Always an Adventure
600 Days of Vanlife: Our Route & Where We Stayed
This post is the first in a series I’m writing about living in our van full time for 600 days. Drawing from our detailed travel log, I’ll dive into the data on the route we took, where we stayed, and how long we stayed there.
Goals & Priorities
We selected our destinations and routes based on various goals, priorities, and preferences. Some of these we knew at the outset of our journey, and others were figured out along the way. The key motivators for our route included:
- Visit all the states A couple months into our journey, once we confirmed we both enjoyed and tolerated vanlife, we decided that we wanted to visit all 49 states to which one can drive (sorry, Hawaii). That led to our expedition up to Alaska in the summer of 2024. It also meant a short detour across the state line to Kiowa, KS, to tick another state off the list in spite of snowy conditions.
- Avoid bad weather We were aiming to find temperate and dry conditions as much as we could, avoiding snowy weather in the winter and heat in the summer. The van’s living area does not have air conditioning, and the heater needed electricity. Vanlife in wet conditions wasn’t fun, as we would be stuck inside 60 square feet while it rained or snowed.
- Find natural beauty Wherever we traveled we would try to surround ourselves with nature’s beauty. I’m a firm believer that there is beautiful nature everywhere (although some places it is harder to find).
- Recreate outdoors We preferred to stay in places where it was easy to go out for long hikes and bike rides, ideally right from our campsite.
- Climb state highpoints I’m on a quest to visit the highest natural point in every state, so we aimed to hit as many as possible on our journey.
- Connect with friends & family Vanlife was also an opportunity to connect with friends and family that lived throughout the country.
- Visit state capitol buildings This is a secondary personal quest that turned into photo shoots of our fluffy pup during our travels.
There were also some things that are worth highlighting as NOT priorities for us. Nothing wrong with these, they just didn’t happen to be on the top of our list.
- National Parks The big issue for us is that dogs aren’t allowed on trails at most national parks, so spending time there meant we couldn’t go hiking with our whole family. We made exceptions of course (Grand Canyon Rim Trail!) but we didn’t go out of our way to hit all the National Parks as we made our way around the country.
- Minimizing expense There are some vanlifers out there who attempt to minimize expense with free camping options including Walmart parking lots, truck stops, stealth camping in cities, etc. For us we were able and willing to spend money to stay at campgrounds.
- City entertainment Don’t get me wrong—I love the entertainment, food, and drink options available in cities. But, for us, vanlife and cities weren’t a great match. It’s harder to find safe parking, especially if we were leaving our dog in the van. There’s traffic. And the camping options were generally less attractive.
- Remote work locations My wife and I intentionally took a break from working for our 600 days of vanlife, so we did not have to find great remote work locations. We also didn’t need to stay in one place during the work week.
Summary Stats
Here are some overall summary stats of our travels:
- Start: October 1, 2023 in Poulsbo, WA
- End: May 23, 2025 in Duluth, MN
- Total distance driven: 50,300 miles / 81,000 km
- States visited: 49 (not Hawaii)
- Provinces visted: 7 (Alberta, British Columbia, Yukon, Saskatchewan, Manitoba, Ontario, New Brunswick)
Our Route
We made essentially three clockwise loops in the United States, including travel up to Alaska at the start of Loop 3.
Loop #1 (Oct 2023 to Apr 2024)
When we started vanlife we committed to doing it for at least six months and then returning home to the Seattle area to take care of various adulting tasks (e.g. doctor and dentist appointments). At first we moved rapidly, going from from Seattle to Washington DC in three weeks to attend a concert. Along the way we dipped into Canada to visit Banff National Park and then mostly followed Highway 2 until Michigan’s Upper Peninsula, where we headed south and followed a direct route into DC.
Once we were on the East coast, we spent several months exploring up and down the coast, seeing friends, family, and new states along the way. Then as the weather turned colder we traveled West across the South and Southwest.
To finish up the loop we drove Highway 395 North through California and then over to the Oregon coast for the final stretch into Washington state.
Loop #2 (Apr to May 2024)
Our second loop took place in the spring, so it was a great time to explore Utah and Death Valley before the summer heat. We timed it so we could make it to a family function in the Bay Area in late May, and then get back to Poulsbo to prepare for our voyage to Alaska.
Alaska & Canada (Jun to Aug 2024)
We took three weeks to drive up to Alaska via the Cassiar Highway and the Top of the World Highway. Once there, we spent four weeks exploring, including driving the Denali Highway twice and going all the way down to Homer. Then we spent three weeks driving back to the US, taking the Alaska Highway to BC and then across Canada to Ontario. We reentered the US at Grand Portage, MN.
