2025 theme parks

Not sure what it says about us that it’s worthwhile to have a summary post about theme parks, but here we are.

Again, you can also see the attractions from 2024, 2023, 2022, and 2021. And you can see all of the attraction-related blog posts via the exploring category, with the earliest posts at the top, or the latest posts at the top, or more specifically the theme park category (with earliest or latest posts at the top).

Disney World: Animal Kingdom:

Posed photo

Disney World: Magic Kingdom After Dark:

Posed photo in front of the castle

Disney World: Hollywood Studios:

Posed photo

Disney World: Hollywood Studios After Dark:

Muppet area

Disney World: Epcot:

Epcot

Disney World: Magic Kingdom:

Castle

Disney World: Epcot After Dark:

Spaceship Earth globe

Disneyland halloween[This link won’t work until later.]

Castle

Disney California Adventure halloween[This link won’t work until later.]

Halloween decorations

Disneyland Christmas[This link won’t work until later.]

It's a Small World

Disney California Adventure Christmas[This link won’t work until later.]

Christmas tree

Fun times.

2025 parks and museums

In the previous post I covered the National Parks we visited in 2025, but we also visited many National Monuments and other National Park Service units, plus state parks, museums, and such. So this post summarizes those.

Again, you can also see the attractions from 2024, 2023, 2022, and 2021. And you can see all of the attraction-related blog posts via the exploring category, with the earliest posts at the top, or the latest posts at the top, or more specifically the park category (with earliest or latest posts at the top), and the museum category (with earliest or latest posts at the top).

Florida’s Forgotten Coast:

St Marks Lighthouse

Seeing hundreds of manatees at Three Sisters Springs in Florida:

Manatees

Rainbow Springs State Park headsprings:

Waterfall long exposure

Weeki Wachee Springs State Park:

Mermaid show

Crooked River State Park trails:

Tortoise

Driftwood Beach:

Driftwood Beach

Fort Frederica National Monument:

Reenactor

Fort Sumter National Historical Park:

Fort Sumter selfie

Fort Moultrie National Historical Park:

Fort

Colonial Williamsburg:

Palace

Cape May Lighthouse:

Cape May Lighthouse

Hershey’s Chocolate World:

Hershey's Chocolate Tour

Hopewell Furnace National Historic Site:

Visitor center

Independence National Historical Park:

Liberty Bell Center

Hershey Gardens:

Butterfly atrium

St Clair River and Lake Huron:

Lake Huron

Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore:

Steep dune and Lake Michigan

Niagara Falls: Cave of the Winds:

Niagara Falls

Niagara Falls: Maid of the Mist:

Horseshoe Falls

Niagara Falls: viewpoints:

Horseshoe Falls

Old Fort Niagara:

Fort

Marsh-Billings-Rockefeller National Historical Park:

Marsh-Billings-Rockefeller Mansion

Fort Williams Park & Portland Head Light:

Portland Head Light

Salem Maritime National Historic Site:

Building

Cape Cod National Seashore:

Highland Lighthouse

Boston National Historical Park:

The Freedom Trail

USS Constitution:

USS Constitution

Keweenaw Peninsula of the Upper Peninsula of Michigan:

Eagle Harbor lighthouse

Iron Mountain and Needles drive:

More tunnels

Gordon Stockade:

Stockade

Custer Wildlife Loop drive:

Buffalo

Klondike Gold Rush National Historical Park:

Klondike Gold Rush

Some fascinating places.

2025 National Parks

One of the main reasons for traveling the United States in a motorhome is to explore the many wonders around the country.

This is a summary of the National Parks we visited in 2025. You can also see the attractions from 2024, 2023, 2022, and 2021.

As with the previous summaries, I’ll include a link to the corresponding blog post, and a sample picture. Click or tap the link or picture to see more.

You can see all of the attraction-related blog posts via the exploring category, with the earliest posts at the top, or the latest posts at the top, or more specifically the national park category (with earliest or latest posts at the top).

