Link Love

Time for another round of Link Love. I’ve decided to make this an every other week series. Enjoy!

I’ve mentioned before how much we love all the nationally designated places that we’ve been discovering around the U.S. I think it’s a common misconception that the national park service is only about parks. In reality it actually contains hundreds of national memorials, recreation areas, monuments, parkways, preserves, seashores, historic places, and so much more. Check out this list of the 10 most visited Spots in the National Park System. I think you’ll be surprised.

Speaking of the national park service, did you hear that it’s getting a new logo? Hmmm…I think I liked the old one better. I guess that means I must be older than the  new generation they claim they’re trying to appeal to.

Like beer and like to travel? Why not join the Society of Beer Travelers! Our friends and fellow RVers from the Roaming Pint Blog just formed this brand new community of beer travelers. Of course Tim joined up right away.

We’re super excited about this new website for RVers called RVillage. Basically it’s a social media site for all of us who love to RV. You sign up, create your profile, and then log into the park or city where you are currently located. From there you can see who else is in the park, or just nearby, and if you want make arrangements to meet them. Of course, you don’t have to meet someone just because they are in the same park as you, but it provides the opportunity to find and meet new people if you so desire. We’ve already met a few people through the site, including a fellow single Airstreamer who was staying nearby and met us for dinner one night. The site offers some other great features like the ability to friend people and then sort the map by your friends. There’s also tons of groups to join which help you discover other RVers with similar interests. The site is still in Beta mode, and the creators are working hard to make improvements and sort out all the bugs, but from where I stand they already have a great site. If you’re not already on RVillage go check it out. While you’re there find us (our user name is Watsons Wander of course) and friend us so we can hopefully meet you too!

My fascination with Google street view continues. The latest cool thing you can see on street view? A virtual trip down the Colorado River. Second only to the real thing of course.

I’ve always wanted to travel by train. This list of the Most Scenic U.S. Train Routes has only increased my desire to ride the rails.

I made this recipe for Honey-Lime Sweet Potato & Black Bean Tacos last week. Ahhhmazing!!! If you are any sort of taco lover I urge you go out and buy the ingredients for these tasty little sweet & tangy corn wrapped delights…right now! Seriously, do it. You can thank me later.

In the last week I’ve seen this article about Vintage Airstream Ads everywhere. Not sure if that means it’s a popular article or that I spend way to much time on the Internet.

In many ways I don’t think you need to be an extensive traveler to learn these 55 Lessons Learned From a Life of Travel. It’s still a worthwhile read. My favorites are numbers 9, 14 & 46.

Every morning when we eat breakfast we listen to Morning Edition on NPR. That is, when we get NPR. Yes, there are some places left in the U.S. where not a single NPR station comes in. I know, I know…the sacrifices we make for this traveling lifestyle are tremendous. Well this week it comes in fine, and I noticed there is a new daily series about the U.S.-Mexico Border. I looked it up and it’s called Borderland: dispatches from the U.S.-Mexico boundary. It’s really fascinating and you can follow along as my favorite morning edition host, Steve Inskeep, travels the length of the U.S-Mexico border. I was happy to learn that since we were out of NPR range for the first part of the series, I can listen to back episodes from my computer or the handy NPR app on my phone.

And finally, since you can never have too many apps on your phone, how about a few more for those times when you just need to get out of nature and hang in the city. I love this list of the Best City Guide Apps. I use TripAdvisor all the time, but have never heard of the other four. I just downloaded Wikitude, so we’ll see how it goes. By the way, I checked and all of the apps in the article are free.