Loop #3 (Aug 2024 to May 2025)
Our third loop began with spending time in the Northeast for the beautiful fall colors: Finger Lakes, Adirondacks, Vermont, Maine, and the White Mountains. Then, as the weather shifted colder we again made our way South, this time exploring more of Florida. Then we made a beeline to the Southwest again, where we spent 3+ months exploring New Mexico, Arizona, and Utah. By then we knew we wanted to settle in Duluth so we traveled there to find housing, and then drove back to Poulsbo to get our possessions.
Where We Stayed
In this section I dive into how long we stayed in different states and the types of accommodations we used.
States
Throughout our travels we we spent at least one night in 44 different states. The other five (Connecticut, Kansas, Missouri, Nevada, Rhode Island) we just drove through or into.
The states where we spent the most nights were:
| State | Nights Spent (d) |
|---|---|
| Utah | 46 |
| New Mexico | 44 |
| Washington | 40 |
| South Carolina | 36 |
| Alaska | 34 |
| Texas | 32 |
| Georgia | 31 |
| Minnesota | 27 |
| Arizona | 26 |
| Virginia | 25 |
Why these states? There was so much natural beauty to explore in many of them, and also these represent where our friends and family are located.
Accommodations
There were several different types of accommodations we used along the way, and the chart below shows how many total nights we stayed at each.
I plan to write a separate post comparing these options in more detail, but for now I would explain them as follows:
- State/Provincial Park Campground: Designated campground on state/provincial-owned lands. This was our go-to choice thanks to their ubiquity and quality. With a few exceptions, in general the state parks are well run, reliable, have good amenities (flush toilets, showers), are easy to reserve, and located in interesting areas of each state.
- National Campground: Organized campground on national lands such as National Parks, National Forests, Bureau of Land Management, National Recreation Areas, etc. These parks are larger and have more wild spaces, but the campground amenities are lacking.
- Local/Regional Campground: Designated campground on city or county lands. We used these occasionally when staying inside of cities (e.g. Madison, San Jose) or when there weren’t state parks nearby.
- Private Campground / RV Park: Designated campground on privately owned land. We used these commonly when we wanted to stay inside of towns such as Taos, Sedona, Grand Marais, and Jekyll Island. Some were better maintained than others, and all were more expensive than their State Park counterparts.
- Dispersed Camping / Boondocking: Camping outside of designated capgrounds on public lands. This was a great way to have a more secluded and remote experience especially in Utah, New Mexico, and Alaska
- Friends & Family: Parking at the home of friends or family and either sleeping in their driveway or using their spare room.
- Hotel/AirBnb: Any other paid accommmodation where we slept out of the van. We treated this as a last resort due to the cost. We had to use these in a couple cities when we had to have repairs done on the van. We also chose this option when staying in a couple different cities.
Dispersed Camping / Boondocking
One further note on dispersed camping is that its availability and attractiveness really depended on the part of the country we were in. The map here shows how many nights we did dispersed camping in each state, and what percentage that was of our total nights. As you can see, we chose this option much more in the western half of the US: Utah, Alaska, California, New Mexico, and Arizona. These were states where we found truly mangnificant remote places to park for the night.
How Long We Stayed
One last bit of data to look at is how long we stayed at each place. Through 600 days (599 nights) of vanlife we stayed in 277 different places, which means on average we were moving our van every 2.2 days.
The table below breaks this down by the different accommodation types. It’s interesting to see we tended to stay a little longer with Friends & Family, and at private campgrounds. The campground number is biased because we stayed at one while househunting in Duluth, and we also had a favorite in Taos where we had a longer stay. Also I note that we didn’t stay as long in Dispersed Camping spots, as there was typically less to do while stationary there. Local/Regional campgrounds were frequently quite dumpy so we never stayed long.
| Accomodation | Num of Stays | Total Duration (d) | Max Duration (d) | Median Duration (d) | Avg Duration (d) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| State/Provincial Park Campground | 146 | 321 | 7 | 2 | 2.2 |
| Friends & Family | 25 | 73 | 8 | 2 | 2.9 |
| Dispersed Camping / Boondocking | 47 | 65 | 3 | 1 | 1.4 |
| National Campground | 28 | 55 | 5 | 2 | 2.0 |
| Private Campground / RV Park | 15 | 51 | 9 | 3 | 3.4 |
| Hotel/AirBnb | 9 | 26 | 7 | 2 | 2.9 |
| Local/Regional Campground | 7 | 8 | 2 | 1 | 1.1 |
| Grand Total | 277 | 599 | 9 | 2 | 2.2 |