2020 Travels: Pivoted Plans and 6-Week Road Trip in New Mexico

We were on the road a lot during 2020. It was our first (and at present, only) full year of travel.

We covered 9,532 miles, went on (at least) 22 different hikes, explored 10 National Parks, and made 16 different towns and cities our home for anywhere from 1 to 60 days.

Along the way, we took a spontaneous 6-week road trip through New Mexico and fully established our favorite way to travel: The Road Trip Local Way. (But more on that to come!)

Our Year of Full-Time Travel

In 2019, Jonathan got his first remote / work-from-home (WFH) job, making both of us “location-flexible” (I’d been working from home for about 4 years). This opened up a new way of traveling where, up until this point, vacations and adventures were largely limited to week-long trips.

In theory, travel for us until this point looked like: fly to a new place, explore for a week or two, then head home until the next year. (In reality? We didn’t take a true week-long vacation between our honeymoon in June 2017 and July 2021. We took a few days off here and there, but never more than a day or two consecutively.)

So, being able to work remotely got us thinking about extended trips. We’ve got a dog who expects to tagalong everywhere, so road trips seemed the most realistic, and we experimented with our first adventures in late 2019: a week-long road trip to Virginia Beach, VA, then a two-week road trip to North Carolina. (We spent one week in Raleigh and one week in Asheville.)

We loved it. We got to see friends, explore cities we’d wanted to visit, and hike after work, making us - and our pup, Lincoln - happy.

So, for 2020, we decided to take things up a notch with one full year of travel!

2020 Travel Plans

We rang in the New Year in a city we used to live: Houston, Texas. Then, we took a 9-day trip to Dallas to watch a whole bunch of basketball games.

After that, we spent one night in Scranton, PA (any Office fans here?!), two weeks in Connecticut (which wouldn’t be complete without attempting the “world’s largest indoor ropes course” — inside a furniture store in New Haven, CT - or popping over to Massachusetts for a trip to the basketball hall of fame), one week in Ohio visiting family, and one month in a city we’d forever wanted to visit (and even thought about moving to a few years prior), Charlotte, NC. Spoiler: We loved Charlotte. Can’t wait to go back. And still think we might end up there one day!

From there, we planned the rest of our year…

We’d spend one month in Virginia Beach visiting friends, one month in Richmond, Virginia doing the same, 2.5 weeks in Europe (Alesund, Paris, London, Scotland, and Amsterdam would be our stops), one month in Canada (Calgary to visit Banff and Jasper National Park), a week here and there in various U.S. cities including Salt Lake City, Vegas, Denver, and Sedona, one month in San Diego, and finally a week in Taos, NM.

By February 2020, we had made plans through October as we were leaving Charlotte and heading to Virginia Beach.

And then, as we all know, things changed, and our planned year of travel was largely canceled.

What 2020 Actually Looked Like

Map created by Atlas.co

Instead of stays to visit friends and international trips, we stayed stateside and found ourselves extending our stay in Virginia Beach by one month, then found a place to stay in the woods of Bryson City, NC (a dream mountain cabin!!) for two months before heading to stay with family in Maryland.

At the end of September, we decided to attempt more traveling with short stays in Lenoir City, Dallas, and at a Llama Ranch & Rescue (!!!) outside of Houston before embarking on a spontaneous 6-week road trip through New Mexico.

Spoiler: In our opinion, New Mexico is HIGHLY underrated as a travel destination. Can’t wait to show you our 6-week New Mexico road trip itinerary below! Plan your own New Mexico Road Trip here.

On our way back from New Mexico to the East Coast for holidays with family, we made a pit stop in New Orleans for a week of beignets.

As we were completing our year of pivoted travels, we realized two things: (1) We love traveling and being on the road; There’s so much to see in the US, but (2) Traveling full-time wasn’t sustainable for us.

So by the end of 2020, we found ourselves settling into two distinct seasons for our lives: (1) The Basketball Season and (2) The Travel Season. You can read more about that and our 2021 road trip - 3.5 months through Colorado and Utah - here!

