When I get asked, “how was it to travel around the United States and live in my vehicle?” They always think that I am going to give them an answer like, “it was the time of my life”, or “that it was the greatest thing I’ve ever made myself do”. The true answer is that it was everything! It was good, bad, terrible and possibly some of the best moments I’ve ever had. To be very honest, it was exactly how my life was going. I’ve been living out of a backpack through most of the world to riding a bicycle through majority of the world. Living in my vehicle was hard, but quite comfortable. I had a nice bed to sleep in every night. I also had refrigerated food and a kitchen that was always there, depending on where the wind was coming. 

I really had no idea what I was doing at the start of the trip and with the vehicle not being very “livable” at the time that I got it back after two years being overseas, I was starting fresh. I remember back in the day when I took a week vacation to Whistler, BC, I wanted to write about living in my vehicle because of the time that’s as big as I’ve ever gotten to living full-time, completely self sustained in a vehicle. Oh how completely wrong I was about that. The first couple days was fairly hectic because it wasn’t that easy to find a place just to pull off and camp, but once you get past that first hurdle and start to normalize yourself with the vehicle and the way of living becomes easier and easier. 

I started in Bend Oregon, instantly getting a job there for at least three months, which was perfect because I got the tent, awning and refrigerator from the very place that I was working at.  After a bit I realize that I couldn’t stay in the northwest much longer. I needed to venture down somewhere different, so I made my way down to Reno, Nevada, where I stopped for a bit and had a cigar at a very nice lounge and tried to figure out if I wanted to stay or venture down even more south. I ended up staying in Reno for a little under a month when I was offered a job at an Overland outfitting company that was just starting up in the southern part of the city. I became their first and only employee other than the owner. We ended up outfitting other vehicles for customers that wanted to do mostly weekend trips. It was really easy to sell a lot of stuff because I lived full-time in my vehicle. I spent the winter there which was very harsh. It ended up snowing about 4 feet that season even in the southern areas. I made a small community of friends while I was staying in the area of Reno and I even had a back up plan for when the weather was a little too bad. I had a “go to” hotel, and also ended up friending a guy with a spare room to reside from the heavy winds and the frigid cold at that time. 

The truck was still kind of bare, and everything was kind of temporary put in inside the rig. The person I worked for, was generous enough to help me out with making a drawer system for the Xterra. I ended up building all on my own with him buying the materials, as a way of saying thank you for being a good worker.

At about the six month mark I wanted to venture on and also meet my parents in Las Vegas on their vacation and go see the Grand Canyon together. I packed up all my stuff and ventured out to California as a test run to make sure everything that I built would hold together through a long period of travel. 

California is not really known for being the best place to travel around in especially near the metropolitan areas. I got kicked out of a state park by a very angry state park ranger because he didn’t consider me a tent or a RV and as he quoted, “if I wanted to live in my vehicle, I can go down to downtown San Francisco Where it’s allowed.” Not really the friendliest thing to tell somebody that had more money in their vehicle than most of the RVs in that state park. I ended up venturing down to the coast and paying $50 for a parking spot at a hotel to stay for the night, so I could see the Pacific Ocean. I turned around and venturing back the next day.

When I got to Reno, I double checked all of my stuff and then eventually left the city limits for the last time as I’ve ventured south. I had two choices along the trip, I could’ve gone through Nevada, driving through the deserts, or went back to California down through Mammoth and parts of Death Valley. I decided that I’d rather see mountains than of a  boring flat road. I ventured back in to California once more, but this time was a little bit different as most of the people in the eastern side of the state was just as frustrated as I was about how that state was. I stayed in a very nice little hot spring area in the middle of nowhere just south of Mammoth. The next morning I went down to the town of Bishop, California and had breakfast. As I made plans of how to get to Vegas, a trucker that was also eating told me about a little shortcut that was a little bit nicer than going through Death Valley. Unfortunately I didn’t know it went up a very steep mountain pass, which my truck did not like at all. After the headaches and the anxiety slowed down, I finally made it over the mountains and saw the path to Vegas. I had a beautiful week with my parents and we even got to see the Grand Canyon skywalk bridge which is basically a glass bridge that takes you over the edge of the canyon. 

My parents eventually headed to the airport I made my way south, where I got caught in yet another snow storm in Flagstaff, Arizona. Being sick and tired of the cold I decided to venture down into Sedona where I stayed for a week to look around possibly for work. When I came up empty I decided to go down to Scottsdale where I finally got my first taste of warmth and a little over four months. I found a job immediately at a cigar lounge and was very happy to start anytime soon, but had to wait a couple days for someone to come back to train me. The day before I started work, I got sweated out of my tent at 6 o’clock in the morning at the temps of the high 70s. I went back to the cigar lounge and thank them for the opportunity, but I had to venture out somewhere else because I knew I would die of heat exhaustion during the night if I stayed there. One of the patrons was there and told me about Prescott, Arizona, and how beautiful it was and that it was in higher elevations. I got to Prescott and made friends quickly and then found a job staying there for about 5 1/2 months, it was very hard to leave such a beautiful place.

I had to make my way east to finish this trip after almost 2 years of being on the road, living full-time in my Xterra, I knew if it was going to go this way of working along the way I would never be able to finish my original thought of going around the United States. Once again, I packed up all of my stuff and ventured east. Flagstaff is a big part of the route 66 and luckily it was only an hour and a half away from where I started my journey so I decided to take the route 66 all the way to St. Louis. From there I cross over to the eastern side of the United States and make my way down south. I ended up driving through a lot of scenic areas of the route 66, although some of the areas were shut down because of the lack of maintenance on the road and some of the road went through Indian reservations that no longer allows tourists. I did find myself venturing off the route to see some scenic areas like Santa Fe, New Mexico, and a little town in Missouri that used to be on the route 66 what was transplanted after the highway was built. 