We visited 5 new National Parks in 2025 (plus revisited several), for a total of 52 so far of the 63 total National Parks. We have visited all of the National Parks in the contiguous states; a major milestone! Just those in Alaska, Hawaii, and American Samoa to go.

Cuyahoga Valley National Park: visitor centers:

Boston Mill Visitor Center

Cuyahoga Valley National Park: Brandywine Falls:

Waterfall

Cuyahoga Valley National Park Scenic Railroad: Vamos Vino Grape Escape:

Selfie

Acadia National Park: east loop:

Thunder Hole

Acadia National Park: west loop:

Bass Harbor Light Station

Acadia National Park: Cadillac Mountain sunrise:

Cadillac Mountain

Acadia National Park: Schoodic Peninsula:

Schoodic Education and Research Center

Indiana Dunes National Park:

Visitor center

Isle Royale National Park:

Float plane

Voyageurs National Park: Lake Kabetogama and Ash River:

Beaver Pond Overlook Trail

Voyageurs National Park: Rainy Lake Grand Tour:

Little American Island

Wind Cave National Park:

Wind Cave

Yellowstone Canyon area:

Grand Canyon of Yellowstone

Yellowstone Norris area:

Norris Geyser Basin

Yellowstone Midway area:

Fountain Paint Pots

Yellowstone Lamar Valley area:

Bison in Lamar Valley

Yellowstone Old Faithful area:

Black Sand Basin

Grand Teton National Park:

Grand Teton National Park

Yellowstone Artists Paintpots area:

Artusts' Paintpots

Joshua Tree Hidden Valley Nature Trail hike[This link won’t work until later.]

Hidden Valley Nature Trail

Several nice parks.

2025 campgrounds

Another interesting summary of 2025 — the places we stayed during the year. See also the posts for 2024, 2023, 2022, and 2021.

You can also see all of these summary posts together via the Campgrounds Summary tag, with the earliest posts at the top, or the latest posts at the top.

For each location, I’ve included a link to the corresponding blog post, so you can click through to see a lot more information, and a picture of our site.

You can also see all of the campground-related blog posts via the campsite category, with the earliest posts at the top, or the latest posts at the top.

Read to the end for some sneak peeks of places we stayed that I haven’t yet posted about!

Rainbow Springs State Park:

Our site

Thousand Trails Orlando RV Resort:

Our site

Disney’s Fort Wilderness Campground:

Our site

Thousand Trails Orlando RV Resort:

Our site

Thousand Trails Peace River:

Our site

Crooked River State Park:

Our site

James Island County Park:

Our site

Holly Point Campground – Falls Lake SRA:

Our site

Emporia / I-95 KOA:

Our site

Thousand Trails Chesapeake Bay:

Our site

Cherry Hill Park:

Our site

Thousand Trails Lake & Shore:

Our site

Thousand Trails Hershey RV Campground:

Our site

West Branch State Park:

Our site

Thousand Trails St Clair:

Our site

Traverse City KOA Holiday:

Our site

Shipshewana Campground – South Park:

Our site

Punderson State Park Campground:

Our site

Four Mile Creek State Park:

Our site

Cooperstown KOA Journey:

Our site

Quechee Pine Valley Campground:

Our site

Thousand Trails Moody Beach:

Our site

Narrows Too Camping Resort:

Our site

Normandy Farms Family Camping Resort:

Our site

New York City North / Newburgh KOA Holiday:

Our site

The Bellefonte Campground:

Our site

Mountain Top Campground:

Our site

Olive Branch Campground:

Our site

Scottsburg Raintree Lake KOA Holiday:

Our site

Indiana Dunes State Park:

Our site

HWH Corporation:

Our site

Milton KOA Holiday:

Our site

Kewaunee RV & Campground:

Our site

Hancock City Park:

Our site

Cloquet / Duluth KOA Journey:

Our site

The Pines of Kabetogama Resort:

Our site

Minneapolis Northwest KOA Journey:

Our site

Mitchell KOA Journey:

Our site

Custer’s Gulch RV Park:

Our site

Buffalo KOA Journey:

