GossSquatch Outdoor Adventures

Anastasia State Park is a great park close to the sights in the nation's oldest continuous city, St. Augustine, Florida . It's a great home base for swimming, hiking, and exploring ancient wonders. The park sits on Anastasia Island and covers about 1,600 acres of beach, tidal marsh, maritime forest, and ancient dunes. Locals call it South Beach, and the state has owned it since 1949. What makes it special is the quarry. This is where the Spaniards dug the stone to build the Castillo de San Marcos . The park itself comes down to a few hiking trails, a campground, and a beach. Small, but it doesn't act like it. The Park Hiking, camping, swimming, or just standing outside on purpose: this small but mighty park has you covered. Hiking The park has a network of trails, and four of them are worth your time. The Coquina Quarry Trail is a short walk to the old mine where the Spaniards pulled the rock for the Castillo de San Marcos. Workers were hauling blocks out of ...

One of the areas we explored in great detail on our first cross-country trip as a family was the Black Hills of South Dakota . Looking at the map, I started with the Badlands, mostly because that's where I could get camping reservations. Then I found Wind Cave and thought a cave sounded cool. From there I realized this was also where Mount Rushmore lives, and I accidentally stumbled onto Custer State Park. Planning by accident: highly recommended, would not do it again. This short trip didn't even scratch the surface. There is so much more I could have done. Fair warning: the Black Hills are a lot like my jokes. You'll find them everywhere, and somehow there's always one more. In this article I'm laying out the places worth your time: what each stop is, which of my posts go deeper, and which tours and trails to pick. Don't think of this as a fully packaged tour. Think of it as the menu for your own adventure, and I promise the puns are all-you-can-eat. In ...