Autumn in California, Driving Trips California, Death Valley Mojave

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Total Escape celebrates 13 YEARS online!

Been around longer than Google or Facebook, without corporate backing. This is the unique travel site created by adventurer DanaMite, where you can find the real outdoors in Cali. Not suburban coffee shops and strip malls; Not amusement parks, chain hotels, nor casinos. Rivers, forests, trails, the rural routes of the golden state. Unheard-of, uncrowded, small towns on the back roads of California.... all on a budget & always local to you!

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mojave desert
What the heck is a charcoal kiln? Who is buried in the Ballarat cemetery? From Red Rock to Fossil Falls, highway 14, the infamous 395 & the Nevada state border make up the boundaries of this huge mass of land called the Mojave Desert. Diverse landscapes from lush palm oasis to high elevation mining camps. Bordered by the west with Sequoia NF, this desert region stretches over 30% of California's terrain. Home to Death Valley NP, Red Rock SP, Joshua Tree NP, Mojave NP, & Deep Creek Hot Springs.

photos on flickr
A long time ago we traveled without the digital cameras, the GPS and without the internet to guide us. We traveled to see where the road would take us and without documenting every step of the way. But times are different. People wanna be guaranteed a good time or a perfect destination, before they even leave the house. That is where this site comes in. DanaMite single-handedly has been documenting every single dirt road, small town, lake, hot spring, camp site and interesting thing she can find - just for you to review, to make your weekend away a little bit easier.

CA ghost towns
Never before has California seen a population boom like the one of 1849, when gold fever struck the nation; everyone & their brother was headed west. Several small towns never made it past the heyday of mining & can be found in the desert regions of eastern California. While Death Valley & Panamint Valley have some old mines to explore, there are also more abandon ghost towns north along the Eastern Sierra's Hwy 395. Check out the rich history & remnants of our state. Plenty of great reasons to use that SUV on the dirt roads.

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