Our site

Fishing Bridge RV Park, Yellowstone National Park:

Our site

Jim & Mary’s RV Park:

Our site

Ephrata RV Park & Campground:

Our site

Our Washington home:

Our coach at home

Portland Fairview RV Park:

Our site

Sutherlin/Umpqua Valley KOA Holiday:

Our site

Red Bluff KOA Journey:

Our site

Thousand Trails San Benito:

Our site

Bakersfield KOA Journey: [post coming later]

Our site

Golden Shore RV Resort: [post coming later]

Our site

We camped in lots of places in New Zealand at this point, but I’ll summarize those sometime after I’ve published the blog posts about them.

Orangeland RV Park: [post coming later]

Our site

Thousand Trails Palm Springs: [post coming later]

Our site

Lots of interesting (and not so interesting) places to stay last year.

2025 travel days

An interesting summary of our RV travel days in 2025. Here are links to blog posts, and a sample picture of the view of each, so you can see how the landscape changed as we traveled in our coach. Previous years posts are 2024, 2023, 2022, and 2021.

You can also see all of these summary posts together via the Travel Summary tag, with the earliest posts at the top, or the latest posts at the top.

You can see all of the travel-related blog posts via the travel category, with the earliest posts at the top, or the latest posts at the top.

Read to the end for some sneak peeks of places we went that I haven’t yet posted about!

Travel from Carrabelle to Dunnellon, Florida:

Toading up at Ho-Hum RV Park

Travel from Dunnellon to Clermont, Florida:

Welcome to Florida's Turnpike, The Less Stressway

Travel from Clermont to Disney World, Florida:

Entering Walt Disney World

Travel from Disney World to Clermont, Florida:

Welcome

Travel from Clermont to Wauchula, Florida:

Paladin on the dash

Travel from Wauchula, Florida to Saint Marys, Georgia:

Thank you for visiting Florida

Travel from Saint Marys, Georgia to Charleston, South Carolina:

Welcome to South Carolina

Travel from Charleston, South Carolina to Wake Forest, North Carolina:

South of the Border

Travel from Wake Forest, North Carolina to Emporia, Virginia:

Welcome to Virginia

Travel from Emporia to Gloucester, Virginia:

Bridge over James River

Travel from Gloucester, Virginia to College Park, Maryland:

Maryland Welcomes You

Travel from College Park, Maryland to Ocean View, New Jersey:

Fort McHenry Tunnel under the Baltimore harbor

Travel from Ocean View, New Jersey to Lebanon, Pennsylvania:

St John the Baptist church

Travel from Lebanon, Pennsylvania to Ravenna, Ohio:

Tunnels

Travel from Ravenna, Ohio to St Clair, Michigan:

Welcome to Pure Michigan

Travel from St Clair to Buckley, Michigan:

Flint Strong

Travel from Buckley, Michigan to Shipshewana, Indiana:

More to Discover in Indiana

Travel from Shipshewana, Indiana to Newbury, Ohio:

Amish

Travel from Newbury, Ohio to Youngstown, New York:

Welcome to Pennsylvania

Travel from Youngstown to Richfield Springs, New York:

Bridge

Travel from Richfield Springs, New York to White River Junction, Vermont:

Welcome to Vermont

Travel from White River Junction, Vermont to Wells, Maine:

Maine state line on Piscataqua River bridge

Travel from Wells to Trenton, Maine:

Service plaza

Travel from Trenton, Maine to Foxboro, Massachusetts:

Massachusetts Welcomes You

Travel from Foxboro, Massachusetts to Plattekill, New York:

East Hartford

Travel from Plattekill, New York to Bellefonte, Pennsylvania:

More patches than road

Travel from Bellefonte to Tarentum, Pennsylvania:

New Bethlehem

Travel from Tarentum, Pennsylvania to Oregonia, Ohio:

Welcome to Ohio

Travel from Oregonia, Ohio to Lebanon, Tennessee:

Entering Central Time Zone

Travel from Lebanon, Tennessee to Scottsburg, Indiana:

