How Winning a $15k Prize From T+L Led Me to Buy an RV and Visit 20 National Parks Around the U.S.

The white was blindingly bright against the blue, cloudless sky. But it wasn’t fresh snowfall; we were in the desert of New Mexico. It was gypsum—undulating dunes of gypsum sand, one after the other, stretching across the horizon. We were in White Sands National Park.

The sun appeared gold on a distant spire. It could have been a golden temple in Thailand, but it was a distant mountain glowing at dusk. We were in Death Valley National Park. 

The trees dripped. The ocean below heaved. But it was quiet under the redwoods, their girth dwarfing our truck and trailer. We’d driven to Redwood National Park in northern California on the road trip of a lifetime. 

White Sands, Death Valley, Redwood—we visited 20 U.S. national parks and monuments on an 11,000-mile, two-month journey through southern and western America. And we have Travel + Leisure to thank for it.

I entered T+L’s World’s Best Awards survey by rating hotels we’d stayed at in Singapore and Thailand. Then, I forgot about it. Months later, I received an email saying I might have won a prize. I thought it was a scam. But it wasn’t: I had won $15,000. I thought, what could I do with $15,000? I could take a trip. In 48 years of marriage, we’d traveled to Europe, the Caribbean, Hawaii, Mexico, Canada, Thailand, and China. We’d been to resorts and on cruises. But other than the Grand Canyon, I’d never been to the national parks. It had to be a road trip, and it required a traveling “home,” a recreational vehicle.

The prize money from T+L helped us buy Rosie, a small camping trailer named for her likeness to the robot maid in The Jetsons. She had everything we needed: a queen-sized bed, a diminutive kitchen with a dinette, and a bathroom just big enough for Superman to change in.

We left our home in Grand Rapids, Michigan, on Nov. 25, 2024. Our first national park was the smallest one: Gateway Arch in St. Louis, Missouri. We took the ratcheting little elevator up to the top of the world’s tallest arch at 630 feet. The view from above St. Louis was pretty, but I found the one from below, at the base of the stainless-steel monument designed by Eero Saarinen, to be even better.

We spent Thanksgiving near Oklahoma City, and had steak, eating local, instead of turkey.

After a long drive following Route 66 through Texas and New Mexico, we visited Petrified Forest National Park in Arizona. Entire trees, some 200 feet tall, left where they fell in the Painted Desert more than 200 million years ago, are now crystalline.

Entering Death Valley National Park, we stopped at the first overlook, Zabriskie Point. The view was shocking: miles and miles of rock—mudstone badlands—filling the horizon. People were scrabbling over these enormous piles far off in the distance.

It was just before Christmas, and The Inn at Death Valley, a restored adobe compound set in a desert-oasis garden, was decorated with pinyon pine. Frank Sinatra’s voice, singing Christmas songs, wafted in the air.

From our first view of El Capitan and Half Dome, Yosemite felt big—big sky, big climbs, big views. The valley is ringed by monumental granite walls, made famous by photographer Ansel Adams. On our second night, we visited The Ahwahnee hotel for dinner. Walking into the dining room, we were overwhelmed by the height of the windows at one end and the timbered ceiling beams above us. When we left Yosemite, snow was just starting to fall.

Our last national park before the holidays was the Redwood. It was wet with rain, but silent under the protection of the big trees. We hiked quietly through the park, the only sounds the squishing of our shoes and the dripping of water onto our heads.

In January, we visited Sequoia National Park, California wine country, and Palm Springs, followed by Joshua Tree and Saguaro national parks. In Carlsbad Caverns, we walked 750 feet down into the earth, met at every turn with calcite formations.

Big Bend National Park is in the southwest corner of Texas, along the Rio Grande. It’s one of the biggest and most remote national parks, with 1,250 square miles that includes the Chihuahuan Desert, the Chisos Mountains, and spectacular river canyons. We hiked Santa Elena Canyon, its sheer walls rising in Mexico barely a stone’s throw away.

Our last park was a national parkway, the Natchez Trace, which follows an ancient trail used by Native Americans and explorers such as Daniel Boone, from Natchez, Mississippi, to Memphis, Tennessee. We hiked parts of the Sunken Trace, a portion so deeply worn down that its walls can reach up to 15 feet above the trail.

We arrived back in Michigan on Feb. 1, 2025. Rosie is now in storage, waiting for the next adventure. And I am itching to get back out again. The national parks restored in me a childlike sense of wonder. Every day brought something new to see.

You should go. And when you see the next T+L contest, enter it. You might be surprised by what happens next.