. We expected to have bathrooms at the trailhead, as was common at many other trailheads in the park, but alas there were none, and the tea we had at breakfast was running right through us. Maybe a mile into our hike, I found a huge boulder not far off the trail and told my daughter to go first while I waited for her, then I went to use the bathroom. As I was walking back around the boulder, my daughter said in an extremely calm voice, “Momma, there’s a bear.” Sure enough, there was a bear standing right in front of me maybe 4 feet away. My daughter started slowly walking away from the bear, going further up the trail. The bear looked at me, made a grunting sound, clawed at the tree in front of it, then slowly started walking away in the opposite direction from us. I slowly backed away and we continued on our way up the trail.
I kept checking to make sure the bear wasn’t following us, but it didn’t appear to be. When we passed people going the opposite direction from us, we were told a couple of times that they had seen a bear, but we never saw another bear on that trail. Finally after 4 miles, we reached the waterfall, which was an impressive one, at 100 feet tall. The trail was pretty intense towards the falls, with slippery rocks that we had to scramble over, but most of the trail was fairly easy, with gradual climbs. When we reached our car, we decided to dip our feet in the ice-cold water and it was so refreshing!
Ramsey Cascades Trail (nope, no bear pics this time! We just wanted to get away!)
There are of course many more trails in Great Smoky Mountains National Park, but those are the ones we chose to do. Some came recommended by the hotel staff where we stayed and others were ones I had researched on my own that sounded interesting. You can also easily just drive around the park, park at overlooks, and take in the views that way if you’re not really into hiking. I believe that’s what we must have done the first time I went with my friend and her family, as best as I can remember, but you obviously don’t get as much of a real feel for a place when you see it that way.
For information on camping, pets, history, wildlife, and all the information you could possibly want or need to plan a trip there, check out the Great Smoky Mountains National Park website by the National Parks Service.
Have you been to Great Smoky Mountains National Park? If so, did you hike when you were there? Any amazing trails I missed that you recommend? Did you see one (or two) of the estimated 1600 bears in the area?
I was recently talking to a friend about traveling and she asked me, “You’ve traveled pretty extensively. What’s something that’s happened that caused you to feel out of your comfort zone?” I immediately thought of my two weeks in Chile a couple of years ago. There were times where my family and I were the only English-speaking people around and there were several days where we had no cell phone coverage or even Wi-Fi when the Wi-Fi went down for the whole town for a few days. We had to rely solely on our knowledge of Spanish and hope for the best.
My friend asked me if we ever felt unsafe or scared in Chile and I replied, “Never. Not a single time.” While I felt out of my comfort zone and even a bit frustrated at times, I never feared for my life or anything remotely like that. I always knew deep down that everything would be fine in the end, and it was. That’s largely in part to the extreme kindness of strangers in Chile. We literally had people hand us their cell phones in restaurants and walk away from our table while we used their phones to pull up Google maps or look up other information after we explained to them (in our shaky Spanish) that we couldn’t use our cell phones.
Enjoying the area around Lago Rapel
All of this of course leads to many stories to tell others later. Despite posting several things about Chile, there are many stories I never told, until now. Now I’d like to share some of the stories that happened to my family and I while we were in Chile and I hope you enjoy them.
To give a little background, we were in three separate areas of Chile, beginning in Santiago for a couple of days, then to Valparaiso for four days, and to Punta Verde in the O’Higgins region for a week. I feel like our adventures got more and more intense as our vacation went on. There weren’t many stories to tell from our time in Santiago that I can recall. We stayed in a super-nice 5-star hotel that my daughter still talks about, which if it was in the United States would have cost more money than we likely would have paid. We took our own walking tour of the city based on blogs and other information I had read about Santiago. Not much unusual happened, though. Probably our biggest adventure was driving from our hotel to get out of the city. The traffic was some of the worst we had encountered anywhere, but my husband handled it like a pro and got us out of the city (and the rental car) unscathed!
When we drove from Santiago to Valparaiso, there were two options to get there, one was a toll road and one was not. I decided we should take the “more scenic” non-toll road. It turns out they were doing major construction on part of that road, parts of which were not paved, and all of that slowed us down considerably. Then my husband noticed how low the gas in the tank was. We thought we were going to run out of gas on this deserted road where we hadn’t passed another car let alone seen a gas station in a very long time. We had no cell phone coverage and besides who on earth would we even call? Fortunately we came to the end of the construction, got back on “regular” paved highway roads near civilization, and came to a gas station just as we rolled in on fumes and breathed a huge sigh of relief.
View from our huge Airbnb in Valparaiso
Valparaiso is a beautiful coastal town in Chile and our Airbnb there was HUGE with three big bedrooms and a large living room all with balconies overlooking the ocean below. There was a slight issue with the heat, which I had to talk to the host about over the Airbnb messaging site, but once we got that figured out, it was all good. I didn’t realize prior to going to Chile that most apartment buildings and houses there don’t have central heating because it’s too expensive. Our apartment building was heated by hot water than ran through the walls and floor boards. Once the Airbnb host told us how to turn the hot water pipes for heating on, we were able to stay comfortably warm there.
