Welcome to Amateur Adventure Journal!
This blog is about all things camping, hiking, and outdoor excursions for the everyday adventurer.
Here you can find tips and tricks as well as guides to exploring specific destinations.
You won’t find any gear reviews here or any posts about quitting your job to thru-hike for six months.
You also won’t find any reviews on the lodges or hotels in and around national parks. If pitching your tent is half the fun of your travels, then you’re in the right place.
The goal of this website is to help the amateur adventurer, the weekend warrior, the 9-5 employee get outdoors.
I hope these articles inspire you to take awesome adventures and make trip planning easier so you can spend less time researching destinations and more time experiencing them.
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About Me
Behind the Blog
Hi, I’m Laura, the writer behind Amateur Adventure Journal.
I started hiking and camping with my family as early as I can remember. We spent a lot of time in the outdoors whether it was at our local county park or national parks in other states. I’m really lucky that my parents exposed me to outdoor adventures – and how to recreate responsibly – from an early age.
As soon as I scraped together enough money, I bought all my own gear and never looked back. A summer hasn’t passed since then that I didn’t sleep in my tent at least once.
I’ve since explored the outdoors all over the United States – including about 20 national parks – with more trips always in the works.
My obsession with the outdoors really kicked into overdrive when I moved from the Midwest to Seattle in 2017. I camped my way across the country in Badlands National Park, Wind Cave National Park, Devils Tower, Yellowstone National Park, and Glacier National Park.
Living in Seattle unlocked endless opportunities to explore the great outdoors. I spent a lot of my free time hiking and camping (rain or shine!) in western Washington, Washington’s 3 spectacular national parks, and throughout the Pacific Northwest. (Read more about my favorite Washington hikes.)
My journey to launching Amateur Adventure Journal began in 2020. During the coronavirus pandemic lockdowns I consumed a lot of media about hiking and the outdoors. I noticed that all of the videos and podcasts that I found were about epic thru-hikes. As someone who has never even gone backpacking, I realized that I would probably never embark on these grand adventures I was learning about.
I decided that I wanted to create content about outdoor excursions that was geared toward the everyday adventurer – hence the name, Amateur Adventure Journal.
Whenever I’m stuck inside I’m most likely plotting my next hike or camping trip. So keep checking back to see where my next adventure takes me!
My Outdoor Bucket List
This is an ongoing bucket list, so keep checking back to see which trips I’ve completed and which new trips have been added!
- Acadia National Park
- Badlands National Park ✓
- Bikepack from Pittsburgh to DC
- Crater Lake National Park ✓
- Denali National Park
- Glacier National Park ✓
- Grand Canyon National Park ✓
- Isle Royale National Park
- Joshua Tree National Park ✓
- Kings Canyon National Park ✓
- Lake Tahoe
- Mount Rainier National Park ✓
- North Cascades National Park ✓
- Olympic National Park ✓
- Redwood National Park ✓
- Rocky Mountain National Park ✓
- San Juan Islands, WA ✓
- Sequoia National Park ✓
- Shenandoah National Park ✓
- Yellowstone National Park ✓
- Yosemite National Park ✓
- Zion National Park
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