Anna has travelled to the USA on many occasions and the South West seems to have a certain pull for her. Suffice to say she has a bit of a love affair with the country. Her first trip out there was back in 1991 on a RV holiday with her parents. As an awkward teenager, her memories of the holiday include watching a rodeo, visiting Bryce Canyon, her first desert experience and seeing coyotes at Grand Canyon.

Over a decade later (and a couple of trips to New York & California in the meantime) she was back. This time it was as a backpacker, exploring the area on a shoe string with her husband. Visiting in the depths of winter, they saw Bryce Canyon and Zion covered in snow before trying to view the Grand Canyon (it was clouded in a large blizzard) and then finishing off the trip in Vegas.

She couldn’t stay away from the US for long, and the offer of a house swap lured her to the East Coast of America, to Savannah, where she and her family spent a happy month exploring Georgia and South Carolina.

She has long been lobbying to return back to the South West to re-visit some of her favourite places and to fulfil an ambition of a life time and do a multi-day white water rafting trip on the Colorado River.  So in 2013 she returned to America again to research and develop these itineraries for us. Having visited with her parents and husband on previous occasions, it only seemed fitting for her to take her own daughter who would be a much-needed travelling companion on those long road trips and also the most discerning inspector of hotels. Alex, who was 7 at the time of the trip, can now claim to be the youngest human every to have passed through the slot canyon they visited in Escalante and has also been sworn in as a junior ranger of the Grand Canyon.

This latest trip to America has fuelled Anna’s love for all things American. She loved the rafting, the slot canyoning, the hiking, the views and the micro-breweries. Alex loved the rafting, hiking in the Grand Canyon and the water park in Las Vegas the best (as well as the milkshakes). You can read more about their recommendations and tips here.

Before.......

After....