Anna Kurtz

SO MANY. For this roadtrip: Crater Lake NP. Gemstone waters in a region that is awe-inducing to drive, hike, bike, and run? SIGN ME UP. With AZ as home base, a road trip to Crater Lake would also gift the opportunity to experience a myriad of other wildly unique national parks, forests, and monuments along the way whether in-transit for rest points and meals or outside the perimeter of the park itself, which is encircled by roadways. This one has been on my list, and now it’s time!

A three-way tie. 1) roadtripping to Everglades NP with a small rowboat in tow with my parent when I was 13, as this was the first trip I had been introduced to type 2 fun; 2) checking off my final U.S. state while backcountry camping in Alaska’s Chugach State Park on the summer solstice with friends new and old; 3) resting along a stream during my partner and my final full day of thruhiking the Arizona Trail where we ultimately finished our nostalgic lunch with a proposal and a “yes!”

This money will go toward permits for getting married in a beautiful place and a family trip to Alaska in honor and memory of my parent— who could go on for hours about his love for The Last Frontier. Perhaps, finally finish and self-publish that book my grandma had always requested<3