One very sad story about Valparaiso and the other parts of Chile that we were in is due to the huge epidemic of stray dogs everywhere. One day while we were walking around Valparaiso, a friendly black dog started following us. She followed us a long time, turning when we turned, stopping when we stopped, and so forth, until we ultimately reached the gate for the funicular (if you don’t know, a funicular is sort of like an outdoor elevator that goes up the side of a cliff or mountainside usually) to the apartment building where we were staying and we had to say goodbye to her. We named her “Chile.” Shortly after we got back from our vacation in Chile, we adopted a black dog whose foster mom had named “Millie.” This puppy did not in any way resemble a “Millie” to me but I didn’t want to drastically change her name because she was already answering to Millie. We named her Chile (although not pronounced like native Chileans pronounce their country, “Chee-lay” but more like the pepper, “Chil-ee” so it would still sound similar enough to her former name so as to not confuse her).
Our sweet little “Chile” in Chile
After Valparaiso, we drove to Punta Verde in the O’Higgins region. Our adventure began on the very first day there, as soon as we drove up to the resort. The guard at the gate spoke no English at all and our broken Spanish wasn’t enough to communicate to him that we were staying there. We were in what I’ve read called “The Lake” region because of Lago Rapel (Rapel Lake), which apparently is quite packed with visitors during the warm months. Since we were there during the shoulder season and it was a bit cooler, literally no other guests were staying at this resort when we pulled up. The guard seemed to be completely baffled as to why this English-speaking family was trying to get onto the resort this time of year.
I loved watching this Gaucho in Chile with his horses
Eventually, the guard called a friend of his who knew someone who spoke some English. The English-speaking person’s name was Claudia, and this guard’s friend brought Claudia to our rescue, who communicated to the guard that we would be staying at the resort for a week, and thus needed a key to our apartment and to be allowed entry into and out of the resort while we would be staying there. Claudia showed us around the apartment, which was a large three bedroom unit with a full kitchen, dining room, living room, two bathrooms, and sunroom. She told us to make ourselves at home and gave us her phone number if we needed anything (even though we had no cell phone coverage there so we would have to have a local call her if we needed to talk to her). Claudia told us no one else in town spoke English so we would pretty much be on our own as far as communicating with others.
I should note here that I had several years of Spanish in high school and college and I’ve brushed up on my Spanish several times before visiting a Spanish-speaking country including this trip to Chile. My husband has been teaching himself Spanish for the past several years and our daughter has had Spanish in school since she was in preschool. At the time of our visit to Chile, between the three of us, our knowledge of Spanish was usually enough to get by even when the person spoke no English. I learned many years ago that less is better when you’re trying to communicate in another language so I would try to keep my questions or answers brief and to the point. Usually the person was able to figure out what we were trying to say and/or we were able to figure out what they were trying to say, although there were exceptions like the guard at the gate of our resort in the O’Higgins region. Still, we are by no means what I would call fluent in Spanish.
We had so many adventures in the O’Higgins region that I’m sure I’ll forget some of them. One funny story happened when we went to the Rio los Cipreses Nacional Reserva, a national park. We hadn’t seen another person hiking all day and were surprised when my daughter said she saw other people hiking on the trail we were on. As we got closer to the people, she realized it wasn’t human legs she was seeing but cow legs. It wasn’t people in front of us, but rather a couple of cows. What we thought were hoof prints from horses on other trails earlier that day that we also thought must have been carrying riders on these supposed horses turned out to be hoof prints from cows that were grazing randomly in the park. Several times we had gotten turned around on the trails and had decided to follow the hoof prints since surely it was horse prints so surely it must have been part of the trail and the way we should go. We were of course very wrong since we had instead been following cows wandering around aimlessly. Somehow we figured out where to go on the trails and didn’t end up getting too far off trail to get truly lost.
Some of the cows we saw at the national park- the baby cow was adorable!
I’m going to back up a bit, though. Just getting to the Rio los Cipreses Nacional Reserva was an adventure. My husband had downloaded Google maps of the area when we had Wi-Fi so we would have it offline and he thought it would be a relatively easy drive to the park from our resort. That is until we had to take a traffic detour. Somehow, my husband still figured out how to get us there just using his awesome sense of direction and by studying his offline map. Driving to other places in the O’Higgins region was often an adventure as well. Once we came upon what looked like a big wooden gate to a personal property that was closed but our GPS was telling us that was the way we needed to go. There were a couple of men standing outside the gate. When we asked if we could go through, they opened the gate and let us in, no questions asked. Once we were on the other side, we quickly realized this was not the right way to go, and drove back the way we came and my husband had to study the downloaded map once again to figure it out on his own.
Rio los Cipreses Nacional Reserva was worth the effort it took to get there
There was also the small local market in Punta Verde that we discovered sold warm, freshly made rolls every evening. We stood in line with the other locals to get some fresh baked bread and other food to make for dinner. There weren’t that many restaurants in town and the one at our resort was hugely over-priced so we only ate there once or twice. Even after our vacation and we had returned home we still talked about that fresh bread we used to pick up for dinner every evening during our last week in Chile. I remember the first time we went to that market, everyone turned around to look at us when we spoke in English to each other. We still got stares and people turning around to look at us when we spoke English on subsequent visits, but we didn’t think anything of it. Presumably not many people go there that speak English, and certainly not during the off-season. They weren’t doing that to be unfriendly or rude but they were undoubtedly surprised to hear us speaking in a language none of them knew.
As I said, there weren’t that many restaurants in town. One evening we went to what was supposed to be a restaurant and that turned into an adventure. We pulled up to what looked like an average-looking house in the area and wondered if we were in the right place, but there was a sign outside with the name of the “restaurant” so we went in. Immediately I noticed how cold it was in this house. They must not have had heat or perhaps it was turned down to save energy but I really didn’t want to eat dinner in my coat. A man greeted us and was very friendly and obviously happy to have some dinner guests, so we thought we’d at least see what they had to offer. We asked to see a menu and were told they had chicken, chicken and rice, and chicken another way that I’m now forgetting but our choices were chicken, chicken, or chicken; no menu necessary for that. What I can only assume was the man’s wife popped her head out of the kitchen, getting ready to cook us our dinner. I told my husband I didn’t feel comfortable eating at these people’s house/restaurant and we should go but I didn’t want to seem rude. My husband told him we had changed our minds and would be leaving and the disappointment on the man’s face was palpable. Who knows, maybe that would have been a fabulous chicken dinner, but the microbiologist in me just wasn’t willing to risk getting Salmonella or Campylobacter, not that you’re always safe in a true restaurant, but still.
Similar to Valparaiso, there were stray dogs all over the place in the O’Higgins region and it was heartbreaking to me as a huge animal-lover. When we left the resort to drive back to the airport in Santiago, we had some leftover food from the refrigerator that we had brought with us in the car but not for us to eat. I brought the food to give to stray dogs that we would inevitably see along the way to the airport. When I would spot a stray dog along the side of the road ahead of us, I’d tell my husband to pull over, quickly leave some of the food for the dog, and we would drive on. We did this the entire drive back to Santiago, which was about 2 hours. I was able to stretch out the leftovers and gave the last little bit of food to a dog I saw when we were nearing the rental car place by the airport.
That pretty much ended our adventures in Chile. If you’d like to read the full posts about my time there, you can find them here:
If you’ve been following my blog for a while, you probably already know I love to hike so I’m going to diverge from my usual Friday running post and write about hiking today. I feel like I’ve always loved hiking in the mountains. Growing up in the heart of the Appalachian Mountains in West Virginia probably sparked my love of hiking mountains. I have fond memories of visiting several state parks in West Virginia as a kid. My love of hiking has only intensified as an adult. I recently wrote a post on hiking tips that you can find here: Hiking Tips for the Beginner.
Recently, I took a four day hike through Peru, ending in Machu Picchu, and it was undoubtedly some of the best hiking I’ve ever done. To be totally honest, however, we were all completely spoiled by hiking standards on this trek. We had porters to carry all but a small daypack, a cook to prepare all of our meals, and a guide to lead us (although he was more often than not lagging behind with one of our fellow hikers on horseback who was not dealing well with the altitude, but he would yell up ahead if we were in doubt of which way to go). My point is, we were far from self-supported thru-hiking (more on that in a second). If you’d like to read about my trek to Machu Picchu, the posts are here: Lares Trek to Machu Picchu with Alpaca Expeditions- Day One, Lares Trek to Machu Picchu- Day Two, Lares Trek to Machu Picchu- Day Three.
Fastest Known Time attempts (also known as FKTs) are well-known in the hiking community. The people that hold the record for FKTs are another caliber entirely than us mere mortals. FKTs have been set for the Appalachian Trail, Pacific Crest Trail, Continental Divide Trail, and a surprising 840 more routes in the United States alone, as well as many others around the world.
I received this book and 4 tubes of Nuun hydration from a random drawing. The Nuun is fitting for the book title!
Heather “Anish” Anderson still holds the record for female self-supported FKT on the Pacific Crest Trail that she set August 7, 2013. Self-supported means you never enter a vehicle along the trail and don’t have a dedicated support crew, but you may use mail drops, facilities in towns along the way, and the kindness of strangers. She walked from southern California to the tip of Washington in a record 60 days, 17 hours, 12 minutes. Thirst: 2600 Miles to Home is a recount of Anderson’s journey for reaching this FKT record.
At 206 pages including acknowledgements, this was a quick read for me. There are 36 chapters plus an epilogue, so I found it easy to read a chapter or two before bed. I felt drawn into her story and enjoyed the bits of back-story she included, which allows the reader to better understand Anderson’s history and why anyone would want to attempt an FKT in the first place.
By no means is this written as a manual for anyone who might be interested in hiking a trail like the Pacific Crest Trail, which by the way is 2655 miles from Mexico to Canada, passing through the Sonoran & Mojave deserts, and then over the Sierra Nevada and Cascade mountain ranges. The PCT crosses California, Oregon and Washington, and passes through 24 national forests, 7 national parks and 33 wilderness areas. This is simply Anderson’s story and some of the things she encountered along the way on the trail.
One thing I should mention here is the “Anish” part in her name for anyone that may be wondering. She adopted the trail name “Anish” in honor of her great-great grandmother, who was of Native American Anishinabe heritage. Trail names originally began on the Appalachian Trail to keep all of the hikers straight from one another, by giving them unique nicknames which usually fit their personality or a quirky part of a hiker. Some people choose their own trail name while others wait until someone else gives them a trail name.
Anish grew up as an overweight child in Michigan who was often teased and by no means had an upbringing to prepare her for what her adult life was to become. However, she proves that she is in charge of her own destiny. In 2019 she was National Geographic’s National Adventurer of the Year. By then she had walked 28,000 miles on trails and had become one of 400 people who have claimed the Triple Crown of Hiking, completing the Continental Divide and Pacific Crest trails in addition to the Appalachian Trail in one calendar year. In 2015 she set the record for female unsupported FKT on the Appalachian Trail and in 2016 she set the record on the Arizona Trail.
I found myself cheering her on as I read the book, something it seems other hikers were doing when Anderson was attempting her FKT on the Pacific Crest Trail. She would sometimes go into towns along the trail and overhear other hikers talking about the “Ghost,” which she came to realize was herself. She would be there on the trail one minute and the next, she would vanish and be gone.
Even if you’re never going to attempt an FKT in your life but you enjoy a good day hike (like me) or even a multi-day supported hike (also like me), you would probably enjoy this book. I found the stories about Anderson’s encounters with animals like cougars and rattlesnakes to be frightening but her reactions to be totally empowering, although I’m not sure I would have been that brave.
In the end, I believe this book is about Anish finding her courage in life along the Pacific Crest Trail, and she just happened to finish in the Fastest Known Time for unsupported females.
Have you read Heather Anderson’s book? Have you ever heard of her before? I hadn’t before reading this book to be completely honest. If you read Scott Jurek’s book, North: Finding My Way While Running the Appalachian Trail and enjoyed that, you might enjoy this book as well.
You can find Heather Anderson’s website here: Anish Hikes.
I grew up hiking in the Appalachian Mountains of West Virginia and as an adult I’ve hiked all over the United States from Maine to California and most places in-between. In Europe, I’ve hiked in the Spanish Canary Islands, Austria, Germany, and Greece, to name a few countries. Although there hasn’t been that much hiking in the various Caribbean islands I’ve been to, where there were mountains or even trails in natural parks or preserves, I’ve hiked them. Hiking in New Zealand probably afforded some of the most beautiful views I’ve ever seen just because it’s one of the most beautiful countries I’ve seen. In South America, I’ve hiked in Chile and Peru, which were also amazing places to hike and left me with an urge to go back and see more.
I know many people have done much more intense hiking than I have, just as others have done hardly any or no hiking in their lives. What I’d like to discuss here is more for beginners because I feel like that’s the group that I’d like to persuade. I understand for people that have never been hiking or maybe only gone once or twice, it may seem a bit daunting to go out on a several hour hike in the woods. I’ll cover things to do before you ever leave your house to go on a hike so you feel completely prepared and actually look forward to the amazing views you’ll see on your hike.
Hiking in the Canary Islands- it’s not all beaches here!
First off, choose a place to hike. This can be a state park near where you live, a national park you have plans to visit, or a place you’re going to visit soon on vacation. If you don’t want to hike up a mountain, there doesn’t even have to be a mountain in the area since many trails are along lakes, rivers, or other flat areas.
Once you have a place in mind, pull up the website for the area and see if they have a list of trails. I’ll give you an example to go on for better reference here. Say I’d like to go to Arches National Park in Utah (which I really would like to visit someday). Go to the U.S. National Park Service website for Arches National Park, then click on “Plan Your Visit” then “Things to Do” then “Hiking.” Under the hiking section, you will see all of the trails at the park, listed from easy, moderate, to difficult. There are trail names, round-trip distance, elevation and estimated time to complete, and descriptions. These descriptions are thorough and accurate so if it says a trail is difficult, you should believe it is and not go out there if you’ve never hiked in your life, even if you are in good shape physically.
Just like runners gradually increase the distance ran, hikers should do the same and gradually increase in intensity and distance covered. Choose easy hiking trails to begin with and as you become more comfortable over time, work up to moderate and eventually more difficult trails. Remember that distance isn’t the only factor in the trail rating system. How quickly the trail increases in elevation and the general condition of the trail are also factors in rating a trail (if there are large areas of loose rocks going downhill especially, a trail would be rated as more difficult for example).
One of many great views while hiking in Alaska
OK. So you have a trail or maybe even a couple of trails in the same park in mind and you’re ready to head out for a couple of hours to go hiking. Now what? First, check the weather for the day. Really, you should do this a day or so before you plan on going hiking. If there’s a good chance of thunderstorms you definitely shouldn’t be hiking in that. If there has been rain recently in the area, you should know that many trails will be muddy and slippery. That may be fine if you’re an experienced hiker but if you’re new, you probably shouldn’t go out under those conditions.
