West Coast Road Trip: California Part 1

This past summer we did something pretty crazy. Would we do it again? Probably.

So a little background… we love camping and being in nature and visiting the National Parks. We watch a ton of fulltime Van Lifers on YouTube (Eamon & Bec are our fav), have around two months off work in the summer, and live ~5 hours from multiple National and State Parks. So we thought, why not us? Why not now? Jason scoured craigslist and other sites selling converted vans and we finally found this beauty.

Fast forward a couple of months and we are on a flight to San Diego, CA to pick up our converted Sprinter van. Yes, we purchased this from craigslist. Sight unseen. Crazy.

We got a quick rundown from the previous owner (@everchanginghorizons), picked up the goods at Trader Joe’s, and stopped for a quick trip to the beach before heading east. California is seriously so beautiful.

After a quiet night somewhere outside San Diego, we kept on towards a location both Jason and I have wanted to visit for a long time: Salvation Mountain.

For those of you who have not heard of Salvation Mountain, it is an art structure created by Leonard Knight and famously visiting by Alexander Supertramp. You can read more about the artist and the interesting story behind Salvation Mountain here. It is a must see for anyone visiting Southern California and Joshua Tree National Park. We were lucky to visit on a day when there were not many other visitors, so we were really able to enjoy the beauty and wonder of Salvation Mountain.

After our morning at Salvation Mountain we continued on to our first national park of the trip, Joshua Tree. Neither of us had been here before and it was truly incredible. Unfortunately, we weren’t able to do as many hikes due to the heat and Joon the pup. But we were still able to capture the beauty of Joshua Tree National Park.

We decided to park the van right outside Joshua Tree on BLM land, which stands for Bureau of Land Management. Essentially, there is reserved land all over the US that is owned and maintained by the government and is free to camp on. And honestly, this is probably one of my favorite spots we have ever stayed in the van. And you don’t have to own a van to stay here. If you visit Joshua Tree you can also tent camp at this same spot… FO FREE!

After our lovely night on BLM land we travelled north to hit another park on our list, Sequoia National Park. That will take us into Part 2 of our West Coast Series. I hope you enjoy the photos and include some of these stops on your trip to California. Leave a comment with your favorite photo, a hike you love at Joshua Tree NP, a memory of your trip to Salvation Mountain, or anything else!