A WHIRLWIND ROAD TRIP HONEYMOON ACROSS AMERICA
AS WE WRITE THIS, WE ARE ON A MORE CONVENTIONAL TRIP - FLIGHTS AND RESERVATIONS ALL ARRANGED IN ADVANCE AND WHILE THIS HAS ITS BENEFITS, THERE IS NOTHING LIKE THE SENSE OF FREEDOM AND ADVENTURE THAT TRAVELING BY CAMPERVAN GAVE US.
Our honeymoon adventure started with one important core principle: freedom. We wanted to set our own schedule, see what we wanted, when we wanted...
AN ADVENTUROUS HONEYMOON
Our honeymoon adventure started with one important core principle: freedom. We wanted to set our own schedule, see what we wanted, when we wanted, and to have the world laid open at our feet. This meant no hotel reservations made months in advance, no travel agents, not one single thing that would prevent us from living in the present moment.
After considering all the conventional options - car rentals, buses, trains, planes, hotels, motels, Airbnbs, and so on - we knew that none of those options were ideal for us. They all required committing to a fixed timeline, pre-planning activities weeks or months in advance, and left little to no room for serendipity, adventure, or exploration.
For all these reasons we started thinking about more adventurous options, and in the end found a company that rented out campervans - passenger vans which have been converted into mobile living spaces, complete with refrigerators, solar panels, fitted bedsheets, and blackout curtains. And what sealed the deal for us? The company we found even painted the vans in beautiful, photogenic custom paint jobs done by local artists!
HOW TO LIVE IN A VAN FOR 34 DAYS
We picked up our van, named Red Fox, in San Francisco. We had a friend at Google who’d kindly invited us to a bunch of fun activities in the Bay Area, so we stuck around town for a few days as we got used to the logistics of van life. Red Fox came with a bedroom in the back that converted into a living room during the day (complete with dining table!), and in the back the cargo doors opened to reveal shelves and a kitchenette complete with cooking supplies, propane stove and a 10L refrigerator powered by rooftop solar panels. There was storage for food, clothes, gear, and extras. Because it began life as a E-series Ford work van, the front had plenty of room for two people and a big box of snacks, drinks, and moving around room. In this purpose-built campervan, a lot of what we needed to live was already done for us (even down to the tailored sheets that fit the fold-down bed perfectly). Even with all these advantages, there are a lot of things that you need to figure out for yourself: Where do you sleep? How do you shower? What do you do in the mornings after you wake up, and how do you get ready for bed? These are all important questions, and the answers are different for everybody, but two things are for sure: one, it’s going to be a lot different from your normal life and two, everything is going to
be fine. There’s not a lot of ways to get it wrong, so as long as you make sure the place you park is legal, then everything else will work itself out. Many people are afraid of leaping into such a different lifestyle, but most things just work themselves out when you go with the flow!
DISNEY’S CELEBRATE AMERICA!
We stayed in San Francisco for a few days, and then decided to head on. For months we had planned to head straight to Yosemite from San Francisco but while we were there we realized that it was almost
July 4th - and decided to completely change our plans and head hundreds of miles in a different direction, to celebrate July 4th at Disneyland! A completely last minute change like this would normally mean hundreds or even thousands of dollars in extra costs - transport, reservations, last minute tickets and hotel rooms - but since we were carrying our hotel room with us, we didn’t have to worry about any of that. Changing our plans from one amazing thing to another cost nothing (turns out, Disneyland tickets cost the same on holidays), and we started driving down the gorgeous Pacific Coast Highway
(PCH) to Los Angeles. The PCH itself is a destination for many, and along its stunning and winding roads we caught sunsets by the beach in Big Sur, gasped at massive redwood trees, had breakfast by Oprah’s house in Santa Barbara, and even had time to meet a few long-lost friends.
Once at Disney, we talked to some locals in the neighborhood by the park who gave us permission to park in front of their house and gave us tips about where to avoid, and during the day we parked in the Disney parking. This was a blessing in itself, as a lot of people stay too far away from the park to leave and come back and end up crumpled, exhausted, in a pile on the ground by mid-afternoon. Meanwhile, we got there early in the morning, rode the rides and explored the park for six hours, took a two hour nap in our air-conditioned bed, and went back in for more rides and to enjoy the July 4th fireworks. And we even got to take a secret back route through backstage Disney!
ANOTHER FORK IN THE ROAD
On our campervan honeymoon, the only absolute was that we had to be in Denver in 34 days, and everything else was up to us. So after our time in Disneyland, the choice before us wasn’t “how do we get to ___”, but “where do we go from here?”
