zion-national-park-hike

Zion National Park

On our way to Denver we stopped at the Zion National Park, which is a beautiful destination to go hiking, rock climbing, biking or just enjoying the beauty of nature.

zion-national-park-mountains

The Zion National Park is home to a huge variety of animals and plants. 68 species of mammals, 36 species of reptiles, 7 species of amphibians and 271 species of birds live side by side in a delicate ecological balance.

zion-national-park-parking-lot

You can either drive into the national park by your own vehicle or you could just park outside, take the Springdale Shuttle to the entrance of the park and use the Canyon Shuttle in the park. 

The roads the Canyon Shuttle are using is completely closed for cars and is the only way to get to the top of the canyon.

The Canyon Shuttle stops at 9 different places, where you can hike and go to beautiful viewpoints. The Angel's landing is probably the most famous trail of the Zion National Park and the view is amazing.

Impressions of our trip to the Zion National Park

 

zion-national-park-van

Waking up to another beautiful day in Zion National Park with our camper van crew ♥

zion-national-park-trail

There are so many trails to choose from in Zion National Park and the views are breathtaking

zion-national-park-ina

Zion is a photographers playground

zion-national-park-bat

LUCKY SHOT OF THE DAY!

I captured a photo of a bat completely by accident

Check out other blog posts about our USA trip here: USA ROAD TRIP

trennstrich-openmindtravelersAre you on Pinterest? PIN IT

zion-national-park-guide


krka-national-park

Krka National Park

Krka-Waterfall-National-Park-Croatia

In the morning we went into the city of Zadar to grab breakfast before heading out to Krka National Park. We sat down at a nice little Croatian restaurant where they advertised a “delicious English breakfast.” We both ended up passing on breakfast all together and ordered the Spaghetti Bolognese. I know you might be wondering, Spaghetti for breakfast? But after seeing the picture of the English breakfast I’m sure anyone would have done the same.

Towards the end of our breakfast we noticed a crowd of young people in matching shirts gathering in the streets. I wanted to know what it was all about so I asked one of the guys in the crowd. He told me the students in Croatia celebrate the end of a school year by having a food fight. The students divide themselves up into separate groups that wear different color shirts according to their class and participate in the event. By the afternoon the small food fight turned into all out war. Some students were being ambushed with flour bombs and egg launchers. I even saw a group of students armed with ketchup and mustard squirters shooting crazy into a crowd of their peers. The food fight was all in good fun and very exiting to watch. I had to dodge a few flour bombs myself while capturing the footage on my go pro. Luckily, both of us survived the battle free of any stains.

We left Zadar around noon headed for Krka National Park, the second national park of the trip. We arrived at the park shortly after 3pm when most of the visitors were on their way out. We followed the main trail which was an easy 4 kilometer hike to the big waterfall. When we finally arrived at the falls I was completely blown away. Krka’s waterfall is absolutely massive. Made up of 17 smaller waterfalls the Krka waterfall is  easily the coolest thing I’ve seen so far on our road trip. We spent about an hour swimming and relaxing around the falls before getting back on the road.

Our final stop for the day was scheduled for Split. We made it to Split around 9pm and drove around the city center looking for accommodation. I read so many great things about Split during our research of the city and wasn’t expecting to have much trouble finding a place even at such a late hour but boy was I wrong. We must have checked out a dozen places but every place we checked was either super sketch or ridiculously out of our budget. We ended up finding a small apartment 5km outside of city and called it a night.