Every year, my wife and I try to take each of our kids on a “long-distance” date where we can spend one on one time with each of our kids, for a weekend or two. Â It’s a good time to be one on one. Â You can read some of my past trips with my son to Hoover Dam and the Grand Canyon or my daughter and I in New York City
[READ MORE: 3 tricks to visit Hoover Dam for free]
[READ MORE: 4 mistakes my Dad made in New York City (don’t let this happen to you!]
Heading to West Texas
My oldest son is heading to Philmont with his Boy Scout troop this summer, so we thought we would use our trip to train for some of the hiking that they will be doing there. Â We decided to head to Guadalupe Peak, which is the highest point in Texas (8,751 feet).
I have previously been to the state high points of Ohio (Campbell Hill), Indiana (Hoosier Hill) and Tennessee (Clingman’s Dome) – see below for the fam at Campbell Hill. Â The one thing I remember most about that trip is that even though we were in the middle of nowhere at like 10 a.m. on a weekday, there were 2 people that had ALREADY BEEN THERE AND SIGNED THE LOG THAT SAME DAY!
Though this would be the first state high point that would require any type of actual hiking – as you might imagine, the rugged topography of Ohio does not lend itself to too many vigorous hikes – in fact you can pretty much drive up to the top of Campbell Hill 🙂
Travel plans
Here is the beauty of miles and points – we can do this trip very inexpensively. Â I wouldn’t call our travel “free”, but it is no more expensive than a weekend anywhere else really
- Flights CVG-DFW – 7500 Avios + $5.60 per person. Â We did look at flying into El Paso but it was hard to find saver availability that lined up and plus, you don’t get to count the counties visited when you’re flying over them – too hard to read the “Welcome to County” signs at 30,000 feet
- Hotels – we are currently booked in 1 Category 1 Candlewood Suites (10K IHG), 1 Category 2 Holiday Inn Express (15K IHG) and an 11K La Quinta. Â Have not booked our 4th night but it will probably be another La Quinta (finally getting some use out of those LQ Stay and Play points from 3 years ago!!)
- Car – we have Autoslash on the case – currently for 4ish days of car it’s about $176 total, which we’ll probably use Arrival points for.
- Gas and meals will be a cost of course
Things to do on our West Texas trip
We’ve identified the following things that we’re planning on doing while we are in West Texas
- Hiking Guadalupe Peak. Â This will be my son’s “10 mile” hike for his Hiking merit badge. Â The main trail is only about 8.7 miles roundtrip so we’re taking the “horse trail” to add the extra distance
- Carlsbad Caverns
- Counties!  We’ll fill in 47 counties more towards my quest to visit all 3,143 counties in the United States (pictured in gray)
- One of those counties is Loving County, Texas, which is the least populated county in the United States. Â Its current population is 82.
- And of course we’ll be following Road Trip Rule #1
Any readers have any other suggestions of things to do in the area?
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Dan Miller travels with his wife and 6 (SIX!) children. He loves to help families travel for free / cheap, especially larger families. If you are looking for help, drop him an email at 
Hiking the Guadalupe Mountains is so much fun and I definitely recommend adding the side hike up El Capitan to the trip. Looking South from El Capitan you can see vast salt beds. Carlsbad Caverns are also a treat many times over. I’m a Midland native and my work (Oil/Gas) has me working in West Texas. The population in Loving County would be much higher if the count included the many many oil and gas workers staying in temporary living. I don’t necessarily recommend a stop in Mentone, Tx though – not much there. Be sure to get gas whenever you can!
I lived in West Texas and Eastern New Mexico for 10 years (courtesy of the military telling us we had to live there). There are lots of things to see but after 10 years you run out of things.
Glad you had a great time!
I hiked up Guadeloupe in December 2006, and it started snowing while I was up there (not in the forecast). It was beautiful, and the contrast between the start of the hike in the desert, to the pine forest in the bowl at the top, was wonderful. It made the hike down treacherous, though. I was hiking alone and the snow made it hard to see where to step, and I slipped and fell down at least a dozen times. I was extremely grateful not to have broken anything.
I really liked camping onsite, and starting the hike at dawn, but I’m sure that’s much more pleasant in the winter than in the summer, when I would assume that it will be very hot.
Plan to take lots of water so start looking into ways to shave pack weight (assuming your son is taking a full pack to condition for Philmont. My kiddo at Texas A&M and part of his old patrol (all 8 made Eagle) hiked there last year and enjoyed it. Years back they also enjoyed a cavalcade up in the Davis Mountains. Your son is going to love Philmont which is fun in summer or winter.
A retired scout leader holding a Triple Crown of National High Adventure
When you can take a picture of your family with small children on a bench, the high point is not all that high. It will require a bit more work for you and your son when you try states in the west.
Re Loving County–small too–only 677 sq miles.
It looks like you’re going to hit Otero county, New Mexico. I grew up outside Alamogordo, NM in Otero county. By far, the most interesting thing around is White Sands National Monument. There are miles and miles of white sand dunes to play around on. Make sure you drive all the way back into the park where the vegetation is less and the dunes are taller and take a couple hours to sled down the dunes and play in the sand. It is a one-of-a-kind place. It may be outside of your travel area, but if you’re in the area, it’s pretty neat.
White Sands N.M. is a MUST! Kids love sledding down sand, and you can hike for MILES! Talk about athletic conditioning — jog up a few of those dunes! And if you’re going into NM that far, you might as well go see the White Sands Missile Range, especially the “garden of rockets.” Enjoy!
We did this combo a few years ago. We were bold and hiked up out of the cave – so we were a bit sore when we started Guadalupe the next morning. We also didn’t bring enough water and that got scary toward the end of the hike. The view from the peak is spectacular. I hope everyone in your family prepared for a 3k climb, I sure wasn’t!