A 6-Week Road Trip through New Mexico

I can’t remember exactly why we picked New Mexico. It wasn’t on either one of our lists as a must-do-soon travel area, and there wasn’t necessarily anything in New Mexico that was drawing our attention in a big way.

Nonetheless, we were looking for something to get us excited about traveling again after canceling so many itineraries, and I think it was Jonathan who first showed me White Sands National Park. From there, I was sold. (Do a quick scroll to look at the below photos and you’ll see why!)

So, we packed up our car for 6 weeks to explore as much of New Mexico as we could. We’d spend a long weekend in Las Cruces, one week in Carlsbad, one month in Angel Fire, and one week in Albuquerque.

Stop #1: Las Cruces

We were in Las Cruces at the very end of September. We wanted to visit White Sands National Park, the Organ Mountains, and of course, Lincoln National Forest. (I say, of course, because our dog’s name is Lincoln and yes, we are those dog parents!)

The top left photo is White Sands, the top middle is an early morning hike in the Organ Mountains, and the top right is Lincoln posing in front of her forest. The bottom three photos are of White Sands National Park - we went twice, once in the morning and once during midday (when we hiked the Alkali Flat Trail then stayed to watch sunset). One of my favorite places on Earth and gorgeous all day long!

Stop #2: Carlsbad

Along our tour of New Mexico, we wanted to see two other national parks: Carlsbad Caverns National Park and Guadalupe Mountains National Park (the latter of which is actually in Texas, but only about 30 minutes from Carlsbad Caverns). So, we spent our next week in Carlsbad, planning trips to the National Parks and Roswell 👽

Stop #3: Angel Fire, New Mexico

During our month in Angel Fire, we were staying off-season at a ski resort. It was mountain biking season, so the weekends were busy with mountain bikers but the weekdays were quiet and we had the mountain - and its trails - to ourselves.

This made for some amazing after-work hikes, and all the time to snap pictures of New Mexico’s gorgeous fall foliage! Northern New Mexico gets a picturesque fall with the most beautiful golden aspen trees.

During our month in Angel Fire, when the mountain bikers came to town, we took many day trips to other parts of the state including: hiking the Alamos Vista Trail in Santa Fe National Forest, driving the Enchanted Circle Scenic Byway and High Road to Taos, and visiting the Rio Grange Gorge Bridge, Valles Caldera, and Bandelier National Monument (complete with a 140’ vertical ladder climb to the Alcove House).

We even enjoyed one day of snow in Angel Fire, and I captured one of my favorite Lincoln pictures of all time. (Hit the back button and check out the header image for this post.)

Stop #4: Albuquerque

Albuquerque was not on our original roadtrip itinerary and instead was a last-minute addition. We originally planned to head back home for the holidays at the end of October, after our stay in Angel Fire, but we weren’t quite ready to leave New Mexico.

So we booked an extra week in Albuquerque to explore Downtown, Old Town, Sandia Peak Tramway, and Petroglyph National Monument.

Where to next?

We loved our road trip through New Mexico, and I think this trip really solidified the road trip style of travel for us. We realized there’s so much to see (that we could get to by car), and we love going “all-in” on a state/area before moving on. We love having time to find hidden gems, local hotspots, and less popular adventures (in addition to typical touristy things because we love that, too).

After six weeks in New Mexico, we made our way back home to the East Coast with pitstops in Dallas and New Orleans. We ate beignets (lots of them), walked around the city before and after work, and spent Thanksgiving Day eating gumbo before spotting alligators at Jean Lafitte National Historical Park and Preserve.

Fun fact: We decided to stop in NOLA on our way home for the holidays simply because we wanted to eat beignets. That was one of those fun travel moments when we realized: this is how we make decisions now, and we wouldn’t have it any other way!

Then in December 2020, we moved to Dallas and started planning for our first official Travel Season the following year: a 3.5-month road trip through Colorado and Utah. See our itinerary and roadtrip route here!

What about you? What’s your favorite road trip or the next on your list?

We’re always looking for inspiration, and would love to hear about your adventures too! What’s the best road trip you’ve ever taken (and why), or what’s an upcoming trip you can’t wait to schedule? Please share with us in the comments below!

Save this itinerary for a future road trip!

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