Continuing his annual tradition of road tripping across the country to visit various national parks in the Pacific Northwest, this summer, Coach Mark plans to add a new destination to his itinerary: Alaska.
For the past five summers, Coach Mark has road tripped across North America to visit various national parks. Coach Mark will often have a friend accompanying him, but completes parts of trips solo if necessary. For multiple months, they’ll drive eight to ten hours a day across the U.S. and Canada, visiting national parks and camping grounds along the way. This year though, the main destination will be Alaska, which Coach Mark has been wanting to visit since he started his road trip tradition.
Coach Mark loves road tripping due to the experiences he gains that he wouldn’t have access to from flying. He describes it like a movie: “Music’s on, I’m driving, seeing the scenery, experiencing different things, meeting people I wouldn’t normally talk to. Those are valuable experiences.”
There are times while camping, at a store, gas station, or grabbing food when he runs into someone who stops for a conversation. Coach Mark says he enjoys getting to meet people during his trips, especially since some of them have similar road trip plans to him, or are even visiting from out of the country. When he meets fellow travellers, he feels a mutual connection and gets to exchange stories that he would never hear if he simply took a direct flight.
For his trip to Alaska, Coach Mark will be traveling with his friend Rob Schnitzer, the now-retired former photography teacher here at Galileo. Once they reach Banff national park in Canada, Rob will fly home to San Francisco. This will leave Coach Mark to complete the trip to Alaska and the remaining trip back down to SF solo, which will be his longest ever trip completed alone. The trip as a whole will be around two months, with the back half of that being completed by Coach Mark solo.
“I’m excited to finally do the long road trip to Alaska,” says Coach Mark. “It’s been on my mind for a long time. We tried to do it a few years ago, but that’s when Canada had closed the border and we couldn’t get across.”
Coach Mark and Rob are hoping to arrive at their destinations on time and stay on schedule, since they have camping spots lined up along the duration of their trip. If not, they’ll find a campsite or free camping areas like public lands where they stop.
Worst case scenario, they can sleep in their car on the side of the highway, which is not at all uncommon for drivers making their way to Alaska. Coach Mark says his only concern with the trip is potential damage to his truck, since the ride up to Alaska is long and harsh.
On the way to Alaska, Coach Mark plans on stopping at a few of his favorite bakeries, coffee shops, and pizza places that he only visits on his annual road trips. Some of these favorites are even inside the national parks themselves.
The spots he finds along the way are one of the main reasons Coach Mark prefers road tripping to international travel. “If I had to pick one… I like going to places like France. I love Paris, that’s my favorite city. But if I had a choice between the two, I’d probably take the road trip. There’s more to see, more places to go.”
Coach Mark also imparted that he believes everyone should visit their local national park.
“I think that everybody should get an opportunity to do road trips and go camping and visit these parks, because it’s affordable, it’s definitely doable, and it should always be our first priority to see our own country first.”
