About Us
America From The Road focuses on travel and outdoor recreation in the USA. We provide helpful and informative content so that you have all the knowledge necessary to plan your own adventure whether it be a weekend getaway or cross-country road trip.
On this site you’ll find destination guides, road trip itineraries, hotel and restaurant recommendations, plus more. From small towns to big cities, national parks, and state parks across America, we’ll help you discover your next U.S. vacation destination!
We hope to inspire you to have your own adventure whether it be a weekend getaway or cross-country road trip.
Awards
2023: Bronze award for “Best Travel Blog” from North American Travel Journalists Association (press release)
2023: Silver award for “Best Photography in Outdoor & Adventure” category from North American Travel Journalists Association (press release)
2022: Honorable mention for “Best Photography in Landscape” category from North American Travel Journalists Association (press release)
About This Website
America From The Road is a website that publishes articles related to travel and outdoor adventure in America. Our aim is to encourage travel to and within the United States through informative content and inspiring photography.
From the west coast to “flyover” midwest states, all the way to the blissful northeast corner, and down to the sunny shores of Florida and everywhere else in between, we’ll show you all of the beautiful destinations, national parks, state parks, and other fascinating places in each state that you need to visit.
Whether you’re looking for beach vacation inspiration, scenic byways to explore, bucket list hiking trails, or a new city to visit, we’ll help you discover your next vacation destination!
We specialize in road trips! We’ll help you discover America’s scenic byways and showcase exciting driving itineraries with details on all the best places to stop along the way so that you can get the most out of your road trip.
Our articles are original and well-researched. We never use AI in any shape or form so you can rest assured you are getting reliable advice from a real person.
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Arial Evans
Founder of America From The Road
Hi, I’m Arial, a content creator and full-time travel blogger obsessed with road tripping in the U.S. I’ve been in the digital publishing realm writing destination guides and road trip itineraries since 2014, so almost ten years! You could say I’m a professional road tripper 😉
Let me help you discover beautiful locations, overlooked destinations, and interesting places in America that you can look forward to visiting on your next road trip.
Why am I qualified to help you? Besides having spent MANY years on the road exploring the U.S., I am a vetted member of credible travel journalist associations like North American Travel Journalists Association and Society of American Travel Writers, and on occasions work with destination marketing organizations to ensure accurate and up to date information.
More about me:
You won’t hear the “I left my corporate job to pursue travel blogging” story from me because I’ve never had any desire to work in the corporate world. The closest I ever came to being in the coporate world was working at a call center for a ski resort in Mammoth Lakes.
Fortunately (and sometimes unfortunately) I’ve always had a bit of an adventurous spirit. I’m that person that’s always wondering about things like where does that back road lead, what is around that next bend in the hiking trail, and what really is in the middle of Nevada???
It’s taken up a lot of my time (and money too) answering questions like these. But the good news for you is that I can help you figure out if a place is somewhere you want to spend your hard earned money and more importantly — valuable time!
I started this travel blog in 2014 when my husband (then boyfriend) and I decided we wanted to live in a van fulltime. To be honest, I wouldn’t say the van living thing was entirely by choice. We wanted to see as much of America as possible and as intimately as possible. By that I mean not just spending a day here and a day there, but staying longer in places we loved in order to get to know them better. Spolier alert, I loved a lot of places we visited!
Since hostels aren’t common in America like they are in most other countries, traveling long-term in the USA can be an expensive experience. An alternative is to camp. But back in 2013 we did a short four week road trip of the west coast where we camped for most of the trip, and let me tell you, it was such a pain in the butt having to constantly pack up camping gear!
And so, this is how my living in a van idea came about. We decided a van would be the best way to explore indefinitely. The way I look at it is that van travel is a travel style similar to backpacking in other countries.
Fun fact: We started our “road-tripping career” in a mini-van. It was not always easy living 😝
These days #Vanlife is trendy. But back in 2014 and 2015, it was definitely not cool. In fact, it was downright embarrasing to say you lived in a van. I would say it wasn’t until 2017 when everyone was jumping on the band wagon.
Regardless, full-time vanlife was a magical experience for us. I have seen full moons in numerous beautiful locations, spent extensive time in places most people only ever dream of visiting, and made friends with wonderful humans that come from all walks of life. All thanks to vanlife!
Some of the dreamy destinations I have been fortunate enough to spend a lengthy time exploring include Yosemite National Park, Death Valley National Park, Zion National Park, Bryce Canyon National Park, Redwoods National Park, and Mt Rainier National Park.