After crossing the Mississippi river, I realize quickly that I wouldn’t be staying in public lands as most of the East Coast is very populated so I ended up going into campgrounds. I made a fairly big scene everywhere I went because of the Xterra. It was nice to stop and talk to people that were full timing in their RVs , and even getting nice words about the build, and the decision to do this trip now and not later. As I was making my way east through New York, I got an offer to do the Overland Expo East in Virginia as a presenter, so I just put it in my plans and made my way to that area. I manage to see Niagara Falls and Buffalo, New York, all the way down through Pennsylvania. That was about the same time as a hurricane that ravished Florida was making its way up the East Coast. I made camp at a lovely little campground in Indiana, Pennsylvania, where it proceeded to dump the most rain I’ve ever seen in three days. Once the storm cleared I made my way to the event where I stayed for a beautiful weekend of talking to people, showing off the Xterra and being part of panels about traveling by vehicle full-time.

After the expo, I was invited to be part of a convoy heading through Blue Ridge Parkway down to North Carolina. I was very happy to be part of a group, but after a while, I realize that I really enjoyed making my own decisions and traveling at my pace. I eventually branched out of the convoy a couple days in and end up making my way down to Charlotte, North Carolina .

North Carolina had a lot of meaning, as I was the only family member to go back to that state since my dad was born there in 1957 and left there in about 1965. I wanted to go to his birth town, but it was cut short real quick as I was taking a left turn to find a safe way to get onto the highway, I was unfortunately struck by a vehicle using the shoulder to pass everybody that was stopped for me to take a left turn. I have the full story about what happened in that situation and another article on the site.

 Luckily I was about a month ahead of schedule on my trip and so I didn’t lose that much time with the accident once I was back on the road. I gingerly made it down to the southern states, it took me a bit to feel more comfortable with the Xterra as most of the front end was brand new. The first place I camped after the accident was just out of Columbia South Carolina, where it decided to start raining and never stopped until I made it to Georgia.

 That’s when the sun started shining a little bit better, I started to see more of the tropical parts of the United States. One of my friends lived in Miami and knew that I was coming down, so gave me an invitation to stay with him at his beautiful house just outside of the city of Miami. He was an owner of a cigar company that I met while attending a cigar event in Arizona. I finally made it down to Miami where I spent a few days at his place, smoking cigars and growing our friendship even more, but I knew I was so close to the finish line to make it to Key West and mile zero, which was the last destination before turning back and heading back to Washington state. I jumped in the truck once more fully loaded and made my way down to the Florida Keys where I ended up staying for just a day before turning around on my way home for Christmas. 

This portion of the trip was planned to be a rush through the whole of the United States and not as leisurely as it was before. I knew I had a limited amount of time being that it was already the middle of December, I didn’t wanna miss opening up presents for Christmas with the family. I really thought that this trip would be mostly just a blur as I made my way to the Pacific Northwest, but just by chance there, an arctic front coming down through the middle of the United States making it almost impossible to pass. I ended up going into my old ways of when I was on my bicycle. I would sit in route out the next day of travel while eating dinner the night before. Checking weather reports, wind reports and road conditions. I also got a chance to meet a dear friend in Tennessee and stayed a night with him and his family while making my way up. The only time I ever cross paths with my original route was in Steelville, Missouri, which was conveniently an all year round Christmas campground. I told them that I would come back around Christmas to see their full decorations set up. I stayed there for one night and it got very cold. It was actually was so cold they end up breaking the plastic on my ladder going into the tent, which meant that I didn’t stay in the tent for the remainder of the trip and just got Airbnb’s. It was a smart decision being that after that night, it dropped down to minus degree temperatures in the majority of the places I was staying and I was not prepared for anything under 20°F.

Most of the states I was going through really had nothing to see like Nebraska and much of Wyoming. It was just a lot of driving on the cruise control going straight, but once I start hitting the passes through Wyoming into Montana is when it got very cold. In one of the mountain pass in Montana it dropped down to -47°, icing over my windshield as the heat was blasting inside the truck. I almost got stuck in the snow in Missoula, Montana where I made the decision to stay. The night the next day I thought I could possibly make it home, unfortunately with the weather conditions as bad as it was, I only got to the Idaho/Washington.

That next morning, I knew I would make it home and as I was heading to Snoqualmie Pass, I started seeing signs that it was closed. In a mad rush to figure out information of why it was closed, I made the decision to head south where I could cross over the Cascades to make my way back home.

As I finally crawled my way back into my hometown, I started getting very excited that I was going to see my family in my vehicle for the first time in almost 2 years, but as I was driving through, I started getting depressed. I did not like the fact that I was driving through these familiar streets of a gray and gloomy town that I grew up in. I knew from that point that I really wasn’t too happy to be in that area anymore as I was pampered with living in different parts of the world that had better weather and honestly better people.

Honestly, the trip was as good as it was going to be. I knew there was going to be some troubles along the journey, as it always will be. it was a great life experience to see my own country being that I’ve been around the world several times.

 I ended up staying a couple more months in my hometown before I made the decision to go back down to Prescott, Arizona.