Category Archives: Uncategorized

Much like the noiseless incursion that brought gradual but devastating deflation to our back right tyre last Wednesday, the arrival of Week 10 was both unwanted and unexpected. Unexpected – though admittedly a foreseeable successor to Week 9 – because by the time of Week 10, 60 days of vanlife had begun to take theirContinue reading “Week 10 – The Home Stretch”

When, in 5th century BC, Greek philosopher Heraclitus of Ephesus wrote that the only constant in life is change, he must have been thinking of van life. For it is the unpredictability and immediacy of this trip that defines it – part of the thrill but also of the hassle, as I’ve mentioned in previousContinue reading “Week 9 – Back to coast life, back to reality(?)”

There comes a time in every person’s life when lying face down on the beach ceases to be a productive way to spend large, hazily-defined portions of the day. For us, such a time came just as Week 8 lurched jauntily into view. So it was that we found ourselves at Pismo Beach pivoting eastward,Continue reading “Week 8 – Sierra Nevada”

Week 7 ushered in a grandiose new chapter of life on the road. With our departure from Joshua Tree NP had come the last of our desert days, and its heavy heat was now little more than a fond memory as we hit the cool fog of the coast. This because, miraculously, our arrival inContinue reading “Week 7 – City Living”

The bittersweet smack of week 6 will linger long in the memory. It was a hot one – like seven inches from the midday sun – and Finbar and I were now suffused with summer’s sweet languor. But so too did week 6 bring the realisation that half the trip was already behind us. WallowingContinue reading “Week 6 – Pio-nearing California”

When posterity undergoes the enviable task of analysing and categorising this trip for reasons of historical import, week 5 will surely be recognised as National Park Week. Less gory than Shark Week but equally rousing, the past seven days or so have been a melee of visitor centres, soiled maps, and blood-thirsty sightseers. Utah’s CapitolContinue reading “Week 5 – National Park Week”

It’s week 4, and the van is eating miles like a famished whale. Each passing day, new and varied landscapes are thrust upwards from the curve of the earth as we wind our way down through the southwestern US. Two days in Grand Teton NP satisfied our thirst for mountain air in measures never anticipated.Continue reading “Week 4 – The Colorado Plateau”

Following the breakout success of Vancouver on a budget, I thought it only proper to make it a thing and divulge details on how we survive/enjoy every major city we pass through on this trip. So here is a quick rundown on how to see Utah’s capital, the weird and wonderful Salt Lake City, withoutContinue reading “Salt Lake City on a budget”

Like a butterfly from its chrysalis, week 3 emerged from the crusty remains of week 2 to bask in mid-May’s glorious offerings. There’s now a whiff of summer to this American spring; the sun leaves its mark more readily on our flesh, and the days are drawn out as if coaxed from both ends byContinue reading “Week 3 – Yellowstone National Park”

‘As one door closes, another opens’, Alexander Graham Bell once sagely wrote. And so it was with time’s inexorable influence upon our trip, specifically the seamless transition from the closed door of week 1 to the endless possibility presented by week 2. As blackbirds in the morning air, Finbar and I ushered in week 2Continue reading “Week 2 – Corps of Discovery”