In celebration of Earth Day, Kessler shares her favorite five places that she has ever visited. This photo was taken on First Encounter Beach in Massachusetts.
Earth day happened yesterday, and while I’m not the biggest lover of the outdoors, I do still love the natural environments our world has to offer. In an attempt to honor the theme of Earth Day, I wanted to rank some of the cool places I’ve been!
Now ranking places from best to worst on Earth Day seems a little counterintuitive, so instead I’m just going to pick my top five favorite places and give my best travel agent pitch for these locations. So pack your bags, call the post office to hold your mail and get someone to water your plants because it’s time to travel.
Padre Island National Seashore, Texas — Corpus Christi is home to Padre Island National Seashore. Not only does this beach have the finest sand I’ve ever felt, but you can camp there or even drive along the shore. There are coastal prairies, insane sand dunes and even a saline lagoon (which are very rare). As a national seashore, there are a number of endangered species that live there or visit there, including Kemp’s Ridley Sea Turtles. If you time your visit right, you can watch sea turtles come ashore and lay their eggs. It is so beautiful to see “the longest stretch of undeveloped barrier island in the world.”
Angel Oak Tree, South Carolina — Before you read about the Angel Oak Tree, look up a picture. I’ll wait… okay now that you’ve done that, you’ll understand what I mean when I say it’s almost indescribable. This oak tree is estimated to be between 300 and 400 years old, 65 feet tall, 25 feet wide and its limbs shade 17,000 square feet of land. I would describe it as on par with seeing the redwoods. This tree is so gigantic and the branches are so winded and curled all over. It genuinely left me speechless and I would go all the way back to South Carolina purely to see this tree.
First Encounter Beach, Massachusetts — Now I am a little biased here because my family came from Massachusetts, specifically Cape Cod and I’ve visited many times. But there is an incredible beach here known as First Encounter, and it is incredibly noteworthy due to what happens at low tide. During this period, the water goes so far out that you can walk almost two miles looking at shells and little creatures before you reach ankle deep water. One thing that’s also very common at First Encounter is an incredible amount of kites, which I KNOW aren’t natural, but to walk for hours where the water once was and see beautiful kites lining the sky, it almost seems like something out of a movie.
Huntington Beach, California — Moving over to the opposite coast, this one is a little bit more known but that doesn’t take away from its beauty. The pier here is one of my favorite structures because it goes far off the coast into the ocean. When you walk to the end, not only are there cute little gift shops, but it feels like what I assume Rose felt like in Titanic. Standing on the edge, it feels like you’re absolutely surrounded by water, which is a really fascinating and somewhat outof-body feeling.
Great Smoky Mountains, Tennessee — To wrap things up, the Great Smoky Mountains have one of the most lush and beautiful ecosystems I have ever had the pleasure of seeing. At the lookout point, you can see the peaks coming through clouds and miles upon miles of green. Star Wars reference coming, but as someone who’s from Nebraska, I didn’t know there was this much green in the entire galaxy. It’s so tranquil it makes me want to disappear into the mountains and leave the rest of the world behind.
