After an adventure-filled 2025 flew by, we now find ourselves beginning our 2026 travel planning. Last year, our travels revolved around big trips and scenic hikes, bringing us to three new National Parks, two familiar favorites, and countless miles of beautiful trails across Colorado.
2026 Travel Planning
This year, our travel plans are shifting from adventure-focused to event-focused. Graduations, weddings, and holidays will guide us around the country, shaping how—and where—we travel. Because of this, we’re taking a different approach: planning around these celebrations with friends and family, while hopefully sneaking in a one- or two-day adventure wherever we land.
We’re also choosing to focus a little less on travel as a destination and more on how we spend our time outdoors. Our goals for 2026 include hiking more trails, learning how to fly fish, camping more often, and prioritizing day trips with the pups.
Flexibility will be the name of the game this year. While we have big ideas for 2026, we also recognize that our priorities look different than they have in the past. Of course, we’d love to squeeze in a few days at Redwood National Park during a holiday trip to San Francisco or spend a night in Joshua Tree when visiting family in Los Angeles, but we’d be just as content embracing close-to-home adventures and familiar trails throughout the year.
U.S. National Parks
Regardless of how our travel planning is shifting this year, you can count on us visiting National Parks! Here are our hopeful stops.
Joshua Tree National Park
Joshua Tree would be a repeat park for Marisa, but a new one for Sean! With a winter trip to Los Angeles to visit family on the horizon, a night in Joshua Tree is an easy addition. The park is roughly a two hour drive from where we will be, and a lot of what we want to see is manageable in a couple of days. It’s important to note for your own planning, though, that Los Angeles is a massive area filled with a lot of slow traffic, so that drive time can be better or (more likely) worse.
If we get the opportunity to visit this park, our main highlights would include: hiking at Barker Dam Trail and Hidden Valley Trail, a sunset at Keys view, and a sunrise at Cholla Cactus Garden. In Marisa’s opinion, a trip here would not be complete without dinner & live music at Pappy and Harriet’s!
Great Sand Dunes National Park
Great Sand Dunes would be a repeat park for both of us, but because we want to focus on planning more dog-friendly adventures in Colorado this year, this is an easy one to keep on the list! If you were unaware, Great Sand Dunes is one of the most dog friendly National Parks!
We’ve been here twice with Lefty and Buckwheat- once in the winter and once in spring. We plan to make another winter trek here (this time with Mikko!) so the dogs can enjoy our National Park adventures.
Rocky Mountain National Park
Rocky Mountain is our most frequented and one of our favorite parks. Living an hour away makes this an easy day trip to plan any time of year.
Even though we’ve visited this beautiful place so many times, we have a lot of trails on our list that we have yet to do! Our main bucket list trail for 2026 is Sky Pond!
Badlands National Park
Badlands is a repeat park for Marisa, but a new one for Sean! Because we live in Colorado, a road trip to South Dakota would be an easy one for us this spring.
While there are certainly trails in this park that we hope to do someday, we would plan this road trip around bringing the pups with us. It is entirely possible to see a good majority of what makes this place special from the road!
Theodore Roosevelt National Park
A new park to us both, we have hopes to make this the focal point of a spring road trip with the pups! We would plan to include both the North and South Districts of this park, Badlands National Park, and Devil’s Watchtower National Monument.
Redwood National Park
Another new park to us both, our goal would be to plan our holiday trip to San Francisco with an extra couple of days to drive up the Northern California coast. We would ideally camp for a night in the park and hike the trails, take the scenic drives, and feel small amongst the ancient trees.
Hiking & Other Outdoor Adventures
With our focus shifting to enjoying more of what our home has to offer, we have big goals for our outdoor adventures this year.
Our biggest hopes are to train to hike our first fourteener (a summit above 14,000′) and catch our first fish on fly rods!
Along with these, we would love to:
- Hike 30 different trails
- Wild ice skate in Rocky Mountain
- Spend the summer camping
- Backpack for the first time
- Learn how to tie our own flys
Above all else, we want to take the pups along with us as much as possible. Lefty is getting older (our sweet boy is 11 now!) and Buck and Mikko have endless energy. They deserve to tag along and experience the wonders of Colorado right by our sides.
Moving Forward, One Adventure at a Time
As 2026 (and our travel planning) unfolds, we’re entering the year with open calendars, realistic expectations, and a renewed appreciation for quiet days outside. Whether this year brings us across the country for celebrations or just down the road for a familiar trail, we’re excited and beyond grateful to continue exploring in ways that feel intentional and sustainable. Some plans will change, others will evolve, but the heart of why we travel remains the same: to be present, to move through wild spaces, and to make memories along the way.
We’ll be sharing updates, photos, and reflections as the year unfolds—and we’d love for you to follow along.