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.
Roadtrips
We love a good roadtrip, 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, but the journey” that we enjoy most. Come join us on a few of our favorite roadtrips…
Great Western Loop
Our inaugural trip with Blue 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 was 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
Well, we’re off again! It’s been triple-digit hot in Las Vegas (yup, we know … Mojave Desert in July … what can we expect, right?) and so, it only made sense to head out again in search of something ‘less heated’ than our desert. We’ve done our research and come up with a route. The major planned itinerary stops on what we’re calling the Tall Timber-Hobo Loop (TTH) include 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
We’ve both been to Alaska many times - both for business and for pleasure. In fact, David was stationed in the 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 highway, and eventually make our way all the way north to the Arctic Ocean - the only ocean we’d not dipped our toes in. The trip took us a little over months and we travelled 16,082 miles, and was wonderful. Come travel with us…
Destination: Maritime Canada
May 28, 2024
We’re off on this year’s road trip. Destination? Maritime Canada. We will head north through northern Nevada, Idaho and Montana crossing into British Columbia at Roosville. We will, by the way, have completed US-93 from south to north, another blue highway… Wickenburg, Arizona to Roosville, Montana. From B.C., we head across the Canadian provinces of Alberta, Saskatchewan, Manitoba, Ontario, Quebec and then head northeast to Labrador, take a ferry to Newfoundland, another ferry to Nova Scotia, then on to Prince Edward Island, New Brunswick and back through Quebec. It’s going to be a great trip - come join us!
Life with Blue
Living in a camper van required 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 certainly was and is a big learning experience. We’ve written a number of blogs that describe some of our experiences and what we learned. We hope you enjoy them.
