On New Year’s Eve, we are used to go around the table with whomever we spend the night and ask: what was your best day of the year? What was your worst day? It’s a simple question, actually, two, and it’s always a good time to share good or less good memories with friends. In this article, I’m looking back at what happened in 2017 in terms of travel in the USA, and blogging about it. What was new? What was super noticeable? Let’s go.
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Before starting, I wanted to talk about Julie Sarperi, who passed away recently. She was a young and talented photographer, traveller and co-author of the fantastic blog Carnets de traverse, a poetic, creative and inspiring outlet. We’ve never met in person though we exchanged a few emails, and like many among you, her passing away was a shock. Being able to travel is awesome, and being healthy is a true blessing. This article is dedicated to Julie.
The crazy castle of Asheville: the Biltmore
New cities!
Asheville,
North Carolina
Visiting Asheville has been on my list for a while, we took the opportunity to go there during the 4th of July weekend. Asheville is a very laid-back city, with a lot of art galleries and studios, and breweries. The BBQ scene was great too. We took the time to go to the nearby national park: Great Smoky Mountains.
☞ Blog: 2 days in Asheville
The wall “Before I die” full of notes / In the midst of the Arts District / A decadent biscuit with pulled pork, bacon and a poached egg on top
We had dinner by the Franklin Bridge
Philadelphia
Again, it’s been a while that I wanted to visit Philadelphia, a major city on the East Coast that we didn’t take the time to see. I enjoyed our stay, I like history, so I was in for a treat. We were there at the right time: even though it was pretty grey and rainy, the trees were in full blossom mode! Philadelphia is a great gateway from Boston, we flew there, there’s also a 5-hour train ride.
☞ Blog : 3 days in Philadelphia
Rocky / A cobblestone street in Philly / The central market where Amish people sell their produce
New national parks and monuments seen in 2017
Au plus près du glacier au pied de Wheeler Peak
National parks and monuments are always the highlights of our trips in the US, and it’s almost all the time how we decide on where to go.
Great Basin, Nevada
Nevada is mostly known for Las Vegas, and the place where nuclear tests occurred. Well, it’s also now for us the state of the Great Basin National Park (ok, it was already existing before we came by). We spent 2 days in this altitude desert. It’s remote and wild: be ready to drive.
☞ Blog : Hiking and scenic roads in Great Basin National Park
Cottonwood Canyon Road
Escalante Grand Staircase, Utah
This is a huge wild territory, and a lot of its surface was still uncharted a few years ago. We drove through the Burr Trail a few years ago, and this year we spent a little bit more time to explore it – technically, it’s not a park, it’s a monument. I haven’t written yet an article to recap our time there, though it’s probably one of my best memories/hiking time of 2017. I was really disappointed to learn that the monument would be shrunk by the administration for commercial use.
The Needles, after the storm
The Needles district of Canyonlands, Utah
On avait déjà parcouru la partie la plus populaire de ce célèbre parc de l’Utah, Island-in-the-sky ; cette année, on est allé du côté des Needles, au sud-est du parc : c’est une zone plus reculée qui nécessite de marcher longtemps pour aller voir de plus près ces fameuses Needles, les aiguilles. Levés à 6h du mat pour commencer le plus tôt possible afin d’éviter les grosses chaleurs, on a marché dans un parcours hyper amusant : grimper sur des rochers, descendre, se faufiler. On suivait de près la carte et les tas de cailloux disposés au fil du chemin pour se repérer. Là encore, c’est parmi les plus belles randonnées qu’on a fait cette année, j’en parle dans les semaines à venir sur le blog.
La vue est bouchée, mais les arbres sont d’un beau vert fluo !
Great Smoky Mountains, North Carolina+ Tennessee
We visited this national park at the same time of visiting Asheville. It wasn’t the best time of the year – we learned that there – it was hot and rainy. At least, the vegetation was green. The landscapes can seem repetitive – we are used to this type of mountains and forests, but when you look at it closely, they are so well preserved and wild that it makes this place unique. We hiked 10 km of the 3500 km of the Appalachian Trail. I still give us a high five for that.
☞ Blog: Great Smoky Mountains
The day after an impromptu getaway to Rockport, Massachusetts
New England
I sometimes feel that travelling in New England is a normal thing: that’s where I live and after a few years, the novelty has faded away. I know where I like to go and when.
That’s why I like yearly recap, just to get a reminder of what’s I’ve seen and done: when I look at where we’ve been in 2017, I realized that we still enjoy going around places in New England, our favorites ones and new ones.
This is a chronological recap of the highlights of 2017:
Lake Winnipesaukee
February: ski in New Hampshire
I don’t ski (I used to, don’t like it, don’t force me). I’m never pushing for the winter ski trip to happen, but some people do. So I go! With a good book. Manu took this picture on top of a ski trail in Gunstock, one of the closest ski resort of Boston. The day before we walked in the snow with no hat – which seems crazy now that I’m writing this article in the middle of a huge snow storm.
