Life! in the Ozarks

I always say I live in the prettiest on the planet planet, the historic Victorian village of Eureka Springs, Arkansas in the Ozark Mountains. If you’ve stopped by my about Beth page, you know I’ve come full circle, from Fayetteville Arkansas where my father was on faculty at the University of Arkansas, to the piney woods of Deep East Texas, to Phoenix, then the Upper East Side of Manhattan, a few years in Dallas and Austin and finally, back to the Ozarks. I’ve loved living in all of those places, but the Ozarks has always felt like home.

The Ozark ‘mountains’

We call them the Ozark mountains, but really they’re a series of plateaus worn down over the millennia into spectacular vistas everywhere you look. The Ozarks are also the perfect spot to to find a wealth of travel experiences. Whether you’re traveling solo, as a couple, with friends, or with your family, you can find symposia and symphonies in Fayetteville, internationally acclaimed art at Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art in Bentonville, theme parks at Silver Dollar City and Branson, and hiking, dining, festivals and more in my own beautiful Eureka!

Here in Eureka Springs, alone, there is an incredible array of lodging (some of it’s even haunted) to suit any taste and price range. The town is known as a regional art center; there are galleries, music festivals, plays, Opera –parades practically every week–lakes and rivers, nature trails, forests, camping nearby, fabulous dining, and (very important for me as a local) amazing coffee bars. We’re our own little mini-Venice–a town with a population of 2000 that welcomes over 750,000 visitors each year! And yet we still maintain a small town feel.

The Crescent, “The World’s Most Haunted Hotel”

Everyone who comes to Eureka wants to live like a local; I’ll give you detailed itinerary ideas about life and what to do when you visit Eureka from a ‘locals point of view.’ I love it here and want you to love it too.

As wonderful as Eureka is, the Ozarks region is even vaster! So I’ll be filling you in on fun itinerary ideas for Fayetteville, Bentonville, Branson, and ‘secret’ out of the way spots around and in between! You’re going to have a great time living life in the Ozarks!

Beth, at the Botanical Gardens in Fayetteville, Arkansas

Do you have questions about Ozarks traveling? Leave a comment! I’d love to answer them for you.

San Francisco and the Giant Sequoias

Being there now is not about getting somewhere fast. It’s about seeing the journey in our minds — muddling over our visions, ideas, dreams, and plans. Trying to stay present as we do our best to get the details right, and finally — starting out, journeying, and being there.

The images in my welcome post were from a travel adventure with my sister to San Francisco and Sequoia National Park near Three Rivers, California — it was also the first time I did almost all the planning for a major adventure. Packing was a fun challenge because San Francisco is cool and rainy in September, Three Rivers was really warm, and in the mountains with the Sequoias it was cooler, but still warm and sunny. I found five essentials that were perfect for the whole trip. You can see them in my planning and packing post right here.

There were a lot of moving parts in planning this adventure, and I made a few mistakes (I’ll talk about those so you can avoid them) but it was a wonderful sister trip. Now we try to take trips together whenever we can!

The Plan

Because my sister and I have such different schedules, I divided this trip into three parts: solo travel time in San Francisco for me, a day and a night in San Francisco for the two of us and a glorious couple of days and nights in Three Rivers just minutes away from Sequoia National Park and those ancient giants. You can probably already tell that I love trees and forests. Connection with nature is my primary entry to mindfulness. Spending time with the Sequoias with my sister was a dream come true.

But first came my solo day in San Francisco!

Where in nature do you feel most connected?

Can you find me?