Of course vanlife and full-time road tripping wasn’t always a pleasant experience. There was always that pesky issue of where to take the next shower. And also wondering where to park overnight in locations where there weren’t any campgrounds.
At that time in 2015, Google could not answer any of these questions. Blogging was a new thing and mostly what I call “dear diary” type articles. This is how I eventually got the idea to create a website that answered questions related to road tripping.
The first article I ever published was “Where To Park Overnight and Sleep On A Road Trip” and the second was “7 Places You Can Shower On A Road Trip“. Both of these articles have been viewed millions of times since then!
My intentions were to help others. It was never about making money at all. And back then, I don’t think anyone ever dreamed you could make money from blogging.
It took us a really long time to figure out all the places you could legally park overnight. It did involve a few taps on the window and getting told to move on. Basically I didn’t want others to have that dreaded tap on the window too. My helpful road trip tips eventually evolved to include articles on driving itineraries and destination guides. And the rest is history!
In 2018, I was able to turn my passion for travel in the U.S. and obsession with road trips into a fulltime gig. I guess that saying about doing what you love and the money will follow is true after all. But seriously, I would do this even if I wasn’t getting paid!
My Favorite Places
From the beginning…
As a kid, I was obsessed with animals so naturally I followed a career path that led me to becoming a zoo keeper. It was awesome! But it didn’t pay very well, so after a few years I started my own business conducting educational reptile shows at schools and birthday parties for children.
Looking back, this is probably where my fondness for road trips began because often I had to drive far and wide for different events and festivals. On these occasions I would always take the opportunity to explore whichever new destination I was in.
My reptile business was extremely successful but after eight years I wanted to get a formal education behind me in wildlife conservation or ecology. I ended up completing a degree in environmental science with a double major in both natural resource management and fisheries management.
It opened many new doors, not only in regards to career opportunities in wildlife conservation but with travel too.
One of the most amazing projects I was fortunate enough to be a part of was a population study of orangutans in the jungles of Kalimantan, Indonesia.
Other positions I’ve held in wildlife conservation have taken me to Nevada tracking desert tortoises, Seattle monitoring orcas for a winter season, and destinations across eastern Washington working on various projects with protected salmon species.
My favorite position though was working as a salmon observer on commercial fishing boats off Washington state’s coastline!
As you can see (or rather read) I’ve spent a lot of time in many different destinations up and down the west coast. Some of the places I’ve called home over the years include Mammoth Lakes and Malibu in California, Seaside and Portland in Oregon, as well as Bellingham and TriCities in Washington. These days, Jamie and I split our time between Los Angeles and TriCities.
Since becoming a fulltime travel writer, I was accepted as a member of Society of American Travel Writers (SATW) and North American Travel Journalists Association (NATJA). This blog even received a bronze award for “Best Travel Blog” from NATJA!
Why You Should Trust This Website
Besides having years of experience traveling in the U.S. and being a vetted member of credible travel journalist associations, here are some other reasons you can trust this website:
- We do not use AI in any shape or form to write articles. Not for research, not for writing or re-writing sentences, not for ideas, not ever! You may or may not know this but even many of the large publishers in the travel world now use AI to write their articles. It’s lazy, inauthentic, and more importantly, more often than not spits out inaccurate information.
- We enjoy slow travel and will often spend at least a week, if not weeks at a destination to discover everything that place has to offer. Whether it’s attempting to take on all of the hiking trails in the area, exploring nearby back roads and byways, or ‘researching’ local restaurants, we aim to arm ourselves with as much knowledge on destinations as possible so that we can share well-rounded and complete information. Of course we also do this for purely selfish reasons too.
- We understand that not everyone has unlimited time to travel. By us getting to know destinations inside and out means we can share which places are truly worthy of visiting during your valuable time off.
Our goal is to become a resource for planning travel in the USA. We want to show you all the places you can’t miss in popular tourist destinations like Los Angeles and New York City but would also like to put often overlooked destinations on your radar too like Oklahoma City and Milwaukee.
You’ll find plenty of road trip itineraries with details including distances, suggested travel time, best stops, and other practical travel tips for well-traveled routes such as Route 66 and the drive between L.A. and San Francisco along the Pacific Coast Highway.
We also share driving itineraries for less visited destinations such as southern Idaho and the Black Hills of South Dakota that will hopefully inspire you to take a road trip to places you had not contemplated visiting before.
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