Next you need to pack a backpack to bring along on your hike. Here are some things you should always pack for a day hike:
sunscreen
bug spray
water
snacks
fully-charged cell phone (download the area in Google Maps before you go out so you have it offline)
small first aid kit (that includes matches or a lighter)
printed map of the trail if possible for a back-up
bear spray if there are bears in the area or pepper spray
Also, familiarize yourself with the area you will be exploring as best as you can beforehand. If you are going to an area where flash floods are a possibility, you should be prepared for that and know what to do should one happen. Websites are great but speaking to a park ranger when you get to the park is also a great way to familiarize yourself with the park. Ask specifically about trails you were planning on hiking but also ask about other areas of the park.
Make sure you wear proper footwear for hiking. Many times I’ve been amazed at how many women wear flip flops and dressy sandals on trails. With so many great hiking shoes available now, there’s just no excuse for not wearing appropriate shoes on a trail. I personally like Merrell’s hiking shoes because they’re fairly light-weight, comfortable, have great traction and they’re not bulky like traditional hiking boots. While plenty of people go hiking in regular athletic shoes/running shoes/tennis shoes or whatever else you want to call them, they just don’t have as good of traction as hiking shoes unless they’re specifically trail running shoes, which would of course be fine for hiking.
We came upon this fox while hiking in Chile
You should also be appropriately dressed for your hike. This will be dictated partly by weather conditions, but you’ll be more comfortable if you wear “wicking” fabrics basically made to speed-up the evaporation of sweat from your clothes. Cotton, by the way, does not do this but actually holds moisture in the fabric. While it may sound crazy to some people, merino wool socks are great year-round (not just when it’s cold outside) as they are great at quickly evaporating moisture. A hat and sunglasses are also good for sunny days. Long pants will of course protect your legs better than shorts if it’s not too hot for pants. Layers are always a great idea especially if you’ll be going up in elevation since it’s cooler at the top of a mountain than at the bottom.
It’s a good idea to let others know where you’ll be especially if you’ll be in a more remote area, so let someone else that won’t be hiking with you know where you’ll be hiking and what time you will be on trail. Likewise, after you return, send them a quick message so they know you’re no longer hiking. Some parks also request that you sign in at a trailhead.
Sometimes a permit is required to hike a certain area. Check online as soon as you know you will be hiking in a particular area to see if you need a permit because some permits are only available during a certain time frame. There will be a link on the website for permits if they are necessary. Usually this is for longer, overnight hikes but some places do this to limit the number of hikers per day.
Hiking in Bryce Canyon National Park in the winter was one of my favorite experiences!
Keep your distance when (if) you see wildlife. If you come across a bear, moose, elk, or even deer and you’re pretty sure it doesn’t see you, slowly and quietly back away (facing the animal so you can still see it) the way you came until you’re well away from the area. What ever you do, don’t run! The animal will think you’re prey and chase you. If a mother has her babies near-by, she will be extremely protective of them and will be willing to fight you to the death. There’s a trail near where I work and several years ago a runner came upon a mama deer and her babies and made the mistake of approaching them. The woman was kicked in the face by the deer and was so badly beaten up that she looked like she had been in a boxing fight.
Finally, if you want to go hiking in a new place and want to take along your dog, make sure dogs are allowed first. Some places allow dogs on specific trails but not others and other places don’t allow dogs at all. Be extremely cautious about letting your dog off-leash on a trail even if you do it all the time near your home; you certainly don’t want to lose your dog in a huge park and/or a place you’re not familiar with.
Do you like to go hiking? Did I leave any other important information out? If you don’t like hiking, I’d be curious to know what you don’t like about it. If you have any questions for me about hiking, I’d be glad to answer them.
When I was doing research for my vacation in Grand Teton National Park in Wyoming, I found very little information other than places to hike and where to get good photos. Maybe it was just where I was or wasn’t looking but I had a hard time deciding the best place to stay and other information. Now, after having been there, I feel considerably more confident about recommending places. Although I feel like I ended up making good choices, I got lucky really because I had so little information to go on. My hope is the information here will help others with planning a vacation to Grand Teton National Park.
Lay of the Land
Let’s start with some basics. Jackson refers to the town proper just south of Grand Teton National Park. Jackson Hole refers to the valley between the Teton Mountain Range and Gros Ventre Mountains in Wyoming, which includes Yellowstone National Park and spans a huge area. Grand Teton National Park is between Jackson and Yellowstone National Park.
I personally divide Grand Teton National Park into three parts: the northern part which includes Colter Bay and the enormous Jackson Lake, the middle part which includes Jenny Lake, Leigh Lake, String Lake, and Teton Canyon, and the southern part which includes Moose, Death Canyon, Granite Canyon, and Teton Village. Although it may seem somewhat small for a national park, it’s much bigger than it seems and it’s impossible to see the entire park in one day or even two days. We were there for two nights and about 3 full days and I feel like we barely scratched the surface of the park; however, I did learn a ton of information about the area.
