Exploring All 63 U.S. National Parks: An Inspiring Journey with Liz Bailey

The last few weeks has really been all about the outdoors , with both Tara and Hayley , who talked a lot about hiking . We are going to stick with the outdoors theme and talk to my guest , liz Bailey , from the Instagram account at Wandering on the Weekends , about the 3 years she took to visit every US national park .

You are going to be impressed with the knowledge she has gained about the parks and I know this is going to inspire you to get out and visit our national parks . Welcome to Journey with Jake . This is a podcast about adventure and how , through our adventures , we can overcome the challenges of life that come our way .

While I expect you will learn some things about different adventures , this show will entertain you . Each episode will feature a different guest or guest , as they share experiences and stories from the different adventures they have been on .

Not only will you be entertained , but you will also hear the failures and trials each guest faces and what they have done or are doing to overcome the hardships that come their way . My goal is to take each of us on a journey through the experiences of my guests , with the hope that you will be entertained and inspired to overcome your day to day challenges .

After all , it's not a lot about the destination , as it is about the journey . Welcome back to Journey with Jake . This is episode number 67 . Thanks to each and every one of you for tuning in and listening to the show . I hope you enjoy the episodes and I hope it is entertaining and fun to hear these fantastic stories and learn and grow together from them .

I would really appreciate if you could take the time to leave me a rating and review on Apple Podcasts or Spotify . That would mean a lot to me . I would also love it if you could give me a follow on Instagram at Journey with Jake Podcasts . You can see some pictures and videos from my guests and get to know them a little bit better .

It is also a fantastic way to get to know me and who I am . While I post a lot about the episodes of my guests , I like to squeeze in some personal posts as well , so be sure and check out at Journey with Jake Podcasts .

Speaking of personal , throughout the spring , many of you knew I trained and then in June , I participated in my first ever half marathon . If you want to hear more about that experience , be sure and listen to episode 60 as I give a little recap hosted by my friend and former guest on the show , rick Bamford . I'm going to run another half marathon this fall .

I'm not quite ready to make the announcement of which race I plan to participate in , but it is going to happen . One of the things I have changed is more of a strength training focus . This go around , and I learned that from my friends and previous guests on Journey with Jake Melody and Jacob Bateman from Trail to 100 .

They are running coaches and can help anyone at any level . If you are on the fence about running or if you need a coach , just reach out to them and they will have a discovery call with you and see how they can help . I know it is helping me already , so give them a follow at Trail to 100 or check out their website , trail to 100 dot com .

Speaking of helping me , my episode with Liz Bailey today was such a help in getting me excited to get out and see more of our national parks . Let's get to my conversation with Liz . Well , I'm excited today because I have someone on the show who's been to every national park , and I love the national park . She's been to all 63 of them .

Liz , welcome to Journey with Jake .

But first , like I always do on the show , I like to know a little bit more about who Liz is . So , if you don't mind , tell us a little bit about who you are .

So , whether that's the national parks , they're going to some state parks , and I try to utilize every ounce of my PTO , every bit of my weekend to kind of travel . So it's me and my husband and we have a six year old golden doodle who comes to some of the parks with us .

And , yeah , we love to hike , we love to explore locally , but also we have a lot of flights to the West Coast . So that's pretty much . Our dream was to cross off all 63 , which we did three years and one month start to finish , and we also did all 50 states within that time to fill . So that was our biggest accomplishment so far .

It's a lot of sleepless nights to get into the office on a Monday morning . My husband works full time too . So definitely a lot of thought that goes into each trip . A lot of driving , especially if you want to hit multiple parks in one trip , because California has nine parks right there . You kind of don't want to do one park a trip .

So a lot of thought that goes into these .

I mean , I think a lot of people , when they think of the national parks , they think of the Yellowstones and the glaciers and the Yosemites and Grand Canyon , places like that , and those are awesome . But I know there's a lot of other parks that some people don't even think about that much .

So now that you've visited all 63 of these national parks , what are some of those parks that are just kind of off the radar , that we don't think about too much , that were just amazing to you ?

