Author: Susan Edel

My name is Susan Edel and I am the founder and editor of NOR, a member of NATJA/Media, as well as a luxury travel advisor located on California’s Central Coast. As a luxury lifestyle travel advisor, freelance travel journalist, leisure photographer, and interior design enthusiast, I love to explore and experience the finest luxury resorts throughout the U.S. and beyond. No Ordinary Resort reviews fine hotels and luxury resorts in the U.S. and beyond. It is my intention to share my experiences at these distinctive resorts with you through my articles and photography. I hope you enjoy it. Follow me on Facebook www.facebook.com/NoOrdinaryResort, Twitter www.twitter.com/NoOrinaryResor(no T), and Instagram www.instagram.com/No.Ordinary.Resort
Experiences

Death Valley National Park | Death Valley, CA

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Zabriskie Point

As native Californians, we knew of Death Valley but somehow it never seemed to be at the top of our “go-to” list. However, when my husband and I purchased an RV, the appeal of Death Valley took a meteoric rise to the top of our list and we couldn’t wait to plan a trip to Death Valley National Park.

So we did our due diligence, gathered our maps of California, scoured the internet, downloaded camping apps, and came up with an itinerary for our trip. We were very excited as this was going to be our first significant trip in our RV {see here for our first “entertaining” RV experience}. We decided to break this trip up with one night of camping in the RV and two nights at the Inn at Death Valley hotel {see my review here}.

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Destinations

Leisure Street Winery | Livermore, CA

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Harvest Host: Leisure Street Winery | Livermore, CA

When my husband and I purchased an RV, it was with the understanding that we were not looking for the ordinary experience of staying at an RV park where you’re two feet away from your neighbor with tons of people roaming around…that’s not to say that a situation like that isn’t right for a family or a couple looking for the social aspect of camping, it’s just not the experience we envisioned for ourselves.

While doing some research on dry camping {aka dispersed camping or boondocking}, I came across a site called Harvest Hosts that seemed like a perfect fit for our vision of camping. Harvest Hosts {HH} is a membership program that invites self-contained RVers to experience unique overnight stays at over two thousand {and quickly growing} distinctive business locations across the United States. There is a annual fee to join Harvest Hosts, at the time of this print the fee was $99 {search for discount codes, there are usually some floating out there}, but the good news is that the HH locations do not charge a fee to stay at their property.

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Destinations

San Simeon State Park | San Simeon, CA

by Susan Edel1 Comment on San Simeon State Park | San Simeon, CA

What an exciting day for us, we headed out on our maiden voyage in our 2016 24’ Class C Thor Synergy Sprinter RV. After years of dreaming about having an RV and traveling with our dogs, our dream finally became a reality. We wanted to keep our first trip easy and we didn’t want to roam too far from home so we headed out to San Simeon State Park just 40 miles from our home.

After watching tons of YouTube videos, reading manuals, and creating a binder with the information we gathered and notes we took (yet why is it that the information you need is never in the binder), we thought we might have a pretty good handle on things…and yet…

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