Living on the Blue Ridge Parkway

The roads rolled on endlessly beckoning onward with each hill and every curve. We spent almost a week living on the Blue Ridge Parkway.  Every night we went to bed under a thousand shimmering stars, and every morning we awoke to beautiful overlooks.




Living on the Parkway was a new experience every day. One day may be huge mountains with overlooks that look down thousands of feet, and then the next day would be rolling hills, farmlands, and endless wildflowers.

Each new section of the Parkway offered us overlook after overlook, as well as beautifully put together picnic areas. Living in a van makes it hard to get water at times, and the picnic areas offered us a place to refill our water jugs for drinking, cooking and washing.

Picnic areas also gave us a place to rest, cook at the tables, and use clean bathrooms. We were able to string a hammock at almost every stop we made. Some picnic areas on the parkway even have beautiful creeks or rivers running through them which gives us a good place to wash and play.

The hiking trails along the parkway are amazing, and abundant. You can park at an overlook and see a beautiful scene, or you can walk up the trail at the overlook, and be blown away by the beauty of it all.

I'm not sure what the laws are about sleeping on the overlooks, but I do know through our entire journey across the parkway we never got bothered by the cops once. The overlooks provide a safe place off the road to pull off and park a van, and almost all of them have trashcans to use.

And now the adventures continue as we move up the country and away from the beautiful world of the Blue Ridge Parkway.