Traveling Huntleys

Inspiring travel stories, tips, and guides from a couple exploring the world one destination at a time.

Winter Travel

Tallahassee, Florida: Coe Landing Campground on Lake Talquin & the Tallahassee Museum

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Last Updated: August 1, 2026

Tallahassee sits in Leon County and has been the capital of Florida since 1824 — chosen, in the practical way of the era, because it was roughly halfway between the two population centers of the time, St. Augustine and Pensacola. It does not feel like the rest of Florida. The oak-canopied roads and southern homes belong to the Deep South rather than the beach coast, and after a month of dunes and condos the change was welcome. It is also a real city, which meant a Costco — and after weeks of small Panhandle grocery stores we were embarrassingly excited about restocking. From Panama City Beach it was about a two-and-a-half-hour tow.

Sandy Huntley and Jake the dog standing at the end of the fishing pier over Lake Talquin at Coe Landing Campground, Tallahassee, Florida
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Panama City Beach, Florida: Sugar-White Sand, Historic St. Andrews & a Winter Stay at Emerald Coast RV

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Last Updated: August 1, 2026

Panama City Beach is a spring break and vacation town for much of the southern United States, and its miles of sugar-white sand are consistently rated among the best beaches in America. The area went through a real estate boom in the mid-2000s with a wave of new construction and rising prices. Then, on October 10, 2018, Hurricane Michael came ashore near Tyndall Air Force Base with 161 mph sustained winds — a Category 5 and the most powerful storm ever recorded to strike the Florida Panhandle. Driving through three years later, it was surprisingly hard to tell. Most structures had been rebuilt or repaired. What gives it away is the tree line: the downed and topped pines and oaks are still everywhere once you know to look. From Orange Beach, Alabama it was about a three-hour tow with the Airstream.

Empty stretch of sugar-white sand beach with no one in sight on a January morning at Panama City Beach, Florida
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Fort Pickens, Florida & Orange Beach, Alabama: Camping on Santa Rosa Island, Civil War Brickwork & Gulf State Park

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Last Updated: August 1, 2026

Fort Pickens sits at the western tip of Santa Rosa Island inside the Gulf Islands National Seashore of Florida. Sandy and I have camped here before, and we keep coming back for the same reason: miles of white sand without the beach crowds or the wall of high-rise condos that swallow so much of the Florida coastline. This was our favorite kind of travel day — about an hour and a half of sunny, scenic coastal driving from Santa Rosa Beach and Topsail Hill Preserve to the Fort Pickens Campground, with our brand-new 27-foot Airstream behind the truck and Jake stretched out in the back seat.

Large coastal defense cannon aimed toward the Gulf of Mexico from the ramparts of Fort Pickens, Gulf Islands National Seashore, Pensacola Beach, Florida, photographed by travel blogger Michael Huntley
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Winter Migrations in our Motorhome

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Last Updated: July 31, 2026

Winter can be a beautiful transition from fall colors with warm days and cool nights to snow and a winter wonderland. Seems like our yearly migrations take us up to Canada in the summer, experience fall foliage as we make our way back south, spend the winters as far south as we can go, then make our way back north every spring. This is our fifth migration in the motorhome. We enjoy experiencing the USA and have put on an incredible number of miles.

Winter sunset reflected over a tranquil pond at The Crosby Estates, Rancho Santa Fe, San Diego, California
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Bighorn Sheep in Zion National Park

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Last Updated: July 31, 2026

Desert bighorn sheep are one of the most thrilling wildlife encounters in the American Southwest. Found throughout rugged canyon country from western North America to northern Mexico and Baja California, these remarkable animals have evolved to thrive in terrain that seems almost impossibly steep. We love photographing them because they occupy dramatic rocky ledges with sweeping desert backdrops, are surprisingly tolerant of patient observers with long lenses, and their massive curling horns make for extraordinary portraits. Zion National Park in southwestern Utah is one of the best places in the country to find them — and on this January 2021 visit, we had an encounter we will never forget.

Desert bighorn sheep ram on a rocky ledge in Zion National Park, Utah, photographed by Dr. Michael Huntley physician and travel blogger
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Snow at Bryce Canyon National Park

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Last Updated: July 31, 2026

Seeing a national park under fresh snow has always been one of those experiences we have chased from a distance — stunning in photographs, rarely practical when you are traveling in a 40,000-pound motorhome. Snow and big rigs don’t mix well without chains or a dumped tag axle, and we have learned over the years that the best approach is simply to stay put and let the Jeep do the work. After the snowfall that hit us in Kanab in January 2021, we did exactly that — loaded Jake into the Jeep and drove an hour north to Bryce Canyon National Park to see whether the hoodoos looked as extraordinary under snow as we had always imagined. They did.

Fresh snow blanketing the hoodoo formations and rim of Bryce Canyon National Park, Utah, in January
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