And then South Dakota has Badlands National Park , which is so big and it's such a wide recognized name , but they also have one less than an hour away called Wind Cave , which are these caves and the rolling hills of South Dakota with bison roaming around .

So you have these unique things that are kind of in the middle of nowhere , that you don't see people , but they are absolutely beautiful and you see that wildlife and you see the same geological structures that you want to in these big parks and it's incredible that we are able to protect these lands so that we could visit and kind of share about them .

I don't know if that's a word , but yeah , tell me some of your thoughts on some of these places I'm going to ask you about , and maybe any stories or memories or things that you have from some of these places . So as a kid , did you go to National Parks as a kid , or how did this whole idea of let's go to National Parks come about ? Start there .

So we decided to go out to Colorado to kind of get into nature and Rocky Mountain was like a perfect escape . We didn't see a lot of people , we were able to enjoy ourselves . It was my first National Park ever . I fell in love with it Like just such awe . We were able to see a moose , we got to hike these incredible alpine lakes .

So I didn't grow up going to National Parks . I really didn't grow up hiking in general , so I wasn't prepared to hike in my first National Park I wore sneakers , it was snowing , it was raining , so it wasn't prepared , but still absolutely fell in love and that kind of triggered the entire thing of wow , this one place that I was not prepared to see .

Let's go see them all .

No , it was like Rocky Mountain National Park , let's try it out . And then that set it off .

hike , we did the rim drive , but you know , it was very cloudy due to some weather and so that's a big one . We would love to go back to Yo somebody when we went . We went on a shoulder season just because the craziness of tourists that go there every year .

We definitely went early in the season but a little bit of the park was still closed , do just to know . So I'd love to go back and do the meadows and those more elevated parts within the park .

All right , I got to ask a question because I live in Utah Utah's home of the Mighty Five , as they call them . I've been to two , I've been to Zion , I've been to Bryce .

I mean there's very few places in the world you could even do something like that Absolutely gorgeous Angels Landing is one of the craziest hikes we've definitely done and we're super grateful that we were able to go before the permits went into place and we had the opportunity to hike without stressing about that price . It's definitely a close second .

It's just the beauty of the color and the hoodies that you really don't see anywhere else in the world . I mean the largest concentration of hoodies in the world and it's one of the smallest national parks out of the 63 . It's amazing that the color , the sunsets there are beautiful . You have Ranger tours that do stargazing with you .

They offer so much in Bryce as well .

I also love to communicate with other creators or other people who have gone to these parks and hear about their opinion , see what they did . So that's kind of the reason I actually started my page . It wasn't to become like a content creator in any way , shape or form .

I'm not really the creative type , but I started the page to kind of get to know other people who travel to these national parks and see their insights and maybe some hidden gems , things like that .

So I've learned so much from other people and so much from park rangers and so much from national park website and so a lot of research and just a lot of talking to people the fact that that's like the best help .

You know I've Yellowstone's not too far away . I've been there . You know , that's the big daddy of them all . I would almost say . Just think of national parks and I love it . I love Yellowstone , but you know there's Glacier I haven't been to . There's these three right in my home state of Utah that I haven't been to . California's got a ton .

There's also a bunch of parks and I know I had one of my guests on the show who visited one of these parks . But there's a bunch of national parks that are a little bit difficult to get to . You can't just get there in your car .

I think that the furthest that we've had to go would be American Samoa , which is , for those people who do not know what's in the Pacific , and it's kind of close to New Zealand , so it's in the Oceania continent , right by Fiji , and America owns it as a territory and there is the National Park of the American Samoa , which encompasses land on the island , and

traveling there is tough . So there are two flights a day from Hawaii in order to get to the island . So a lot of planning goes into that , because you can only fly in on a Thursday or Thursday and leave on a Monday , or vice versa Flying in on a Monday , leave on a Thursday . There's two hotels on the entire island .

It's not very funded by America , so you're looking at very rocky roads . The entire island is just filled with these native people and the honor community , so much so you go to these places and every day at six o'clock at bell rings and people go back to their communities and say prayer and talk about their day .

