My husband and I have worked on a couple of puzzles since Christmas (and a few well before then), which gave me the idea to backtrack a bit in order to start a series like this! Hopefully we keep doing puzzles regularly enough that I can give my thoughts on them as we go.

Yosemite National Park by Parks Project (500 pieces)

A nice and breezy puzzle for those just getting into puzzling — like the two of us! This quaint piece, highlighting Yosemite’s most famous features, has just enough changes in the artwork and colors to provide some challenge, but is otherwise pretty straightforward and small enough to finish quickly. You can basically divide the puzzle into the sky, the face of El Cap, and the land below rather easily. We visited the park in 2019, so I got this puzzle as a Christmas gift to mark our trip out there!

Classic Macho Movie Locations Map by True South Puzzle Company (500 pieces)

Part of their Curated Collections series of puzzles, the Classic Macho Movie Locations is just one of many offerings from True South that appeals to the cinephiles in us. The amount of pieces lends well to making this a fun beginner puzzle, and the specific locations are detailed enough that they become a great way to organize pieces into different sections. It’s obviously great to quiz yourself on what movies are depicted as you put the puzzle together, and the final product ends up looking a lot like an amusement park map!

National Parks Map Vintage Puzzle by Cavallini & Co. (1,000 pieces)

What seems to be one of many national parks puzzles from Cavallini & Co., this one distinguishes itself as being the only puzzle that is actually a map of the United States depicting the locations of every national park and monument (at least up to 2020, when the puzzle was produced). The puzzle gets bonus points, in my opinion, for the cylindrical tub it comes in and the muslin drawstring bag that holds the pieces inside. Yet the quality of the vintage art cannot be praised enough either, and while this is a U.S. map, there’s enough empty space — both on land and in the oceans — and similar-looking trees, rock, and other aspects to make the assembly kind of tricky. Not to mention every single name of all of the parks and monuments! You’ll be reading the words “national,” “park,” and “monument” over and over again. However, this was such a beautiful puzzle to complete that it was well worth all of the effort.