USA: Roadtrip - camping through the Southwest

With our journey to the USA, our travel style has completely changed along with the surroundings. Instead of crowded minibuses, we were now traveling with our own (spacious by European standards) rental car, which gave us an unexpected feeling of freedom. Arriving in Las Vegas, we naturally experienced sensory overload. After excessive shopping (on one hand, the complete camping equipment for the following two weeks, on the other hand, outlet shopping as much as our backpack could hold), we immediately escaped the city and started our road trip through the national and state parks of the Southwest.

We were thrilled to experience the diversity of nature and wildlife during our journey! Camping intensified these experiences, as we were in nature around the clock and stayed at incredibly beautiful places. With the camping stove in our luggage, we were able to take care of ourselves the whole time and actually enjoyed the healthiest and best food (within the limits of our cooking skills ;-)) in the USA, contrary to all stereotypes.

You can imagine our daily routine like this: waking up at sunrise, making coffee and breakfast directly at the campsite and enjoying them if possible, packing up the tent, driving to a national park (ideally early due to the heat and number of visitors, although we didn't always manage that), visiting the national park with a hike, possibly visiting a second park with a smaller hike, driving to the next campsite (usually a slightly longer distance), setting up the tent, cooking, eating, sleeping... :-)

Surprisingly and fortunately, we were spared from rain the entire time. Instead, we experienced all other extreme weather conditions while camping, from heat to frosty nights and storms, wondering if the 40 USD Walmart tent could withstand the wind (it did, although I wanted to move into the car at night, but Thilo insisted that the tent would definitely fly away).

After getting a good impression of the national parks east of Las Vegas (for those who know the USA: Valley of Fire, Zion, Bryce, Kodachrome, Capitol Reef, Goblins, Canyonlands, Arches, Natural Bridges, Goosenecks, Monument Valley, Antelope, Lake Powell, Grand Canyon), we drove through Death Valley and Yosemite National Park to the California coast. There, we had one of the most amazing animal observations on our journey. From the beach, we could see more than 50 dolphins frolicking nearby, a whale occasionally surfaced near the shore, and the sea lions and otters were also not missing... We drove along Highway No. 1 south along the coast until we finished our over 5000 km long road trip back in Las Vegas.

There, after meeting my brother and cousin on the trip, we also met Thilo's relatives and went on a little pub tour with the three cousins, which gave us a short night before the long flight to our next and temporary last destination (Indonesia). It goes without saying that we didn't pass up the opportunity to stir up the roulette table and marvel at the city in its crazy uniqueness.