So you're thinking about how to respect the locals as well as taking all the culture and the food there . So that's definitely a tough one to get to .

So it was wonderful because we got to try the local food and see how you know down to how they make their plates out of palm leaves . It was incredible because they're just so engulfed in their culture and going back to their roots of the land , so it was a different world , to feel like we're in a different country .

It was really awesome to learn about their history . Another thing to note about it is the National Park actually doesn't own the land . They are on the 50 year lease from the communities that held the land , so the land is still owned by the people of America and Samoa and the National Park protects it Interesting .

There's no facilities , there's no maintenance trails and actually on the National Park website it's kind of like if you don't have challenging and good survival skills , do not come Like , don't do that . If you're not a like A plus backpacker , we suggest against it , which is really good information to know .

So we actually did a flight scene tour which we were able to take from Fairbanks and fly into Cobalt and land in their sand dunes the Great Cobalt Sand Dunes and then fly to the Arctic and land near the river and then come back , so we were able to see them from above , just like the National Park site request that you do .

So we were able to do the flight scene tours and those are just really tough to get to . There was only a couple months out of the year that you can do it . It's all weather dependent because you're just so far away from any type of civilization . You have to be able to .

You know land in these places and come back safely , because you're flying over the Brooks Range in Alaska , so those are tough .

Alaska is just incredible , because I know well what's . There's that National Park with all the bears , what's that one ? Katmai , katmai . Tell me about Katmai , because that one do you have to ? Is it ? Can you get there by vehicle or do you have to take a plane or something ? Okay , Tell me about Katmai , if you don't mind .

Katmai is one of my absolute favorite National Parks in general . So you are able to go to King Salmon , alaska , and it's usually a plane and Alaska Airlines has commercial airline fly there , or you can take one of the more private ones .

So we did Bristol adventures with them and then you could either take a sea plane from King Salmon , alaska or you can take a little boat . It's like a little boat that floats down the river to the lake in Katmai .

We chose to do a sea plane so you could see the lakes that they're situated with , because in Katmai there's a little over a thousand lakes , 9,000 lakes within the National Park . Yeah , so they say , like Minnesota's land is on the lakes . Katmai National Park just the National Park alone is pretty close , Crazy .

We flew there , flew onto the lake and landed on the sea plane . And the second you land , there's like bears on the beach , like they're just anywhere . You look there's just bears like hanging out on the beach . We're like , oh , of course , let's get off the plane right here .

But I really appreciate the park in general because the second you are able to get into the park you land , you park from your boat they put you in the visitor center and give you bear school . So it's more or less just like how to respect these bears , because it is their home in our hours .

If they're on the trail , they have the right way and it's like how to respectfully move out of their way , how to respectfully , respectively , keep a distance from them . You know what to do , what to not to do .

If you see them or if they're standing above them , you know you keep walking , because there are some platforms that you can walk to not kind of go into their space that they're normally in . So the National Park does a really good job of you know , making it known that this is their home . We're here to just watch them from the distance .

They're not exposed in any way , shape or form . You know we are , so I really appreciate that .

You're in a different lake there's bears . It is not just those falls . I mean it's like amazing because you could watch those falls at river on a webcam on like Katmai's National Park website , but they are in so many more places than just that .

The lakes like Diablo Lake , Ross Lake , are able to be seen , if you're not a hiker , from the road , which I appreciate if you're . If you are Maybe disabled or you have children with you , you're still able to enjoy these parks , especially that one in particular . You're able to see majority of what the park offers .

I Also will say channel Islands National Park off the coast of California . The largest chain of islands off the coast of California is incredible . We were able to have a day trip to Anacapa Island , which is the second smallest island . It's about 1.1 square miles . You have these sea lions that are just hanging out at the bottom .

You are boating with dolphins and you could see whales if you're there for a good portion of the day . Sometimes the island flows down , flows down at certain months because they have bird migrations or bird mating season . So really amazing natural park that I think is so underrated by you know the big redwoods .