In a diner in Burlington before taking the bus back to Boston
March: friends reunion in Burlington, Vermont
One of my oldest friend just moved to Montreal, she doesn’t want to go all the way to Boston so we decide to meet half-way – sort of – in Burlington, Vermont. It’s a small college town by the lake Champlain, the cold was arctic, but we just wanted to spend time together. The only issue was that I hurt myself the day before while working out, I walked with crutches on the icy sidewalks. We basically went from one warm place to the other: the cute Airbnb, a café, a bar. I didn’t see much of Burlington, except for a carnival and a beer fest.
☞ Blog: american diner
A quiet cove along the road on Deer Isle
May: a week-end on Deer Isle, Maine
This island near Acadia presents some similar landscapes, and all I like about coastal Maine: big rocks like whale’s back, pine tree forest by the ocean, and cute colorful houses. Deer Isle is small, and we enjoyed spending some quiet time walking around the ocean. The weather was still cold, we still took a boat to go see a puffin colony. Fun!
☞ Blog: Deer Isle
Sunset
July: picnic in the Berkshires, Massachusetts
A friend of ours invited us for her competitive picnic league (it’s a thing). I like the Berkshires, the western region of Massachusetts, in the summertime, it was a pleasure to go back. If you ever came over for dinner at my place this year, I’ve probably made you the winning dish: “mini cake”. It’s a savory cake, that was surprising for the American taste.
☞ Blog: Berkshires in the summer
Low Tide on Plum Island
July: North Shore
When we don’t know what to do and where to go during the summertime, we go towards the North Shore. Crane Beach, Ipswich, Cape Ann: that’s my jam. I am team “North Shore”. The only annoying thing are the green flies… they bite and are relentless. Just to change a bit our promenades, we walked on the Audubon reservations.
Cool view of Boston from Hingham
August, the End of the World
This paragraph contradicts what I just said: even though the North Shore is a favorite, or probably because it’s our favorite, we tried to also go on the South Shore. I like for instance Sciutate – even though I still have no idea how to pronounce it. We walk on a small park in Hingham called the world’s end, with a nice view of Boston in the distance.
Antoine and Olesja are “leaf peeping”
September: Reach the beach, New Hampshire
For the second consecutive year, Manu has “reached the beach: he ran with a bunch of runner friends on their famous Sole Mates team in a relay race. 200 miles from the mountains of New Hampshire to the beach, 12 runners, 2 vans, a great ambiance. Manu loved it, and I cheered them from the distance.
Flume Gorge with Marie, Cécile, Cathy and Dadée
October: in the mountains of New Hampshire
Manu’s family visited us in October and their program was intense! They toured New England at a record pace, and we tried to join them when we were free, like at Flume Gorge, where it was pouring rain. But it was still prettayyy. And in full fall foliage mode.
☞ Blog: Monday Morning busy
On a beach, in P-Town
November : Cape Cod off season
We spent one more weekend in New England before the end of 2017 and we picked the ocean – generally the mountains win over. I found a cute Airbnb and we spent our time walking. I like the Cape better off season, with almost nobody. We were lucky it was the last weekend where galleries and most of the restaurants of Provincetown were still open.
Camping feels good
Motels, trendy hotels or whimsical Airbnb: it’s great and I’m still excited when I’m about to discover the room. But to me, nothing is equivalent to camping. Okay, it’s uncomfortable, but the location is always crazy. Here are some pictures of the best camping spots of 2017:
1 million de dollars facing the lake Powell
Camping in Capitol Reef
Camping in Kodachrome, with Bryce Canyon views in the distance
Canoeing to go camping on a small island in New Hampshire
We spend the last days of 2017 in New York City
No coming back to France for the holidays for us this year, we stayed in Boston and enjoyed the last days of 2017 in New York city with some of our best friends. This vacation was awesome because for once it was very tranquillo: no huge program, it was so cold that we stayed at home in the morning, reading or working, then lunch, museum, bar and restaurant with friends – a lot of them were passing by New York, which was fun to meet up there.
The latest exhibit at the Guggenheim: art and China after 1989, we were lucky to have a beer with one of the curator afterwards
Ice cream time by 15F. Manu doesn’t wear gloves #warrior
Central Park Reservoir
10 more blocks to go
Blog 2017
I’ve already talked a lot about the blog recently, so I’ll keep it short. The biggest change in 2017, which is invisible for you readers, is that I’ve changed my laptop: I traded my old MacBook Pro for an iMac with a big screen, and for the mobile version, I took a Surface Pro, I love the lightness and versatility of use. Manu doesn’t have a new camera or lenses, but bought a drone Dji Spark to play around.
Thanks Trish, you truly get me
Numbers!
In 2017, I posted 88 new blog posts, you read 2,400,000 pages and you were 850,000 people to connect to the blog. You mostly come from Paris, Montreal, Lyon, New York and Boston, followed by Toulouse, Quebec and Bordeaux. You read in general 1,8 pages a session, and stay 2 minutes 43 secondes.
In the articles posted this year, the 5 more popular (in pages viewed) were:
Ice sculpture on Copley square
The 3 most commented articles are a little bit different:
These articles are a good snapshot of the blog which remains solid for the travels in the USA, that’s the biggest chunk of traffic, and there’s also the more personal side that draws the less recurring readers.
I also like the challenge of writing of daily article in August in the series called Backstage, about all that you don’t see during a trip. It was a lot of work, but I enjoyed it and might do it again this year.
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I wish you a bonne année, thank you for being there! Happy 2018 !
