Our Slow Travel Itinerary in the US & Canada

The retirement celebrations have begun in earnest over these past few weeks!

At the last KPI meeting at the Augustine Literacy Project (where I worked for the last year and change), my lovely supervisor created this graphic as part of her presentation:

I’m pretty thrilled with the AI-version of me and her sense of style, honestly.

Ryan’s fellow exec team members threw him a going-away/retirement party at a local brewery last week too. It was amazing to see photos spread out on the tables of Ryan and his colleagues from the past 24 years. That place (and those people) have meant so much to him.

What I’ve noticed in both of these instances (and I’m sure the ones to come too- we have two more retirement celebrations coming up this week!) is that everyone is asking a version of the same question:

What’s the first stop on your travels?

Our itinerary has its own page on this site in the hopes that readers (you!) will check it out every now and again and reach out, so we can meet up on the road.

But I thought it would be helpful to include it here as well, and go into a bit more detail.

PS: If you are looking for information about how I planned six months of slow travel, I run through the entire process in this post.

Let’s get into it!

Above, you’ll see the broad strokes view of our slow travel itinerary for the rest of 2026.

Some details that aren’t included above:

Our first “real” stop is in Cleveland, TN. My folks live there and have generously offered to house our belongings in their basement. The idea is that we will keep enough of our stuff so that if we need to set up an apartment living situation, we have everything we need to do so. We’ll have the basics- bedroom and living room furniture, key kitchen items, etc.

We will be in Cleveland through July 17. This allows us to begin the process of gaining TN residency, getting a new driver’s license, registering to vote, etc. Our mail will go to my folks, as we will be officially “living” with them. We’ll also be able to celebrate my birthday there, which is a bonus!

On July 17, we’ll begin the drive to Nova Scotia. Here’s what that looks like:

*One of our travel rules is no drive days longer than 5-6 hours, unless that is the only drive day between two longer term stays.

Once we reach Cape Breton on July 22, we’ll have an entire month there to explore! We’ll be hiking in the Cape Breton Highlands National Park most days, and exploring cool spots like the Fortress of Louisbourg and the Glenora Distillery.

Canada is doing something really amazing this summer to encourage tourism- their national parks pass is completely free for everyone!

(They thought about putting an angry picture of their leader on the entry card, but opted for this welcoming choice instead. Ahem.)

I did have to make reservations for a really special hike- and paid a nominal fee to do so for two different dates and times. It’s called the Skyline Trail- can you tell why it gets a bit busy?

Photo from the Nova Scotia tourism website.

The stays in New Hampshire, Vermont and Acadia National Park are a bit less fleshed out, but I feel good about that for now. My folks will be coming to visit for a week while we are in VT in the hopes of catching some fall leaves, and a friend from Charlotte will also be in the area at that time. Fingers crossed we can tackle some hikes together while she’s there!

Of course I’ll be writing about our adventures along the way, and including our travel budget for each spot so you can see how doable long term slow travel can be.

The Itinerary for 2027

Nothing is booked or official for 2027 quite yet. I wanted us to get on the road and get our travel legs under us first. Plus, Ryan is still swamped with work (#4moredays) and I’d love for us to start doing the travel planning together.

However! I do have a rough idea of where we want to go next year- check out what I’m thinking:

How dreamy is this itinerary?

So, fellow travelers- I’d love to hear your thoughts!

Have you been to one of the places we have booked for this year? How about somewhere we are thinking about for next year? Leave your recommendations and ideas in the comments below!

Also- if your plans line up with ours, please reach out. We’d sincerely love to meet up for a drink, meal or a hike!