Van life (or #vanlife) is something that a lot of our generation has been pursuing, either as weekend warriors exploring the country or as ways to live on the go and avoid the high costs of rent in certain cities. And if you haven’t do yourself a favor and check out that hashtag on Instagram, I’ll wait… Doesn’t it look incredible?
Living on the go, having the option of cruising through Utah, exploring Texas or driving north towards Alaska are all options when you car is your home. After our month long trip to Asia last fall we talked more and more about exploring living on the move, be it in a van or RV. So when we couldn’t find great flights to my cousin’s wedding in Seattle but found a great one-way flight to Los Angeles we jumped on it and booked a one-way rental with Escape Campervans.
After a couple days in Los Angeles we picked up our van, conveniently located near the airport. Escape has a full fleet of vans all with vibrant designs on them and they even let us pick the one that we wanted. We opted for going with a forest scene that featured Smokey the Bear who’d serve as our chaperone for the next 8 days.
We left the city behind and cruised along the Pacific Highway out of Los Angeles. Unbeknownst to us southern California is famous for it’s June Gloom, when the area famous for sunny days and warm weather is actually cloudy and cool. Apparently it happens every year so apparently The Beach Boys and Dr. Dre and Kelly Kapouskey weren’t lying.
Cloudy skies or not the drive was gorgeous! We pulled into our campsite for the night pretty late and after a few snafus with our reservation, we made our bed for the first time, converting from our bench seating with a table to a surprisingly large bed. Picture those sofa bed couches that folded out into a bed and you get the idea.
Our next day was packed with excitement. We drove into San Luis Obispo had some coffee and some work time and then headed out to climb Bishop’s Peak. It was an absolutely gorgeous, dry and sunny trek capped off by a beautiful view from the peak. We flicked our way down the mountain and after a park lunch headed to Sycamore Springs resort where we soaked for an hour in a private hot tub.
The next day we headed north, making an extended stop along the highway to cook some burrito bowls with some epic scenery. I like our open kitchen we have at home and the occasional encouragement from our cats but this is by far the best place I’ve ever whipped up a meal at. As we continued north we made a stop at Mcway Falls, an 80 foot waterfall that rages out of Julia Pfeiffer Burns State Park, and crashes onto a beach. The trail wasn’t fully open because of landslides in recent years but the view was impressive nonetheless and when compared against a regular old rest stop in Iowa it made for a great way to stretch your legs. I truly wish that we had some more time to spend in this area but it gives us a reason to go back.
That night we had dinner and walked around the town of Carmel-by-the-Sea. I wasn’t much impressed by the town itself, outside of their liberal view of campervans parked on public roads with two Iowans inside.
The next day we headed towards the Bay Area to visit our friends Joey and Elizabeth. They had just moved into a home and were very generous to host us and more importantly allow us to take some long overdue showers. Vanlife on instagram doesn’t show the wet wipe showers…
The next morning we met up with Emily’s friend Bess at a great coffee shop and then we headed over to see The Painted Ladies, famous from the opening of Full House. It was only right that we said goodbye to Bess with a hug and lessons learned all around.
Part 2 -Northern California
We once again left city life behind and crossed the Golden Gate Bridge, dealing with some pretty gnarly traffic on our way out. It was during this drive, our longest stretch yet, that Emily had her first chance to drive Smokey and it got off to an interesting start. Shortly after we switched drivers Emily had a 45 second run of two curb checks and barreling into Trader Joe’s mildly out of control, bouncing me and our possessions a few feet. We restocked and Emily did a great job while I relaxed in the back (aka read NBA transaction rumors on Twitter).
We stopped that night for dinner at Humboldt Lagoon State Park and had another stunning view of the Pacific. The beaches are far different in this part of the state from the south. From what we saw southern California beaches are primed for swimming, surfing, volleyball and suntanning. In the north, it’s like walking in a postcard. Rocky islets, and driftwood dominated the landscape. And the waves in the north were pure chaos! These angry little waves roared in by the thousands.
We got into our campsite just before dark, or as Emily calls it “bedtime,” which was great because we had a lot to explore the next day. We did two hikes that day. Well technically 2.5 because we missed the actual trailhead for the Damnation Creek Trail and hiked for ¾ of a mile before the trail puttered out and we turned around, finding the trailhead just on the other side of Smokey. The Damnation Creek Trail was 3.5 miles towards the Pacific and it was stunningly peaceful, until you get close to the end of the trail and those angry little waves and the strong coastal winds couldn’t be blocked by the trees any longer.
Our other hike that day was Fern Canyon, a short but rewarding hike into a canyon with high walls covered in ferns. The hike was perfect, requiring us to amble up and across fallen trees, and wade into the chilled stream that had formed that canyon over the ages.
The next day we officially bid farewell to California and crossed over into Oregon. Our original plan had been to visit Crater Lake National Park that day, drive to Bend the next day and drive the next morning to Portland. We scratched that and drove straight to Bend, parking outside of Crux Fermentation Project, a brewery I had visited the last time I was in Bend for another cousins wedding (I have a lot of cousins!). After enjoying a couple beers and taking in the excellent views of the mountain ranges we decided that just parking overnight at the brewery and sleeping there sounded like an excellent idea!
The next day we were blessed with the generosity of Emily’s friend Rachel, a recent Bend transplant who let us spend some time at her place, working, showering and laundering. We were blessed to meet up with Rachel later that night and over food and drinks at Barrio celebrated the end of her chemotherapy and the end of our time in the campervan, as it was due to Portland the next morning at 9.
We started driving out of Bend and headed towards Portland with the sun going down and Emily trying to sleep in the back. I wasn’t having much luck looking for obvious places to pull over and so eventually settled for a non-descript strip mall in Albany, Oregon. We were abruptly awakened at 3:45 am by a street cleaner cleaning the parking lot, loudly going back and forth passed our van. Considering we had slept in gorgeous state parks, the lovely new home of friends, and on a random street in a glitzy town it is probably fair that we had one rough sleeping experience in Smokey.
All in all, the #vanlife experience was something that we both really, really enjoyed! A fair amount of our travel lately has been international and so it was great to be able to explore this massive country of ours. And to fit the size of our country the mobile hotel experience of living in your vehicle was perfect. Both of us are really interested in looking at ways to be able to regularly do that, whether it is with a slightly larger van or a modestly sized RV. We’ve both been thinking lately about the carbon impact of frequent flying and traveling by RV is no means carbon neutral. Perhaps we’ll have to wait for Volkwagon to issue their classic bus as an electric version before we pull the trigger.