Bridges in Louisville

Travel from Scottsburg to Chesterton, Indiana:

Interesting bridge

Travel from Chesterton, Indiana to Moscow, Iowa:

Welcome to Iowa

Travel from Moscow, Iowa to Milton, Wisconsin:

Iowa 80 truck stop

Travel from Milton to Kewaunee, Wisconsin:

Kewaunee

Travel from Kewaunee, Wisconsin to Hancock, Michigan:

Welcome to Pure Michigan

Travel from Hancock, Michigan to Cloquet, Minnesota:

Wisconsin Welcomes You

Travel from Cloquet to Kabetogama, Minnesota:

Saunas

Travel from Kabetogama to Maple Grove, Minnesota:

Paddler

Travel from Maple Grove, Minnesota to Mitchell, South Dakota:

Welcome to South Dakota

Travel from Mitchell to Custer, South Dakota:

Dignity of Earth and Sky

Travel from Custer, South Dakota to Buffalo, Wyoming:

Welcome to Wyoming

Travel from Buffalo to Yellowstone National Park, Wyoming:

Interesting rocks

Travel from Yellowstone National Park, Wyoming to Missoula, Montana:

Madison River

Travel from Missoula, Montana to Ephrata, Washington:

Clark Fork River

Travel from Ephrata to Shelton, Washington:

I-90 West Vantage Bridge

Travel from Shelton, Washington to Fairview, Oregon:

Welcome to Oregon

Travel from Fairview to Eugene, Oregon:

Paladin getting off the dash as we get back on the freeway

Travel from Eugene to Sutherlin, Oregon:

I-5

Travel from Sutherlin, Oregon to Red Bluff, California:

Mount Shasta

Travel from Red Bluff to Paicines, California:

San Luis Reservoir

Travel from Paicines to Bakersfield, California: [post coming later]

San Luis Reservoir

Travel from Bakersfield to Long Beach, California: [post coming later]

Downhill

Travel from Long Beach to Northridge, California: [post coming later]

The Goodyear blimp coming in for a landing

We traveled around New Zealand at this point, but I’ll summarize those sometime after I’ve published the blog posts about them.

Travel from Northridge to Orange, California: [post coming later]

A pickup carrying half a car

Travel from Orange to Palm Desert, California: [post coming later]

Entrance

That’s a lot of travel!

2025 travel route

Let’s look back at our coach travel in 2025. You may also want to check out the travel summaries from 2024, 2023, 2022, and 2021.

You can also see all of these summary posts together via the Route Summary tag, with the earliest posts at the top, or the latest posts at the top.

We bought our 2017 Tiffin Allegro Bus 40SP diesel pusher motorhome in September 2021, and other than a few times when we’ve been out of it during servicing appointments or flying vacations, we’ve lived in it full-time since then.

When we bought the coach, it only had 5,161 miles on the odometer. In 2021 we drove it about 2,300 miles. In 2022 we drove another 8,772 miles. In 2023 we added 9,945 miles. In 2024 we went much further, 12,248 miles. In 2025 we reversed the upward trend, with “only” 11,524 miles. So we have driven our coach 44,789 miles on our adventures so far, for a grand total of 49,950 on the odometer. (The circumference of the Earth at the equator is 24,901 miles, so we’ve effectively driven it twice around the world!)

One of our goals is to visit every state in the US:

  • In 2021 we stayed in 7 states: Washington, Oregon, Wyoming, Montana, Idaho, California, and Arizona.
  • In 2022 we added 5 more: Nevada, Utah, Colorado, New Mexico, and Texas (plus revisited others).
  • In 2023 we visited 11 more new states: North Dakota, South Dakota, Nebraska, Kansas, Oklahoma, Arkansas, Tennessee, Mississippi, Alabama, Louisiana, and Florida, in addition to revisits.
  • In 2024 we stayed in 15 new states: Georgia, South Carolina, North Carolina, Virginia, Delaware, Pennsylvania, Maryland, West Virginia, Kentucky, Indiana, Missouri, Illinois, Iowa, Wisconsin, and Minnesota.
  • In 2025 we completed the contiguous states, with 10 more: New Jersey, Ohio, Michigan, New York, Vermont, New Hampshire, Maine, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and Connecticut.