Oxbow Bend
Where to Stay
Regarding accommodations, you can stay in Jackson, but I found it to be pretty touristy. That being said, there are plenty of options here regarding places to stay, eat, and shop. Just north of Jackson is Teton Village, which I really liked. This is a ski resort area that’s open year-round and has a nice selection of shops and restaurants. The condos and hotels in Teton Village are expensive but everywhere in this area is expensive to be honest. We ate at Mangy Moose Steakhouse and Saloon in Teton Village and enjoyed the food and service.
If you want to stay inside the park, there are several lodges, all of which are pretty rustic (think log cabins) and expensive for what you get. You basically are paying for the convenience of staying inside the park. The National Park Service page for lodging in Grand Teton Park is here. We stayed in nearby Moran and found a one-bedroom cabin for much less than what we would have paid inside the park, and it was only a 15 minute drive to Oxbow Bend, for example. Sometimes you save literally hours of driving time by staying inside the park but in this case, you can easily stay just outside the park and not have a long drive just to get to an entrance.
Outside the park, besides Moran and Jackson, there are places to stay in Alta, Moose, and Elk, just to name a few. I think where a person or family stays on vacation is highly personal. For instance, some people might be interested in staying in more of a traditional hotel, other people may want to stay in a condo in Teton Village, while others might want more of a ranch experience while in Wyoming. My point is, there are many different options of where to stay in this area if you just look around a bit. I always like to bring up Google maps and find whatever place I’m interested in, then click on Nearby and find hotels and other lodging options that are in the area.
Things to Do
Must-do overall in Grand Teton: Oxbow Bend (one of the best views in the park with the Teton Range reflected in the Snake River), Schwabachers Landing, Leigh Lake, String Lake, and Jenny Lake.
Must-do hiking: hike around Jenny lake, taking Jenny Lake Loop trail to Hidden Falls Trail to Inspiration Point. This was recommended to us by a park ranger when we asked her where we should hike. The falls were beautiful and the view from Inspiration Point was well worth the hike to the top. Round-trip for the Hidden Falls Trail to Inspiration Point Trail and back was about 2 ½ hours but we were going at a pretty decent pace especially on the way back. Hidden Falls is 5 miles roundtrip and Inspiration Point is 5.9 miles roundtrip from the visitor center. There is an option to take a boat across Jenny lake if you don’t want to hike the entire loop or you just want to take a boat ride along Jenny lake.
Hiking around Jenny Lake
The 4-mile loop of Taggart Lake Trail is another popular trail, located south of Jenny Lake. Static Peak Divide, a strenuous 16-mile trail in Death Canyon also gets high reviews, as do Cascade Canyon, a 10-mile strenuous trail from Jenny Lake Trailhead, and Lake Solitude, a 15-mile strenuous trail also from Jenny Lake Trailhead. An easy but no less scenic than the others is String Lake Loop, at 3.8 miles, just north of Jenny Lake. A park ranger also highly recommended the trails at the Laurance S. Rockefeller Preserve area but we didn’t have time to go there.
Other options: ride the aerial tram from the base of Teton Village to the top of Rendezvous Mountain. It’s a 15-minute ride to the top with views of Grand Teton National Park, Snake River Valley, and the town below. Corbet’s Cabin restaurant is at the top. We didn’t have time for the National Museum of Wildlife Art, which overlooks the National Elk Refuge, north of Jackson but it would be great if the weather isn’t amenable to outdoor activities. Nor did we go horseback riding, which seems hugely popular in the area. Jackson Lake Lodge and Colter Bay Village offer short and long horseback rides.
The tram and nearby shops in Teton Village
You could easily spend a week or more in Grand Teton National Park and still not see all of the park, depending on what you chose to do with your time and how many activities you want to do. However, if you’re not into hiking that much or water activities (indeed, I have an entire post on water activities coming soon), there is always the option to drive around the park and take in the scenery. It’s possible to drive the 42 mile loop around the park in a day.
The most recommended loop is to drive from Moose up the inner park road to Jackson Lake Junction and follow the outer park road through Moran Junction, ending back up in Moose. If you’re coming from Yellowstone, you will follow the Rockefeller, Jr. Parkway and enter the park at the Jackson Lake Junction. If you’re coming from Jackson, you’ll go north on Highway 26/89/191 and enter at Moose Junction. Finally, if you’re coming from Dubois in the east, you’ll drive over Togwotee Pass and enter the park at Moran Junction.
View from Observation Point
Park entrance fee for a car is $35 for 7 days. If you plan on combining Grand Teton and Yellowstone National Parks, you have to pay an additional $35 entrance fee for Yellowstone (also valid for 7 days). If you plan on visiting more than two national parks with entrance fees within 365 days, you might want to consider purchasing an America the Beautiful Pass for $80.
Anthony Bourdain once said, “It’s an irritating reality that many places and events defy description. Angkor Wat and Machu Picchu, for instance, seem to demand silence, like a love affair you can never talk about. For a while after, you fumble for words, trying vainly to assemble a private narrative, an explanation, a comfortable way to frame where you’ve been and what’s happened. In the end, you’re just happy you were there — with your eyes open — and lived to see it.”
