Every County Counts in Arizona
In 2013 while we lived in Texas, Ren read a book called “Dear Bob and Sue” about a couple who traveled to all 59 of the National Parks in the United States. This inspired us to visit all of the state parks in Texas. We did not realize there were more than 100 of them; if you are curious, we are up to 58. As we traveled throughout this huge state our goal expanded, in addition to visiting all the state parks, we decided we wanted to visit every county in Texas. After a while, we asked ourselves, “Why limit it to just Texas?”
There are 3,144 counties in the United States and our goal is to visit each and every one of them. As of September 2018, we have visited 442; including all of Oklahoma and Arkansas, and three-quarters of Texas. We have also visited counties in California, New Mexico, Colorado, Kansas, Nebraska, Illinois, Missouri, Kentucky, Tennessee, Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, and Georgia. 
The point of the journey is not just to travel to each county, but to find out what is special about each. We want to make each county a real place to us and not just a name on a map. Traveling this way gets us off the main roads and away from the tourist attractions and allows us to find things we would never have experienced otherwise.
Traveling mostly on weekends, we have explored most of the area that is easily reached from our home, which is now in Oklahoma. We’re having to travel further and further to get to new areas, these trips are getting longer and more expensive. We are not wealthy, my job pays the bills and allows us a certain amount of travel, but we’ve picked most of the low-hanging fruit.
We have a blog and various other social media accounts where we share our travels. At first, this was just to share our adventures with friends and family who were not able to travel themselves. As we have gotten better at communicating our passion for this project, others have become excited about it and found value in what we are doing. Our motto is “Get Out, Live Life Outside Your Box.” We want to encourage people to make the most of their lives, break free from boring routine, and start now to make their lives amazing.
Several people have suggested from time to time that we should look into crowdfunding to help finance our goal. We have not felt the need for this in the past, but now we are wanting to try something new. We are planning a trip to Arizona in the last two weeks of October. We have friends there who have invited us to visit. Looking at the schedule, and the map of the places we wanted to see, we realized that it would be possible for us to do something we had never tried before. We could visit every county in Arizona in one trip. We also realized it would stretch our budget for this trip to the limit. We don’t just want to touch every county in Arizona, we want to find something amazing in every county in Arizona. As a photographer, I want to take at least one amazing photo in every county in Arizona.
We have fine-tuned our travel style to travel as much as possible, as economically as possible. We prepare meals and snacks at home and rarely eat out, and we camp instead of staying in hotels. The cost of a hotel room will buy a tank of gas getting us another 400 miles down the road. This may not seem like much, but every little bit helps us to achieve our goal.
We would like to make a video showing how we traveled to every county in Arizona, make and market a calendar, and write an ebook about the experience and what we learned doing it. Our goal is to make our project a little less haphazard, communicate the experience more effectively, and perhaps make this traveling and photography begin to pay for itself.
Please take a look at our website and social media pages to see who we are and decide if you would like to support this project.
Cross County Travelers Website
Facebook
SteemIt
Our goal is to raise $2200.00. This will help pay for upgrading our camping gear for colder weather, gas for the trip, and various state and national park admissions. Using the money towards these will enable us to find the most amazing places in Arizona to share with you all.
Donation Structure
All donations will receive a free electronic copy of the ebook, handmade “GO” sticker and name listed in the video/book credits.
Donations of at least $20 receive all of the above and 1 free 8 X 10 print from this adventure.
Donations of at least $50 will receive all of the above and a hand printed t-shirt with our logo.
Donations of at least $100 will receive all of the above and a calendar featuring photos of this adventure.