In 2021, my family and I decided to sell our house, buy a camper, and travel. Besides seeing family and friends along the way, our only goal was to visit the states my wife and I had not been to together.
Camper
We purchased a 26-foot travel trailer that was a good fit for our Ford Expedition to pull across the United States. I made a few modifications to the inside of the camper before we left. I removed the dinette table since we planned on eating our meals outside, and we wanted more space in case we were stuck inside because of rain. I used the pieces from the dinette to make a bench along the wall and over the wheel well where the dinette was.
The camper came with bunk beds. I removed the bottom bunk so the kids could have a play area. Under the bottom bunk was outside storage, so we lost that storage, but it made it so we could put up the bottom bed and the kids had a small room.
After a month on the road, my wife came up with the idea of turning our bed so that our youngest kid’s pack-and-pal could fit in the front. I framed up under the bed, adding to the storage space, and everything was good.
Closing and Going
We bought the camper the same day we put our house on the market, about a month from when we planned on leaving. For some practice, we went to a nice Army Corps of Engineers campground by LaBelle, FL, for two nights. We did this twice to see if we were missing anything and to figure out the camper.
We closed on our house on May 9, had the camper ready to go, and took off. It was a little sad leaving our house, but we looked forward to the adventure ahead. We had never owned a camper, and apart from a few pieces of farm equipment growing up, I had never really pulled anything. This also means backing up a trailer wasn’t something I was used to. I just hoped no one was going to be watching me the first time or the first 20 times!
We left Southwest Florida and headed north. Since I didn’t have much experience with pulling a trailer, I decided to go 50 MPH and stay off of the interstate. Since we didn’t know how far we were going to drive each day, we decided that we would find spots to stay each day.
The first day was a long day, but everything went fine. We only went about 300 miles in about 9 hours, but we found a spot for the night. Our goal was to get to my mom’s place in South Dakota for her 70th birthday, so we were going to drive about eight days out of the nine days we had planned to get there. We stayed two nights in Omaha, NE, so we could visit the zoo.
2021
From South Dakota, we went to Colorado, through the mid-west, and especially Michigan, to my wife’s parents’ place, and then to all of the New England states. After that, we went down the East Coast and gradually made our way back to Florida for the winter. We stayed in Florida at various places for the months of November and December.
Highlights of 2021
| Place | State | Notes |
| Omaha Zoo | Nebraska | I remember watching Mutual of Omaha Wild Kingdom growing up and visiting this zoo as a kid. |
| Badlands | South Dakota | We only camped one night here, but it was a nice view of the Badlands. We also went to Wall Drug. |
| Black Hills | South Dakota | We spent four nights in the Black Hills. The kids loved playing with the rocks and the sticks. |
| Niagra Falls | New York | It was awesome seeing the falls. That area of New York was nice. We were in a part of the country that I had never been to. |
| Washington, DC | DC | We visited the National Mall, the White House, and the Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center, which is south of Dulles. |
| New York City | New York | We took a ferry to NYC, rode a double-decker bus to tour Manhattan, walked in Central Park, and walked in Lower Manhattan. |
| Myrtle Beach | South Carolina | We had a campsite on the beach for two weeks. |
| Blue Ridge Mountains | Georgia | We stayed at a campground south of Blairsville, GA, for just one night. Although we stayed at many different and cool places, this is one place we want to go back to and stay there longer. The campground was a tight fit for us, but the hiking was awesome. |
| Florida | Florida | We stayed at various places in Florida in November and December. For the month of December, we rented a house in Cape Coral, FL. This was the first time we didn’t stay in our camper for the past seven months. |
2022
After spending a month in a real house in December of 2021, we packed up the camper and hit the road, again. We stayed in Orlando, FL, and on the beach in Jacksonville, FL, for two weeks each. Then we rented another house in Panama City Beach, which was only two blocks from the beach. We rented this house with my mom for the month of February.
We headed west and made our way all the way to the west coast. Along the way, we had to stay in Houston an extra day because our vehicle needed new sparkplugs. It was right at that time Russia started the war against Ukraine. This caused gas to jump 80 cents overnight and keep going up from there. Driving west was already uphill and I already expected gas prices to be higher as we made our way west of Texas. Each day of travel was going to cost lots more than in 2021.
We made our way across Texas, New Mexico, various stops in Arizona, Utah, Las Vegas, and finally to southern California. We got to California in early April and stayed at various places until the first part of May.
We headed north and stopped at Sequoia National Park, Yosemite, back into Nevada, over to San Fransisco, and then all the way up to Seattle. We stopped at Mt. Saint Helens and Mt Rainier.
From there, we headed east. We crossed the tip of Idaho, through Montana, with a stop at Yellowstone, over to Bismark, ND, and back to my mom’s place in South Dakota.
We went back to Colorado to see a friend who wasn’t doing well, back to Michigan, and then made our way to Florida. In Florida, we stayed at a few places on the east coast of Florida, Orlando, and a few on the Gulf side. Our plan was to get back to Cape Coral in October and find a place to rent long-term. Hurricane Ian caused us to change our plans.
We stayed in Port St Lucie, FL, for two weeks and waited out the storm there. We had 50 MPH winds as Ian made its way northwest of us and gusts strong enough to move the camper 2 inches. Meh. It was like being in an airplane with bad turbulence most of the night.
Highlights of 2022
| Place | State | Notes |
| Panama City Beach | Florida | Stayed in a house for a month in February. |
| Arizona | Arizona | Cactus. All the different kinds of cacti were neat to see. We stayed in Tucson, Phoenix, the Grand Canyon, and various other places. We were in Arizona for three weeks, We dispersed camped south of the Grand Canyon for one day. It was a very nice place on National Forrest land. We planned on staying two nights, but it was supposed to get down to 27 degrees, which possibly was going to be too cold for our camper, so we left, but not before it snowed that morning! |
| St. George | Utah | We dispersed camped for 3 nights north of St George. I love dispersed camping. |
| Las Vegas | Nevada | We stayed there for a total of four nights and walked through a few of the hotels on the Strip. |
| California | California | We spent three weeks in southern California, with one of those weeks on the beach. As mentioned above, we visited Sequoia, Yosemite, and San Fransisco. We also drove through the redwoods along the coast in northern California. |
| Washington | Washington | Mt Saint Helens and Mt Rainer were cool to see. We also stayed west of Seattle. |
| Idaho | Idaho | It was a great six days in Idaho, but this was a highlight because once we drove into Idaho, I had now been to all 50 states! Idaho was also the 49th state my wife and I had been to together. Now we need to make a trip to Alaska. |
| Yellowstone | Wyoming | We stayed west of Yellowstone for a few nights and visited the park. |
| The Ark | Kentucky | The Ark was a neat place to see. |
| Cap Canaveral | Florida | We stayed at many places in Florida. I singled out this one because we got to see about 3 cruise ships leaving the port each day. The beach was also a nice beach to go walk and play on each day. |
Back Into a House
A month after Ian, we found a house to rent. Our intent was to travel for a year or so and then come back to Cape Coral and find a house to rent for now. Our 18-month trip was a great experience, but we were also ready to get back into a house.
On the map at the top of the page, although the colors are right because of the picture from my phone, you can see where our travels took up. The orange pins (which might look tan) are the stops in 2021. The yellow pins (which might look off-white) are the stops in 2022. The map will give you a general idea of where we went.
All in all, we stayed at around 110 different places in 2021 and 2022. We visited 46 states and traveled over 20,000 miles pulling our camper.
Some day in the future, maybe we will head out again…