There is a specific moment on every long trip when the romance of van life quietly renegotiates its terms. For me it was a Tuesday evening outside Bishop, California, five days into a boondocking stretch, when I turned my faucet handle and got a sad gurgle, a splutter, and nothing. No shower. No pasta water. … Read more
There is a particular kind of excitement that comes with hitching a used popup camper to your vehicle for the first time. Maybe you found a deal on Craigslist, or perhaps you are dusting off a camper that has been sitting in a driveway for two or three years. Either way, the moment you crank … Read more
When my team and I loaded up the SUV for a two-week camping circuit through Utah and Arizona last spring, I had a duffel bag full of power banks, a tangle of charging cables, and a nagging feeling it wasn’t going to be enough. Three days in, somewhere between Capitol Reef and a dirt road … Read more
When you’re building a campervan electrical system, the connections between your battery cables and terminals are the lifeline of everything that powers your off-grid life. A loose lug, a exposed copper terminal, or a vibration-loosened connection can leave you stranded miles from the nearest cell signal — or worse, start a fire in the vehicle … Read more
My dog Moose has logged more miles than most people I know. Three national parks, fourteen state forests, and enough dirt roads to fill an atlas. He turned seven this spring, and somewhere around our third breakdown on a fire road in the Ozarks last fall, I promised myself I’d stop treating his comfort as … Read more
There’s a specific moment when a cabin weekend clicks into place. For me, it happens on the first evening — cooler full of food, fire going, porch chair creaking underneath me, and the kind of silence you forget exists when you live in a city. But getting to that moment? That requires gear. And not … Read more
I’ve been driving the same crossover for five years. It’s fine. It gets me to the grocery store and back, handles the occasional weekend hike, and the cargo area has swallowed enough camping gear to justify its existence. But last month, halfway through a 14-hour drive to Utah, I realized something: my car wasn’t built … Read more
I’ve been doing this travel thing long enough to know that the difference between a trip that sings and one that sputters usually comes down to what’s rattling around in your trunk. Not the destination, not the playlist — the gear. And with Amazon Prime Day rolling in June 23rd through the 26th, I’ve been … Read more
I’ve been camping long enough to know the difference between gear that earns its spot in your pack and gear that just sounds good on a product page. Last August, I watched a buddy struggle for forty minutes setting up a tent in a thunderstorm while I was already sipping coffee under my tarp. That … Read more
There’s a specific kind of freedom that comes with turning on a faucet in the middle of nowhere and watching clean water flow out. No hookups, no campground fee, no ranger telling you to move along. Just you, your van, and enough water to cook dinner, wash the dishes, and maybe take a quick shower … Read more