With no limitations on where to go or how to do it, we realized that we had enough time to make a detour south and visit Mexico! We stayed in Tijuana, gawking at some aircraft carriers in San Diego on the way there, then went south to Rosarito to stay in a beautiful oceanside resort with a cliffside room overlooking the Pacific Ocean. From there, instead of crossing back into the US we headed east along the Us-mexico border where we discovered
ALONG ITS STUNNING AND WINDING ROADS WE CAUGHT SUNSETS BY THE BEACH IN BIG SUR, GASPED AT MASSIVE REDWOOD TREES, HAD BREAKFAST BY OPRAH¶S HOUSE IN SANTA BARBARA, AND EVEN HAD TIME TO MEET A FEW LONG-LOST FRIENDS.
PABLO HAD HIS SAXOPHONE, AND PLAYED A FEW REFRAINS OF ³WHAT A WONDERFUL WORLD´ TO ACCOMPANY THIS BEAUTIFUL NEW DAWN.
a truly amazing mountain pass called La Rumorosa. Even if you search its name on Google, not much information is available and it doesn’t appear on any Tijuana travel blogs, but its natural beauty was beyond description, an alien landscape on equal footing with any of the American National Parks we were about to drive through. And all because we wanted to spend a little more time in Mexico before going back to the US! From there, we dropped down into the desert, where we would spend the next two and a half weeks. From La Rumorosa which sat right beside the Gulf of California in Mexico, we followed the Colorado River up its rugged 2,500km length. We saw the majestic mountains and chollas of Joshua Tree and passed by the vacation retreats of Hollywood’s heroes in Palm Springs. We saw the magical elfin hoodoos of Bryce Canyon National Park and watched gorgeous red and purple sunsets fade into starry nights far from city lights, nights so black the sky and land became one mysterious inky sea, and nights so full of stars that a thousand diamonds could not compare.
IN SEARCH OF "UNREASONABLE" BEAUTIES
The Grand Canyon is for many people a lifelong goal to visit and to see, and we were lucky enough to spend a few days there ourselves on the way. We took the classic mule ride along the canyon rim, hiked down partway (not to the bottom - doing so without arranging accommodation is a great way to tempt fate, and must be arranged years in advance), and saw one of the most beautiful sunrises either of us had ever seen on the Bright Angel trail. It would be impossible to describe; as the sun crested the opposite rim of the canyon and the first rays of light struck the western wall, the grandeur and scale were overwhelming in a completely unexpected way. Tears filled our eyes as peace filled our souls, and all we could do was hold each other, thankful to be alive on this earth and to have this moment to share for the rest of our lives. Pablo had his saxophone, and played a few refrains of “What a Wonderful World” to accompany this beautiful new dawn; a private concert of celebration for us and for those few hikers down the trail from us. In life, every so often we have moments that are not just priceless, but unreasonably beautiful, more than we feel we deserve - and this was one of those.
Yet for all its magnificence, grandness, and canyoniness, the Grand Canyon was not in fact the most impressive canyon in all regards. Yes, it was the largest, and the biggest, but it’s just too large for human comprehension. If something is 20km wide, is 23km 15% more impressive? To our puny human senses, they are seemingly the same. The things that we can understand are of a much smaller scale indeed. Hiking Angel’s Landing in Zion National Park, walking meters next to its vertical 500m cliff drops was much scarier because we were closer and the ground wasn’t so far away as to be almost imaginary.
This all goes to say - there’s a lot more to Canyon Country than just the Grand Canyon. A whole lot more, in fact, and one place to experience a huge array of what the high deserts and red rock canyons have to offer is Moab, Utah. This was the place we spent the most time on our trip, because it has everything a wilderness explorer could possibly want. There are two National Parks of outstanding beauty and international acclaim within a short drive. On top of that, there is much incredible nature that is not part of a National Park - the advantage of which is that you can do many more activities there. Mountain biking, off-roading, camping, cooking, and freedom of exploration - there’s just a lot more activities to do. Sometimes it’s described as summer camp for adults, or a desert paradise, but for us Moab was where the most rugged adventures with the best of friends was.
THE LAST MOUNTAIN PASS
We ended our trip driving east, from the red rock canyons of Utah into the mighty heights of Colorado’s Rocky Mountains. As much as the Grand Canyon is spectacular beyond compare, so are the Rocky Mountains and the incredible mountain lakes and passes that can be seen there. With the freedom of the campervan, we saw the famous Vail ski retreat, took long detours through old fashioned mining towns, and even played in snow on top of mountaintops - in July! Every day, even small things like where to sleep and where to cook breakfast were exciting adventures of discovery, with new experiences waiting around every corner and nothing planned. Not only was it the perfect fit for our personalities, but it was also far more cost-effective while opening up far more interesting experiences and opportunities. We are already thinking about a campervan trip through Europe in the future!