A total of 48 states. Just two left, Alaska and Hawaii! (We’ve been to Hawaii before, but only count states visited since purchasing our coach.)

We also traveled around New Zealand in a campervan in 2025, but I’ll summarize that in a future post.

Here’s a map of our coach travels and stays in 2025, via the excellent RV Life Trip Wizard website, using a variation of their maps that more clearly shows the state borders and color-coded time zones. We started the year in the panhandle of Florida, then the route headed mostly counter-clockwise, with some messy loops in the northeast, finally ending up in California:

Timezones 2025 map

Another variation of the map, with more detail:

Route map 2025

Here’s a slightly out-of-date animated GIF that shows the northeast route, since it’s a bit messy:

Route map 2025

Here’s the route map with the travel in 2025, 2024, 2023, 2022, and 2021 also displayed in different colors; our 2025 travel in light green, our 2024 travel in orange, our 2023 travel in purple, our 2022 travel in blue, our 2021 coach travel in dark green, and our 2021 Yellowstone rental trailer trip in brown:

Route map for 2021 to 2025

The same map as an animated GIF, adding each year:

2021 to 2025 maps

Here’s a fun variation, showing the 2025 route without the background map:

Route map for 2025 without background

As usual, we revised our route a few times from what we had planned for 2025; here’s an animated GIF that compares what we had originally planned (as shown in last year’s 2025 travel plans post), and what we ended up doing (as above):

2025 maps

Another interesting animated GIF, showing the elevations along our route (also from last year’s 2025 travel plans post); see the elevations and road gradients at the bottom, and a moving dot along the map route showing where those elevations occur (this route has some differences from the latest maps, but I didn’t want to bother redoing the GIF):

Map with elevations

Super flat until we reached the Bighorn mountains and Yellowstone in Wyoming.

Here’s a Google Maps list that shows the places we stayed in 2025.

Fascinating!

2025 modifications

Happy New Year! 🎉

As we begin 2026, let’s look back at 2025, as is my tradition on this blog.

I will have a series of blog posts reviewing topics from last year. I typically schedule my posts following a pattern: Modification Mondays, Travel Tuesdays, Whereabouts Wednesdays, and To and Fro Thursdays and Fridays (okay, those last ones are bit of a stretch). So I will post my annual summaries in that order too (though not on those days), starting with modifications today.

We have done a number of modifications to our 2017 Tiffin Allegro Bus 40SP motorhome, to make it more comfortable as a full-time home, to improve the features, or to repair issues. This is a summary of some of the changes done in 2025; also check out the changes from 2024, 2023, 2022, and 2021.

You can also see all of these summary posts together via the Modifications Summary tag, with the earliest posts at the top, or the latest posts at the top.

For each modification topic I include a link to the corresponding blog post, and a sample picture; see the post for details. (Tip: you can click or tap on either the link or picture to go to the corresponding post.)

You can see all of the modification-related blog posts via the modifications category, with the earliest posts at the top, or the latest posts at the top.

Humidifier and water distiller:

Distiller

Broom hanging grippers:

Broom and mop on wall

Girard replaced window awning:

New window awning

Shower soap dispensers:

Shower soap dispensers

Extra pantry shelf:

Pantry shelves

Custom desk tweaks:

Desk

Polished and replaced exhaust tips:

Aqua-Hot exhaust tip

Power steering fluid leak repair, engine bracket replacements, underside of coach:

Behind the front wheels, with air horns and generator exhaust

Clock in bathroom:

Clock

Peeking behind the wet bay:

Pipes

Override Tecma macerating toilet controller with this one weird trick:

Toilet wires

Loose mudguard above rear wheels:

Mudguard above rear wheel

Using a sewer tote tank and macerator pump to dump waste tanks from the back of our truck again:

Dumping at dump station

Using magnets to hold a cupboard door out of the way:

Magnets joined to hold the door

Compact garbage bin fits next to toilet:

Garbage bin

Mirror head replacement:

New mirror head

AC replacements:

Carrying new AC up to roof

Moved toilet paper holder in half bath:

Toilet paper holder

Replacing light under kitchen sink:

Light

Flushing the gray tank:

Wet bay

Exploded AC squirrel cage:

Broken squirrel cage

Polishing wheel rims and headlights:

Purple metal polish

We were stuck! Slide-out failed to retract due to leaking piston:

Capped hydraulic hoses

Replacing cover on vent fan lid lift motor:

Cover on motor

RoamLink cellular service:

RoamLink

Dashcams:

Dashcams

Starlink Mini mounted on our truck:

Starlink dish in magnetic mount

Entry steps stuck:

Disconnected motor

Oregon Motorcoach Center repair of hydraulic slide-out:

Fridge connected to electricity

I hope you found these posts interesting and useful.

Thousand Trails San Benito

We stayed at Thousand Trails San Benito in Paicines, California. (Campground Reviews listing.)

Our second stay here. Our first stay was our very first experience of a Thousand Trails park. Not a super great experience, but not bad enough to put us off TT. (Which we have some misgivings about, but it has been mostly worthwhile.)

This time, the campground was in the midst of a much-needed major improvements to their electrical system, with new 50/30/20 amp pedestals on all of the sites. At the time we stayed, only about the third of the park was open.

Dates:

  • Check in: 2025-10-20
  • Check out: 2025-10-31
  • 11 nights

Weather:

  • Mostly sunny
  • High temps 65-82°F, lows 48-54°F
  • Little wind, gusts to 17 MPH

Noise:

  • No road noise
  • No train horn noise
  • Little neighbor noise

Site:

  • #C-010, back-in, gravel
  • Needed to disconnect toad, parked beside coach
  • Somewhat level site; a little high on passenger side; used hydraulic leveling
  • Gravel driveway about 60 feet long by 12 feet wide
  • 75-95 feet to neighbor on passenger side
  • 32 feet to neighbor on driver side
  • Just grass between sites
  • Picnic table
  • Fire pit
  • Tall trees
  • Somewhat clean site
  • Elevation 720 feet, front facing north/east/south/west

Utilities:

  • 50 amp power, conveniently located
  • 60 PSI water, conveniently located
  • Good sewer connection, conveniently located (1 10-foot pipe needed)

Internet (in usage priority order):

  • Starlink: 76-108 Mbps down, 22-44 Mbps up, 30 ms ping
  • RoamLink: 50 Mbps down, 3-5 Mbps up, 125 ms ping (RoamLink uses whichever is best of AT&T, Verizon, and T-Mobile)
  • AT&T: 101-145 Mbps down, 1-5 Mbps up, 70 ms ping (I have AT&T on my iPhone)
  • Campground Wi-Fi: none

Amenities:

  • Garbage dumpsters
  • Pool

Our review on Campground Reviews is forthcoming.

Campground map; much of the campground was being renovated at the time of our stay:

Map

An interactive map:

Our site:

Our site

Our site

Our site

Our site

The tree next to our site:

Tree

During our stay the electricians needed to make some modifications to the pedestal; replacing one of the breakers:

Electrical pedistal

And installing a ground rod:

Electrical pedistal

Electrical pedistal

Can’t get packages at the campground, so we used Amazon lockers in Hollister (30 minutes away):

Amazon lockers

And the nearby post office in Paicines (9 minutes away):

Post office

Pool (and ex-hot tub):

Pool

While there, I added a Pokémon Pokéstop at the playground:

Pokémon Pokéstop

Other sites:

Other sites

Other sites

Other sites

Other sites

Other sites

New big solar array over storage area:

New big solar array over storage area

A big stump with a bird box:

Stump with bird box

Lots of gnomes around the place:

Lots of gnomes around the place

Cat:

Feral cat

Deer:

Deer

Birb:

Birb

A mostly peaceful campground. We’d be happy to stay here again.