We are laura & fred jolly

We did what most people will only ever dream about doing ~

AS THE STORY GOES…
We Put All Our Belongings Into Storage And Set Out In A 30’ Motorhome To Visit All 59 (At The Time) Of The United States National Parks.

It all started with a Ken Burns documentary.

maps & itineraries

We’re happy you’ve found our online journal, for we presume you love national parks, too!

Our Journey

turned out to be two-and-a-half years long and is best summarized this way:

82k Miles In An RV

2 US Territories

50 States

59 National Parks

1122 Miles Hiked

263 Miles Paddled

176 Miles Biked

1 Terrific Road Trip

Laura & Fred

This website shares that time in our lives – from our initial planning and pre-trip preparation… to the epic road trip itself from June 2014 through October 2016… it then shares [though far less frequently] what we’ve been up to since then, including Fred’s follow-up adventure of through-hiking the Appalachian Trail in 2018.

We are now settled in a quiet little town on the shores of Lake Michigan where we are happily engaged in our community with our friends and our families nearby. Here in our retirement years we are trying to make a difference by giving back ….

We’re happy you’ve found our website, for we presume you love national parks, too! We developed the site to chronicle our journey as we were taking it, so it shares our stories and photos as we captured all of those experiences at that time. Now we just update it from time to time as we visit even more of the 423 national park units.

Fred R. Jolly

national parks photography

We developed this site to chronicle our journey as we were taking it, so it shares our stories and photos as we captured all of those experiences at that time. 

Inquire about our speaking engagements

What we did was pretty amazing… dare we say EPIC!!?! We love talking about our odyssey and would be happy to talk to your group. We’ve shared our story with audiences numbering from 15 – 100; from a book club to Rotary meetings to library groups to some large groups where we were the featured speakers. Our speaking topics include the following:

Jolly Out There – our 90-minute program where we share our stories and learnings, highlighting the best moments through beautiful photos and fun videos – our talk is 75 minutes then we take about 15 minutes for Q&A.
Becoming the Chief Logistics Officer for your own ‘Out There’ adventure – our 90-minute talk (60 minutes of presentation; 30 minutes of Q&A) which focuses more on how we planned for such a trip.
Fred’s A.T. Hike Adventures – 60- to 90-minutes where Fred shares his Appalachian Trail Hike, from planning to hiking to recovering and all the miles in between. Photos, videos and informal Q&A are all included in this talk.

Even though our journeys are in the rearview mirror now, we are still passionate about what we did and we still love to share our stories. Please feel free to email us here for more information.