You have somebody , joshua Trady , that California is known for right .

So that's the that's a tricky one for me . I think another one would be Indiana dunes , which is the sand dunes that are right outside of Chicago , on the Indiana border , and it used to be a lake shore , a national lake shore , and it was also bumped up a few years ago .

And that one's a little tricky for me as well , because if you could see , like Chicago's skyline , you know that's like the bogs that you're kind of walking over in the sand dunes .

So it's a little tricky for me to see , I guess , the beauty of it at all times , because we do have these incredible Sand dunes , like great sand dunes national park in Colorado , lights fans , new Mexico , scoback Valley in Alaska . So those are both really tricky ones for me .

We definitely have gotten lucky for majority of our trips , but there are some struggles that we've had to endure with flying , and that's not just commercial flying , but it's also like when you're in Alaska you're taking these tiny planes . So , like Denali for example , we have been to Alaska twice . We went last summer in August and we had a day for Denali .

We had a flight booked so that we can go and see Denali , because you can only drive 15 miles in the park or 30 if you're in one of the buses in Denali . So we wanted to go into the park because there's 92 or 96 miles to the peak and our flight got cancelled To go with like 30 minutes before we were supposed to keep off .

So that's tricky because Then it's like full to be crossed it off as the National Park . Thankfully we were able to go back this past year and do it again , but you know it's like we spent all this money to get out to Alaska and then you know you're just kind of like betting on weather . It's really tough , yeah , and it's also a tough about .

Some places have trail closures due to wildlife , which I'm really appreciative of .

The National Park Service Definitely sees like oh , there's a lot of Grizzlies in this area , we are to close the trail for the time being , and but it is tough when you travel to grantee time and the one park , the one part of the park that you want to hike , it's like fully closed , closed because of grizzly activity .

So there's always going to be those challenges , whether it's wildlife or flights , and I think that's just like the hardest part . It's like the unknowns , and you have to be so flexible and patient because it's so out of your control .

We're not stepping on any toes when it comes to travel . So I plan majority of the parks , but I've allowed him to plan like glacier . He planned which was one of like our favorites , so he does stuff about availability to plan and it's been so fun .

We've made the best memories of our life so far and I'm grateful that I got to spend every single one of them .

I think like that was probably the most thing , the best thing we were looking forward to within Arches National Park , and so we hiked the trail and we mistakenly followed people who didn't know where they were hiking and we ended up hiking in and I know you haven't been but there's like a bowl that kind of goes to the side of Delica Arch , which is super

dangerous and super scary and super steep . And there it was these lovely people who decided to go that way and we were not paying attention and we followed them and there was this tiny sliver of black land within the trail .

Well , it wasn't the trail , but we literally crossed with like a 400 foot truck next to us and we were like who in the right mind would ever hike this trail ? This is not worth it . We get to Delica Arch and no , no , there's this big hike to do . We just didn't do it and we laugh about it now but we're like never again .

Now we're like so cognizant of it , but it's definitely like a memory that we talk about it often and we're like for another time when we were so dumb that we thought this was something that the National Park Service wanted from us .

So you don't have like crazy busy travel ads , you just have hikers and then you just shuttle back to the visitor center . And we were on the shuttle back to the visitor center and like this big elk popped up in front of us , which was fine , and my husband just screams oh my God , there's a moose . And everybody just stared at him like this is Arizona .

They're like what do you think you are ? And so everyone just looks at us like we're crazy . Now we're just like these crazy , delusional hikers that just got down to the height and we think this random small elk is a moose in the middle of the desert .

So when you think about these national parks , what is it that kind of gets your juices flowing ? When you start thinking about them , what is it that kind of ? What does it mean to you overall ?

You know old homes that the natives were living in , you're able to , you know , torque through them .

So things like that just really excite me that we're still able to learn from our history and respect it and you know see it develop and it's sad , but like we're able to , you know , see the glaciers and what they used to be , for example , exit Glacier in Kenai Fjords National Park associated with Alaska .

