Hello, I’m Sacha!  Let me first start by saying that I am not a professional in the travel industry.  I am someone who wants to share my stories about my travels throughout the beautiful state of California.  Maybe along the way, I can help you with ideas about California.

Whether you will be traveling here for vacation or you’re a local and want to discover more about where you live.  Maybe you’re curious about California, just for the heck of it!  You did come here for some reason, right?  But, why should you read my stuff?

Let me share a little bit about myself.

I was born and raised in Southern California  many years ago…I mean, MANY!!  I will say this, I am one of the few remaining “native” Californians around. That’s because many come to visit and come back to stay!  There are more ‘transplants” here than you can imagine.  That is how beautiful California is!

As a child, I did a lot of camping in California. It wasn’t because my family was an outdoors type of family. We just didn’t have much money.  We couldn’t afford to fly anywhere.  We couldn’t afford hotels.  We couldn’t afford to eat at fancy restaurants. So..we camped.

 

We camped everywhere up and down the California coast.

We may not have had money, but my parents were adventurous and they made sure our family went on vacation every summer. We saw California by road.

I am so grateful to my parents for always taking us on our  trips every summer. I have so many great childhood vacation memories.

Like the time we camped in Death Valley on Thanksgiving and it snowed on us. Yes, it actually snowed in Death Valley, who knew?  We ate our Thanksgiving dinner in our tent while there was a blizzard outside and we loved it!

There’s also the time when I was 8 years old in Yosemite.

I was roaming around camp, playing with a stick, when I ran into a crowd of people with a Park Ranger. I was running around, when I hear, “drop the stick!” by the Ranger!  She continued with “drop the stick or the bear will chase you!”

Yep, there it was.  They were all viewing a bear who was rummaging in a trash can.  The bear noticed me & you guessed it, started chasing me!  True story!  It was just a cub, but it was big enough and it was coming straight at me.

So what did I do?

Well, I didn’t drop the stick, of course. Instead, with stick in hand, I ran all the way back to my cabin & slammed the door shut. Luckily, this time we were in a rustic cabin in Camp Curry.  Whew!  What a smart child I was, NOT!  Anyway, those are a few classic memories that I had growing up.

Being a young explorer in California has really helped mold me into the adult, wife & mother that I am today. I introduced my husband to Yosemite years later and he immediately fell in love.

We’ve also brought our young daughter to Yosemite, as well as many other national parks in California.  Now as a teen, she’s a nature lover, an avid hiker and an experienced camper.

We go back  to all of the parks often & we discover something different every time.  Whether it’s a new hiking trail, a quiet road, place to eat, beautiful sand dunes that no one goes to…we’re there!  We prefer the less traveled parts of California sometimes. The secret spots.

I truly love this place called California, especially Los Angeles.

I live and breathe everything LA.  I will definitely share my favorites of LA.  I admit, I am a tourist in my own town.

So, I hope you’ll follow along with me in mynew journey of sharing California.  I would love to hear your stories, too!  If you have any questions at all, please feel free to email me anytime at sachamr@goingcalifornia.com Until then, I’m Going California, I hope you will too!