Goosenecks State Park, Utah

Goosenecks State Park

If you’ve ever sat in a window seat on a long plane ride and had to spend most of the flight looking out the window to give your neighbor in the middle some extra room, then you’ve probably seen some good examples of meandering rivers. When a river loses speed as it flows downhill, it tends to flow back and forth, making lazy S-shaped curves across the landscape. From above, the land between the loops looks like goosenecks. Staring at a lazy river from 30,000 feet might be only slightly better than having a stranger put his head on your shoulder as he naps, but seeing a massive gooseneck up close, like the ones at Goosenecks State Park in Utah, is a thrill.

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Upper and Lower Antelope Canyons

Lower Antelope Canyon

Having traveled to some amazing places in the U.S., we often see ads with jaw-dropping outdoor photos, and we know exactly where the photograph was taken. Nearly every shot of a grizzly bear standing at the top of a waterfall trying to catch salmon as they fly past his muzzle was taken at Brooks Falls in Katmai National Park. And when a woman with a bottle of shampoo in hand flicks her luxurious hair in front of a sandstone backdrop that looks like it’s from another planet, we know the ad agency photoshopped her into Upper Antelope Canyon.

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Buckskin Gulch

After our first visit to Buckskin Gulch, we looked at each other and asked, “How could there be a place this amazing that we’ve never heard of before?” Dumb luck was on our side when we hiked it for the first time; the canyon was bone dry, which saved us from having to wade through the pools of stagnant water that usually greet hikers on their trek through the longest, deepest slot canyon in the southwest.

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