Tuesday Travel Tips

I've decided to start posting a new travel section every Tuesday. I'll mostly highlight places I've been to in the past, including pictures and tips. Traveling is one of my very favorite things to do in the entire world, and if I had unlimited money I'd be traveling all the time. I worked as a travel agent for awhile when I lived in Utah, and loved it! So I thought I would have fun doing these posts and hopefully people will enjoy reading them.

A lot of my posts will be about international destinations as well as the US, but I thought I'd start out closer to home...
Crater Lake, Oregon!The pictures of this gorgeous place pretty much speak for themselves. Crater Lake is stunning! We went on a road trip from San Francisco through the Pacific Northwest for our first anniversary, when we still lived in Salt Lake City. We thought Oregon was so beautiful, all covered in forests. Crater Lake was a must-see on our list. It's located in southern Oregon, and it's the deepest lake in the United States.

Crater Lake is a National Park, so you must pay to enter it and we ended up buying a National Parks pass that was good for one whole year. It's a very good deal if you plan on visiting two or more National Parks within a year. This Park mostly consists of forests of pine trees that you drive through on your way up to the lake. We went in early June, and there was still a ton of snow! We couldn't even drive around the whole lake, because a good part of the road was still closed and covered in mounds of snow. If you want to be able to drive around the whole lake, you would probably have to go in August. But we still got to see a gorgeous view of the lake from our one viewing point, and it was very uncrowded.

If you go, make sure to take snacks and water with you and have a full tank of gas. I didn't see any food places or shops around the lake, only bathrooms. I don't think they get a ton of visitors here compared to other national parks, and as a result it's SO clean and unspoiled.

I've never seen a lake a more brilliant shade of blue than Crater Lake. Because it's far away from any large cities, there's no pollution there. I don't think anything lives in the lake, and for sure nobody is allowed to boat or swim in it. The water stays very clear all the time. Even though it's a bit out of the way, we loved our visit to Crater Lake and our entire drive through scenic Oregon. I plan to go there again someday for sure.