If you haven’t seen Gabe’s video with his mad editing skills, check out the Freejourners video here. He did a rapid fire great job sharing about some of our adventures over the last 4+ years.

We are in a different chapter of life now. Sonya and I are so grateful for the adventures we went on while the kids were in a prime time of life. Now, they are in new adventures in school up here in Breckenridge, CO. They are asserting much more of their personalities and learnings in their own domains in Summit Middle School and Summit High School. All those years of homeschooling were amazing to learn, grow and be together. The name of the game now is time management and excellence at their chosen subjects and extracurriculars including track, lacrosse, cross-country, tennis and snowboarding.

Our family loves, supports and helps each other with deep passion, and for that, I am grateful.

We had an awesome summer of travels, and we saw many of you, our friends, out East as we went through different cities. It was quite different from past years of backpacking in the Sierras or trekking through Alaska.

This time we hiked around cities using trains, buses, Ubers, bikes and our two legs. We all carry GoRuck backpacks which are designed to be streamlined and ruck long distances.

These packs are military grade, lay flat for easy access and packing, and excellent for movement. We have easily one-bagged travel on planes and can hike around an entire city for a day before settling into where we will sleep. The bags are expensive, but we find they are well-worth it.

While we were in Washington D.C. for the week of July 4th, for example, we stayed at 4 different hotels over 4 different days picking different parts of the city we wanted to enjoy. It was fun to be nimble and move about with ease. We saw a lot of museums, historic sites and enjoyed fine dining in different neighborhoods. Each day, we simply packed our bags and hiked to the next place we were curious about.

The kids are older now and have been on trails all their life. This was a new adventure with technology and lightweight movement to explore large areas with our feet and iPhones.

When we were tired, we could drop into a restaurant or coffee shop to refresh, charge our phones and then regroup on what we wanted to do next.

I love spontaneity and living light, and simply hiking around urban scenes slows down the experience so we can take in more from the ground level.

We plan on more trips like this one, flying in and out of urban areas. A backpack and a whole city in front of you can make it both adventurous and convenient.

We highly recommend it! Try it with day trips around your area to see how the experience goes and keep looking for adventures as they come.