I was fortunate enough to visit Machu Picchu and it was everything you hear and read about, and more. It’s difficult to fully explain to someone who hasn’t been there and photos of course don’t do it justice. A cab driver in Cusco, Peru told us before we went there that Machu Picchu holds a special place in his heart, that it’s a magical place that he feels drawn to. For me, however, as special as Machu Picchu is, the journey to get there is what holds a special place in my heart.
We took a 4 day/3 night trek to Machu Picchu, called the Lares Trek with Alpaca Expeditions and it surpassed my expectations. You can read about the trek here (day one), here (day two), and here (day three). By the time we reached Machu Picchu, we were exhausted but thrilled to finally be at the famous ruins. There are four hour time limits on visits which must be within one of three daily shifts: early morning (6-9 am), late morning (9 am-12 pm), and early afternoon (12-3 pm). You have to sign up to enter at a specific hour within these shifts and supposedly only 600 people are allowed to enter at each hourly interval, meaning no more than 2,400 people would be allowed in the ruins for the four hour time, but I’m not sure how much this limit is enforced because it seemed very crowded to me, especially as the day went on.
All of our tickets including the train ticket from Ollantaytambo to Aguas Calientes, bus ticket from Aguas Calientes to Machu Picchu, entrance fees to Machu Picchu and Huayna Picchu, and returns back to Cusco were taken care of by our guide from Alpaca Expeditions, which made everything much less stressful.
However, to add to our stress, the morning of our tour of Machu Picchu, our guide was supposed to be at our hotel in Aguas Calientes at 5 am and didn’t show up until 5:50, at which point we were just about in a total panic about what to do (no way to contact the guide so we sent an email to Alpaca Expeditions but didn’t get a response by the time the guide showed up, which by the way his excuse was he had drunk too many beers the night before and over-slept). Long story short, he apologized about a dozen times and in the end I completely forgave him because he was so stellar in every way before this.
There were so many llamas all over Machu Picchu!
Although we arrived at Machu Picchu a bit later than we were supposed to, everything worked out fine. My first impression was that it’s pretty much what I thought it would be. We’ve all seen photos of Machu Picchu so many times and maybe even seen TV shows about it. Well, it’s exactly like it looks in the photos. It’s also crowded, despite the attempts to limit tourists (although our guide said things do seem to be getting better on that front). It’s every bit as grande and beautiful as it looks.
What did surprise me was the scale of the mountain that lies behind Machu Picchu, the one that you see in the background of the majority of photos of Machu Picchu- Huayna Picchu. You see, we had a separate entrance ticket to climb Huayna Picchu once we were done touring Machu Picchu. Guides aren’t allowed on Huayna Picchu for reasons unbeknownst to me, so we would be climbing that behemoth of a mountain all by ourselves. I was terrified.
One of the views from Huayna Picchu. The people at Machu Picchu below look tiny!
After we felt like we had seen all we needed to see of Machu Picchu and got all of the history and background from our guide, he walked us out the exit, said good-bye, and my family and I used our separate entrance ticket for Huayna Picchu to get back into Machu Picchu, working our way through the ruins back to the entrance for Huayna Picchu. The peak of Huayna Picchu is 2,693 metres (8,835 ft) above sea level, or about 260 metres (850 ft) higher than Machu Picchu, according to Wikipedia. The truth is, the climb up is strenuous and should only be undertaken by people in good shape.
The climb up Huayna Picchu begins easily enough, and is full of switchbacks to make the climb easier. Still, you will be drenched with sweat and gasping to get your breath unless it’s a cold and rainy day, but then the steps would be slippery and you’d still be out of breath because of the steep increase in elevation so that wouldn’t be ideal either. There are some cables to hold onto that I was grateful to have both on the way up and down.
Here’s the part that most people gloss over in their reviews about Huayna Picchu- the final ascent to the top is like climbing a ladder, only on narrow little rocky, sometimes crumbling stairs. There are no cables or anything else to help you up here. I’m terrified of heights and I had to focus like I’ve never had to focus on anything before just to control my shaking body. I found it easier to use my hands as I climbed up, since it gave me something to do with them, and I just focused on one step at a time. Finally I reached the summit and it was the best feeling ever! Honestly, I’ve never climbed anything as difficult as Huayna Picchu, and I’ve done quite a bit of hiking around the world, although nothing like the via Ferrata in Italy.
On top of the world- at the top of Huayna Picchu!
The way back down Huayna Picchu wasn’t as bad as going up and I never felt any real pangs of fear like I did going up. I passed a guy who was going up and looked scared to death and he hadn’t even reached the worst part yet. I told him if I could do it, he could do it and told him to use his hands going up and just focus on one step at a time. I hope he was able to conquer his fear and make it to the top. The view really is one of the best views I’ve ever seen and absolutely worth the effort.
Have you been to Machu Picchu? Did you go up Huayna Picchu? If so, what was your experience like? Is Machu Picchu on your bucket list?
You can read about day one of the Lares Trek here and day two here, if you haven’t been following along until now. If you have, welcome back. On the morning of day three, we were told our fellow camper who was transported 2 hours away to a lower elevation was doing much better and we would do our final day of hiking and meet him at our campsite later that day. Since our guide had stayed with him in a tent overnight and would remain with him for the day to monitor his health, one of the female porters was our stand-in guide for the walk, which would be our easiest of the four-day trek. However, she almost exclusively spoke Quechuan, the local language, and only a little Spanish, so she was very quiet during the 3 hour hike.
