NederlandsHolidays

The group picture, 1995 From 1995 until 1998 I spent me vacations in the United States. During these 4 trips I made a so-called 'trek'. These are camp-trips with small groups (10 - 13 people). I liked these trips very much, except the one I made in 1997 with Suntrek. For 1998 I am planning another trip like these.
The first trek I made was with AmericanAdventures , and the second one with TrekAmerica. The tips I made with these companies were very good and I can recommend these companies to anyone. They have a good organization, good trek-leaders and very good treks.
What's the difference between these organizations? Trek America is bigger of the two and has more treks, also in Mexico and Central America. Trek America also has an age limit (38), but also has a program without age-limit called Footloose. But that's the main difference between the two, if you want to choose you have to do that based on the trek and the time you want to go.
The management decided that the differences were not that big, as the 2 companies merged into TrakAmerica.
A big difference between Trek America / American Adventures and Suntrek is that the treks of the first 2 are one day longer than the treks as sold by Suntrek. The treks from Trek America and American Adventures start on the morning of the first day of the trek. The first day of a trek from Suntrek is a welcome-drink in the evening, so you loose the first day. You depart from your hotel on the second day of the trek.
First something about 'trek's.

A trek, like the one's I participated in, is a trip were you go from campground to campground. The organization provides the transportation, a maxi-van, the trek-leader (also the driver), the tents and all the camping equipment. You should bring your own sleeping bag and other stuff you think you need. All the stuff is transported on top of the van, and it has to be put up there every morning.
The treks go from campground to campground. Most of these are in state-parks or national parks. These campgrounds are good, but usually they don't have many extras on the campground. If you stay outside of a park most of the time you stay on a KOA campground, and these are good. Most of them have a swimming pool, laundry, etc. In cities you often stay in a hotel.
The trek-leaders are often young, and know a lot about America and the areas you are travelling through.

Here are my reports about the trips that I made until now:
 
1995Holiday 1995: Los Angeles, San Diego, Grand Canyon, Monument Valley, Bryce Canyon, Las Vegas, Yosemite and San Francisco
1996Holiday 1996: Miami, New Orleans, Memphis, Nashville, Atlanta, Panama Beach and Orlando
1997Holiday 1997: New York to San Francisco visiting Chicago, Yellowstone and Yosemite
Holiday 1998 Holiday 1998: New York to New York, via Cape Cod, Boston, Niagara Falls Washington and Atlantic City

What impressed me most during these trips was the nature. In the Netherlands you can always see a city somewhere, there are always roads, and if you see two trees parked together it's called a Forrest. But if you see those gigantic areas in the States, like Yosemite or the Grand Canyon area, you can't compare it to something we have in Europe. Also the fact that there are areas where there are no other people for miles around, that's something that's impossible over here.

Here a couple of links to pages about the areas or cities from my trips:
 
National Park Service  
Great Outdoor Recreation  
The Grand Canyon: The Grand Canyon Explorer Homepage , Grand Canyon Photo Gallery
Navajo National Monument: DesertUSA Navajo National Monument Page
Jerome: Jerome Home Page
House of Blues House of Blues homepage
AmericanAdventures
TrekAmerica
 

At last another update of the holiday pages. This time together with someone who can already be found on the 1998 pages. Then it was "just" another traveler, now she is my wife:

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