TOP 5 STATES FOR ADVENTURERS & OUTDOOR ENTHUSIASTS!

The United States is probably one of the most diverse countries in the world. It has literally absolutely everything and I feel super blessed to live here. So jumping right in, in this video I want to go over my top 5 favorite states in the United States for adventurers and for outdoor enthusiasts, people that just love nature, love being outdoors in the mountains, in the forest, wherever it may be. Over the years I've probably done about 10 cross-country road trips. I've put in a lot, a lot of miles across the states. Most of the states that I've been to, I've been to many, many times. There's so many amazing places here and there's just endless amounts to explore. But in this video I want to be going over my top 5 states specifically for adventurers and outdoor enthusiasts, people that love hiking, climbing, backpacking, trekking, all that good stuff. And I might be a little bit biased just because I am a photographer, so I definitely am a sucker for some scenic views. And nothing against any other states in the country, but just in my opinion for all the states that I have been to, these are my top 5. First up is California. And California is super interesting because I think if you talk about California to some people, their first thoughts kind of flock to Los Angeles, San Francisco, stuff like that. But California has so many hidden gems. It has tons of national parks, natural forests. It has the tallest mountain in the lower 48, that's Mount Whitney in Alabama Hills, which is kind of on the east side of Sequoia National Park. There's amazing places like Lake Tahoe with just like this pristine crystal clear aqua blue water. There's honestly just endless amounts to explore. There's tons of hiking. There's tons of backpacking. Places like Alabama Hills and Yosemite and Joshua Tree are some of the biggest places in the world for climbing, both bouldering and sport climbing. There's just so many amazing places to explore in California. And I think it's definitely underrated because I feel like a lot of people that first visit the state will go to Venice Beach, Santa Monica, stuff like that, the Golden Gate Bridge. But there's just so much more to it. All right, next up is Montana. And Montana definitely has a sweet spot in my heart because my favorite national park in the entire country is in northern Montana. It's Glacier National Park. And although in my opinion, Glacier is kind of the hotspot for Montana, and that's where I, in my opinion, the best places are, there's tons of other places around the state to explore. Lots of big waterfalls, lots of hiking, a lot of trad climbing, a lot of canyons, tons and tons of just greenery. It's a nice big open state, which is awesome. And then in Glacier National Park, although the rock is kind of loose, there's tons and tons of great hikes. You can summit pretty much any peak there. And this cool spot is called Altamine. And Bree actually found it on Google Earth as we were road tripping. So we made like an hour detour to shoot there. Super beautiful. We've never seen it before. So that was pretty cool. And then this lake, I think this is about two hours south of Glacier. Just, we were just driving past this road and there was these crazy, crazy reflections on this lake. And it was so cool. This is one of my favorite hikes in the state. This is Grinnell Glacier. It's about a 10 to 12 mile hike, I think, round trip. It's kind of grueling, but I was actually surprised. There's a ton of people on it, which is pretty cool. All right, next up, number three is Utah. And Utah probably is the most diverse state in the whole country. There's sand dunes, there's canyons, there's arches, there's deserts, there's snow-capped mountains in the north. There's salt flats, there's the Great Salt Lake. Utah just has endless amounts to explore. It's probably my favorite state to add to any road trip, just because no matter where you are in the state, there are so many things to do. And it's pretty cool, too, because Utah has a lot of national parks in the state. I think there's about five or so, not including National Forest or anything like that. And they're all incredible. But I think a lot of people, since there are so many national parks here to explore, I think people sometimes underestimate the state parks, the national forests, and just kind of some places that don't fall into any specific region. There's just so many cool things to explore that go well beyond just the typical national parks and the hot spots. But I don't want to discredit the national parks because they are freaking awesome. And in kind of central Utah, it's just like the whole Badlands region. And there's just so much diversity and probably the coolest rock formations I've seen ever. There's a lot of places where if you just look around, you just feel like you're on planet Mars. All these cool patterns, these cool colors in the rock, and just not a soul around. All right, so next up, number four is Washington. And Washington is in the northwest corner of the United States. And this is located kind of in the heart of the Pacific Northwest. There's massive mountains. There's abandoned mega bridges. There's massive tulip blooms. It's definitely kind of a moody state when it comes to weather, at least. It rains a lot up in Washington. But nonetheless, there's just so much beauty to the state. And I've only actually been lucky enough to go once in my life. But it was amazing. I think we spent about a week kind of exploring the coast. And then we made our way up to Seattle and then down to kind of like the southeast corner to this spot, Palouse Falls. And I honestly just can't wait to go back because some of the northern coast, I didn't get time to kind of see everything I wanted to. And there's a few national parks and a few regions of mountains in the state that I haven't seen at all. So the footage you're seeing is just from the places I have been to, which already shows some amazing places that are in Washington. But I definitely can't wait to get back to the state and explore some more. All right, last but not least, number five is Wyoming. And I've definitely passed through Wyoming a few times while road tripping. It's a beautiful, beautiful state. The main places I have been to in Wyoming are Yellowstone, Jackson Hole, Grand Teton, and kind of just the in-betweens of driving through the state. But there are definitely a lot of spots in Wyoming that I have missed. One, for example, I really want to go to the Pinedale area and kind of the Wind River Range. It looks like an amazing mountain range and an amazing place to explore with tons of great hiking. But the Grand Tetons and Yellowstone themselves are really awesome because it's a place in the United States, just kind of in the middle of nowhere. It's just pretty central. But the Grand Teton skyline is so cool because just these crazy jaggedy peaks and everywhere you look, there's these big, beautiful, pristine lakes. There's buffalo. It's all this awesome stuff. You just can't get many views like this with such jagged peaks really in many other places in the states. So it's a super special place. And not to mention, Yellowstone is one of the most unique places in the country. It is the geothermal hot spot to the United States. It has the mega volcano. There's Old Faithful, Grand Prismatic. There's a bunch of waterfalls in Yellowstone. It's a really, really cool place. Driving through, you'll just see kind of like clouds of smoke everywhere. It's a really unique place. Anyways, I hope you guys enjoyed this little top five for the United States. There's some amazing places to explore. And hopefully, you'll be able to add some of these to your bucket list.