You know , you're able to see how much the glacier shrunk within the last 20 , 30 , 50 years and to kind of like see that as well , just like where we were and where we are now and how much protecting these lands is really helpful for us .

You know , the bears and moose , slash , elk , whatever you're seeing , any particular you know besides , like the bears in Alaska , any other particular wildlife that you've just been like in awe at seeing .

We sprinted our entire rest of our loop back to our car the other way . So like random wildlife like that we have definitely encountered , just being in the middle of the nether , we've seen dozens and dozens and dozens of moose in there , beautiful and majestic , and I've loved every single one of them .

When we were in Galatia or Lafam , we were able to see mountain goats for the first time . They walked right in front of us on our trail and we , you know , kept our distance as much as we can . There's only so much you could do when they just like jump right in front of you and they're like hello , like they're so curious .

The creatures we just like stood there and , you know , hello . We've been good . But that was such an incredible moment because it's very rare to see them and there was only a couple of national parks that have them . So those are some of our favorite wildlife stories .

They usually see a lot in the Grand Teton is not as much in Yellowstone and I guess technically right outside the park but it was right next to the park , so close . Yeah but they are , they're majestic , they're big and they're it's . It's pretty incredible , pretty incredible sight to see . So that's , that's a lot of fun .

You've hit all the national parks and I'm sure it was an awesome goal to have and it kind of kept you going . Now that you've hit them all , what's next for for Liz ?

But we are kind of wanting to do 40 countries by 40 together and it's a big goal for us because we want to do a lot of the national parks and countries such as Dolomites in Italy , and then there's three in Iceland Bamf , yohua , jasper in the Canadian Rockies , patagonia Mountain Range in general , argentinian Chile .

So there are there are huge national parks that we want to hit in other countries , but also want to be able to explore the history of other countries as well . So that's our next thing is taking it international .

Before we wrap up here , though , what kind of what other thoughts do you want to leave with us ? Any thoughts to ? Maybe you know , someone like me has just been to a handful . I mean , what would you say about getting to more national parks and just kind of leave us with some , some last minute thoughts , if you don't mind ?

So get out there , do your research , know that not every state has a national park , though , but they all offer something so unique and so incredible . Also , for like some tips on saving money I know national parks are super expensive . Go with friends . Share your BVBs rental cars with friends .

Go on shoulder season Right now , for , like Glacier , we went in September after Labor Day , and everything is still open , but there's like less of a crowd because school is back in session . So don't be afraid to kind of go on those golf months , because you're still going to see everything that you want to .

But just be a little over , maybe , but , like with chaotic , national parks are easier than you think to get to . The National Park Service offers a really great website , great resources , and don't be scared to ask people . I know a lot of people slide into my DMs all the time just asking for a recommendation on a hike or how I flew into a place .

What kind of rental car . Did I get ? No , do I need a rental car to go to these places ? Is the shuttle service so good ? Reach out to those people who have been there , because I love sharing information and I think that's the most important part of this is , in order to protect these lands , we need people to visit them and so we want people there .

We want to share our tips about the trails to go on or hidden gems that we don't want to see people on the trails , or places to see wildlife , places that I've seen wildlife before . So I think it's just like reaching out .

You know , don't be scared to go out and you know , research the places , because there are going to be some incredible places I think probably never heard about in your time .

Get some great information about the National Parks and just see what adventure she's up to Totally fun . I'm so grateful for her for coming on the show . Thank you to each one of you for listening to Journey with Jake each and every week . I really appreciate it . It would mean a lot to me if you could leave a rating and review with Apple Podcast .

That would be awesome . Get the word out a little bit more about Journey with Jake , and that would be outstanding . If you could do that , I would appreciate it . Also , give me a follow on Instagram at Journey with Jake Podcast . I'll have some snippets from the show , some pictures and things of my guests .

It'll help you to get to know the guests a little bit better and who they are . I also post a lot of personal things as well , just to get to know me as well and what I'm all about . I think it's a lot of fun . So come check that out at Journey with Jake Podcast . Thanks again for listening .

Just remember it's not always about the destination as it is about the journey . Take care everyone .