Dearies, come along with us as we journeyed across America the Beautiful, from sea to shining sea! 2016 was the year of adventure for us as we were homeless/volunteering through the Workaway cultural exchange program. In part 1 of our road trip series we shared the charming places we stopped at on oursouthern road trip from California to Georgia. We’ve already done an entire blog post about our experience volunteering at a historic farm/wedding venue in the Blue Ridge Mountains of Georgia.
When our time was up in Georgia and we were on our way to a new opportunity in Virginia where we planned to stay their for a while as intern innkeepers (not associated with Workaway). However, we ended up getting taken advantage of and had to leave the situation quickly which turned into another last minute road trip from the south to New England to our next Workaway host family we found in Connecticut (during the 6 weeks we went to Sweden that summer – told you it was a year of adventure).
With all that explanation said, the places we’re about to share weren’t all on 1 road trip but a series of them but very well could be planned nice and tidy into a lovely East Coast road trip with loads of more charming places you could see if time and money permitted, but we still we think we got to see some really nice things all things considered!
NORTH CAROLINA
Join us visiting friends in NC and exploring Winston-Salem on our move from GA to VAOld Salem is a living history museum that interprets the restored Moravian community. These 1700s buildings are an old-fashioned dream Of course we had to stop for fika and rose lemonade at the local tea room
VIRGINIA
Our time in the Shenandoah Valley may have been cut short but we still tried to see as much as we could – come along with us! Historic downtown Harrisonburg is packed with quaint boutiques, cafes, and restaurants. The view of the Blue Ridge Mountains on the Skyline drive is worth the journey. On our way out of mainland Virginia we stopped in Staunton which felt like a step back in time.
After 6 weeks in Sweden, and flying back into NC, we took a coastal route towards New England, which led us to Chincoteague Island, Virginia! This little island is known for the wild ponies that inhabit the islands and are believed to have been survivors of a Spanish ship wreck in the 1700s. There’s an annual pony swim (that we missed by a few days) which has been a tradition for 90 years! The novel, “Misty of Chincoteague” was based on a real story of a family raising a wild pony and that legend lives on and brings thousands of visitors (including us) to see her descendants at the Pony Centre and Misty Museum. We didn’t get a chance to take a boat cruise to see the horses in the wild because Lindsay had a swollen ankle from Swedish mosquito bites, but we did enjoy some amazing ice cream in Muller’s Old-Fashioned Ice Cream Parlor in the most charming Victorian setting.
DELAWARE
On our way to stay 1 night in Blue Bell, Pennsylvania we stopped for lunch at the charming Governor’s Cafe in Dover, Delaware. Afterwards we walked around the First State Heritage Park, a quaint square full of some of the first official US buildings.
NEW YORK
Next stop…SLEEPY HOLLOW!!! An unexpected stop, so we walked around like crazy with a half hour before the cemetery closed! It was such a dream come true to be there and little did we know we’d end up moving to the Hudson Valley and spend a whole lot of time there, but that’s another story.
We hope you enjoyed coming with us in this second chapter and soon we’ll be sharing the last in the series of our adventures that wild year of volunteering via Workaway and how it changed our lives! Have you ever taken a big road trip in America? Bye For Now, -Jonas & Lindsay
