West Coast USA 🇺🇸 – Travels that inspire novels

By Ariel Zorion5 junio, 2021

The summer of July 2014, we traveled part of the West Coast of the United States. It is a trip that undoubtedly has many special memories, but what marks it as an unparalleled and indelible one is that it was the first time we set out on a trip on our own. Up to that date, all the trips we had taken had been more or less organized, perhaps with the exception of Paris, Carcassone and New York. However, it is not the same to travel only through a city as it is to drive a car on the highway.

This trip, therefore, had a lot of adventure. For starters, it was the first time we drove an automatic car, a lead gray Toyota RAV 4 that we rented for 600 € for 21 days, which gave rise to some scenes that could go into top videos without hesitation. Getting onto a six-lane Los Angeles freeway in rush hour as soon as the plane landed to get to Anaheim was a process to assimilate in a matter of seconds because, obviously, rush hour gridlock doesn’t wait for you to be ready.

We traveled through incredible places, breathtaking scenery and visited small towns that dot the American geography and that have a special charm. We talked to many people and met very nice and friendly people everywhere.

Many years later, this trip continues to inspire my novels. The first was The Encounter, whose main locations are Las Vegas and Los Angeles, but in which we also travel through the Sonoran desert or the Grand Canyon, for example.

More recently, the Twilight trilogy takes place mainly in a coastal town in Northern California, Carmel-by-the-Sea, but it features many of the magical places we once traveled.

In the travel section dedicated to the USA, little by little I will be uploading entries about the following places:

Anaheim and its theme parks.
Calico, ghost town.
Death Valley
Las Vegas.
Bryce Canyon and Zion National Park
Monument Valley
Grand Canyon
Antelope Canyon
Grand Sequoia National Park
Yosemite
Mariposa Park
Mamoth Creek
Mono Lake
San Francisco
Carmel-by-the-Sea and Monterey
Big Sur
Santa Barbara
Solvang
Malibu and Santa Monica
Los Angeles

North America is certainly an impressive place to travel. I’ve only traveled through part of the American West Coast and part of Western Canada, but it was enough for me to know I want more.

The natural scenery is breathtaking and awe-inspiring. Seeing the elegant and magnificent Californian giant sequoias, so majestic and mournful, because they have withstood without flinching hard onslaughts, are things you never forget.

The red clay canyons of Arizona, including the famous Grand Canyon that leaves you speechless, and the incredible rock formations of Utah, the city of Las Vegas, the white sand beaches bathed by the Pacific?

Don’t tell me you can’t wait to go? Until that long-awaited moment arrives, I invite you to visit some of these spectacular places through the pages of my books: