After 18 years aboard Nine of Cups sailing around the world, it was time for a change. We wanted to continue with our vagabond lifestyle … just not on a sailboat. Land travel appealed to us. Some folks prefer big rigs, but we've always preferred a simpler lifestyle that allows us more flexibility for travel.
We purchased Blue, a 2015 Ford Transit 250 cargo van, in July 2017 and upfitted him just the way we wanted… or so we thought. After several great roadtrips, we thought of a number of things we wanted to change or improve upon, and rather than redoing Blue, we sold him and started over by buying and upfitting Blanche, our 2019 Ram Promaster. We can always think of things to improve, but after several iterations and a whole lot of interesting roadtrips, we think she's getting close to what we want. Come along with us for the adventure.
A good friend, George Swallow, created this slightly modified Van Gogh painting.
We’ve accumulated a lot of information on the "upfit" adventure as we prepared ourselves for a nomadic life on land after nearly two decades at sea. You can check out much of the upfitting process on both vans below.
It wasn’t all work and no play… we took lots of breaks during the upfitting process for long, fun roadtrips. You can join us as we explore this great continent of ours.
Finally, we’ve put together a number of blogs related to living in a small van and the camping lifestyle. Hopefully, you’ll find some of them informative, some interesting and some humorous.
Scroll down the page or just click on any of the thumbnails below to read more.
Upfitting our Van(s)
Just click on a thumbnail below to read the associated blog post.
Road Trips
“It’s not about the destination, it’s about the journey”
We love a good road trip, especially in our van. Occasionally, we’re on a schedule and don’t have time to dawdle, but most of our trips include lots of time for exploration along the way. Sometimes we have a destination in mind, but often, as Emerson said, “It’s not the destination, it’s the journey” that we enjoy most. Come join us on a few of our favorite road trips…
Great Western Loop
Spring, 2018
Our inaugural trip with Blue, our 2015 Ford Transit, was a 5,000 mile loop through Arizona, California, Oregon and then back down through Nevada. Our original plans were ambitious and included much more, but just as when we were sailing, our travel style is slow and we found lots of diversions. We may have covered less territory, but we saw and enjoyed every mile along the way.
The Tall Timber - Hobo Loop
Summer, 2018
With triple-digit heat in Las Vegas (yup, we know … Mojave Desert in July … what can we expect, right?), it only made sense to head out in search of something ‘less heated’ than our desert. We did our research and came up with a route. The major planned itinerary stops on what we’re calling the Tall Timber-Hobo Loop (TTH) included Theodore Roosevelt National Park in North Dakota, Tall Timber Days in Grand Rapids, Minnesota, Voyageurs National Park in northern Minnesota and the 118th Annual Hobo Convention (yes, you read that right) in Britt, Iowa.
North to Alaska
Summer, 2023
We’ve both been to Alaska many times - both for business and for pleasure. In fact, David was stationed in Adak, way out in the Aleutian island chain, for a year while in the Navy. We’d never driven there, however, and we decided that this was the year. The plan was to take our time up through Canada, traverse the AlCan/Alaska highway, and eventually make our way north to the Arctic Ocean - the only ocean we’d not dipped our toes in. The trip took us a little over five months, and we travelled 16,082 miles. It was nothing less than wonderful. Come on along… you’ll love it!
Destination: Maritime Canada
Summer, 2024
This year’s road trip destination? Maritime Canada. We headed north through northern Nevada, Idaho, and Montana, crossing into British Columbia at Roosville. We did, by the way, complete US-93 from south to north… another Blue Highway from Wickenburg, Arizona to Roosville, Montana. From B.C., we headed across the Canadian provinces of Alberta, Saskatchewan, Manitoba, Ontario, Quebec, and then headed northeast to Labrador, took a ferry to Newfoundland, another ferry to Nova Scotia, then on to Prince Edward Island, New Brunswick, and back through Quebec. This was an epic journey. Join us. Bienvenue au Canada!
Wild West Roadtrip
Spring 2022
Blanche's Trial by Fire
This road trip marked Blanche's debut. Newly acquired in February 2022, she’s a 2019 Ram ProMaster, and after a few months of sawing, drilling, wiring, scratching our heads, and making far more trips to the hardware store than either of us cared to admit, she was finally a camper enough to hit the road. Finished? Not even close. Functional? We certainly hope so.
Our plan was to make a wide loop through Arizona, New Mexico, and Texas, visiting places we've somehow managed to miss despite years of wandering the Southwest. Just as important, though, this journey was to serve as Blanche's shakedown cruise. We fully expected to discover what worked, what didn't, and which brilliant ideas weren't nearly as brilliant once we tried living with them.