I should back up, though. As usual, we were woken up early with hot coca tea and given some time to get dressed and pack up before going to the tent for breakfast. As had been the case every other morning, breakfast was a huge spread of food that we all quickly devoured. To our surprise and delight (well, I had actually heard about this part but I didn’t spoil the surprise for my fellow campers) our chef had baked us a cake! He had been cooking this entire time using propane but how you bake a cake at high elevation with propane gas in the middle of nowhere in Peru is beyond me. These guys do this all the time, though so I guess they’ve got it figured out.
Just one of many “Wow!” photo moments during day three of the trek
After we started on our final hiking portion of the trek, we began seeing more and more llamas and alpacas. We had seen some the previous day but not as many as we saw on day three. This area was obviously farming country, and we passed several small farms. Our porter/guide for the day tried to point out vegetables, flowers, and fauna, but unless it was obvious what she was pointing out, we usually just smiled and went on our way. As we descended from the Highlands, it began to get warmer and the landscape began to noticeably change.
After hiking for 4 hours we reached the final destination of the hiking portion of the Lares Trek, the town of Huaran. This is where our fellow hiker was transported by horse the night before, along with our guide. We had lunch here then said goodbye to the horsemen, porters, and chef, who all went back home. Only our guide, Abelito stayed with us, and a driver for the van that we all climbed into with our duffel bags.
We saw so many llamas and alpacas on our third day!
We drove to the Salinas salt ponds in the town of Maras and got to walk around the beautiful salt ponds set in a canyon that descends to the Rio Vilcanota. These salt ponds have been in use since the Incas and are farmed by members of the community. You can buy salt very cheaply from various vendors onsite. Honestly I don’t know how they make a profit from the salt itself or from entrance fees which are only $2. Ever since I visited the salt pans in Gozo (part of Malta), I’ve been fascinated by salt pans so I was thrilled when I saw this was part of the itinerary for the Lares Trek. I was not disappointed either.
The Salinas Salt Ponds
After we left the salt ponds, we drove to the town of Ollantaytambo and had our final meal with the other family from our trek. Our guide talked with the staff at the restaurant he had chosen for us and arranged for our dinners to be ready at a certain time, with spare time for us to walk around the town if we wanted or just find a spot to sit and have a drink. Ollantaytambo is a small town so it didn’t take us long to take a quick walk around to take some photos then go back for dinner.
We reminisced on our journey together, received shirts from Alpaca Expeditions, were given more instructions by Abelito (our guide) and exchanged contact info with the other family. Since the other family had signed up for a second trek, a two-day trek, concluding at Machu Picchu, we would be parting after dinner, but otherwise they would have been with us and Abelito at Machu Picchu the following day (they were assigned a different guide from Alpaca Expeditions for their second trek, while my family and I retained our original guide for Machu Picchu).
After mostly living for three days without seeing anyone else outside our small group, it was strange to once again see crowds of people. As I said in my post on day one of the Lares Trek, one of the reasons I chose the Lares Trek over the Classic Inca Trek was because the Classic Inca Trek is so popular (a.k.a. crowded). We literally saw only a handful of other trekkers while we were hiking, and that’s it. It was fantastic, really. Who wants to be in nature hiking in remote areas of Peru and have hordes of other people around you? Well, actually that would come later, which you will see if you follow my posts regularly.
Ruins on the mountain in Ollantaytambo that would have nice to have explored if only there was more time!
So my family and I followed Abelito to the train station in Ollantaytambo, where we took a train to Aguas Calientes, and from there we walked to the hotel where we would be staying for the night (a very nice hotel arranged through Alpaca Expeditions). A hot shower and bed the night before touring Machu Picchu was the best idea ever. We set the alarm for yet another early morning wake-up, which really was a theme for our vacation in Peru thus far, and collapsed into the comfy beds. There was no time for any sight-seeing in Aquas Calientes on this day, but there would be some time after we toured Machu Picchu.
I fell asleep looking forward to finally getting to see the ruins of Machu Picchu. For most people, touring Machu Picchu is probably the highlight of their time in Peru, but honestly, for probably the first time in my life, I could say that the journey was more important than the destination (Machu Picchu). The Lares Trek had taken us past some of the most awe-inspiring views I’ve ever seen in my life. We met people that don’t even own a computer and only recently got electricity in their tiny town. I got to touch an alpaca (actually several) and see many more alpacas and llamas that were in the wild, only a few feet from me. I was able to physically push my body up and down the Andes Mountains at the highest elevations I’ve ever hiked with basically no side effects. Inevitably, this glimpse into Peru and the Peruvian people I saw along the Lares Trek will stick with me for the rest of my life.
Total miles for day 3: 6.2 miles. Elevation of Aguas Calientes: 6,562 ft.
Have you been to Machu Picchu and/or on a trek to Machu Picchu? What was your experience like?
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