Every camper conversion is a compromise between comfort, convenience, cost, and available space. You can spend months planning every detail, but nothing reveals the flaws—or the unexpected successes—quite like living in it for a few weeks. We were betting this trip would generate a healthy list of modifications before we ever picked up another tool.
So climb aboard. There are desert sunrises to greet, lonely highways to explore, small-town diners to sample, and, if experience is any guide, at least a few "Why on earth did we do it that way?" moments waiting just around the next bend.
Pandemic Roadtrip
Summer, 2020
By the second year of the pandemic, we'd discovered an unexpected silver lining: while many attractions and businesses remained shuttered, a surprising number of national and state campgrounds were still welcoming visitors. For travelers who carried their accommodations with them, it was one of the safest ways to satisfy an increasingly severe case of cabin fever.
That realization inspired another adventure. We headed first to Colorado to meet several of our nieces and nephews for a long-overdue family camping reunion. From there, we visited our youngest son and his family before wandering wherever the road led us through the cooler mountain air of Colorado, Wyoming, Idaho, and Montana. Our plan was simple—explore scenic backroads, discover places we'd somehow missed during decades of travel, and enjoy a summer away from the blistering desert heat back home and the usual crowds.
Of course, this wasn't travel as usual. Masks rode shotgun, hand sanitizer became a constant companion, and we kept a respectful distance from everyone we met. The pandemic was still very much a part of everyday life, but the wide-open spaces of the American West offered plenty of room to roam safely.
So, pack your virtual camping gear, and come along as we trade crowds for campfires, highways for mountain passes, and uncertainty for the simple joy of discovering what lies around the next bend..
Blue Highways
Along the NAtional Old TrailS Road in Arizona, circa 1915
The first person to drive an automobile across the United States was Horatio Jackson who traveled from New York City to San Francisco in 1903. His journey was mainly on dirt roads, but also included cow paths and not a few miles on railroad beds. His odyssey sparked public interest in long distance road trips as a form of recreation and adventure, and not long after, three transcontinental routes were established: the Lincoln Highway from NYC to San Francisco, the Yellowstone Trail from Plymouth, Massachusetts to Seattle, Washington, via Yellowstone National Park of course, and the National Old Trails Road that began in Baltimore and terminated in Los Angeles, following what would later become Route 66 through the western states. These routes formed the basis for the U.S. Highway system, more than 150,000 miles of primarily two-lane highways that criss-cross the U.S.
We really enjoy traveling these historic highways. The pace is slower and there is no shortage of odd and wonderful things to see along the way. We often refer to them as “blue highways”, a term coined in 1979 by William Least Heat-Moon in his book ‘Blue Highways: A Journey into America’. He used the term ‘blue highways’ because secondary highways on the old paper road maps were always printed in blue. While many of the U.S. routes have been incorporated into the vast Interstate Highway System and are no longer blue highways, we’ve found several roadtrip-worthy routes that do, for the most part, remain two-lane, less-traveled roads. Here are a few of our favorites…
US-2, The High Road
US-2, also known as the High Road is arguably the most diverse and stunning of the great transcontinental road trips, and also the longest. The route starts in the state of Washington and ends in Maine. We have lots of adventures ahead of us. From Pacific to Atlantic and everything in between, this portends to be a memorable journey.
US-93
U.S. Route 93 is a north–south 1,359-mile highway that connects U.S. Route 60 in Wickenburg, Arizona, with British Columbia Highway 93 at the Canadian border. The highway passes through the deserts of Arizona, the glitz of Las Vegas,and the gorgeous mountains of Idaho and Montana. Care to take a peek?
US-6 - All the kicks, one less six
Also known as the Grand Army of the Republic Highway, this historic transcontinental highway is a diagonal route that’s been largely modified over the years. It’s the oldest, longest, and highest of the ‘old’ roads. It is 3,205 miles long, with a high point of 11,990 feet (3,650 m) at Loveland Pass in Colorado. It runs from the Sierra Nevada Mountains in Bishop, California, through 14 states to Provincetown at the very tip of Cape Cod, Massachusetts. Come along on our roadtrip along 6…
Life in a Van
Living in a camper van requires a number of lifestyle changes. While the 18 years we spent living aboard and sailing Nine of Cups around the world went a long way in preparing us for our new lifestyle, life with Blue and subsequently with Blanche certainly was and continues to be a big learning experience, but it gets easier each time. We’ve written a number of blogs that describe some of our experiences and what we’ve learned. We hope you enjoy them.
