This summer has been packed full of adventures, yet our RV hasn’t left our home-base campsite at all! We’ve been out exploring our local area on day trips, tent camping in the woods, and making the most out of our work travel for Pride month. This has been a lot different than the way we used to travel, but it isn’t any less exciting or rewarding for us.
Day Trips
Day trips are definitely one of our favorite ways to get out and see the area we live in. We often joke that we could spend forever just traveling around Oregon and never get sick of the sights here. We’ve fallen in love with the PNW and are head-over-heels for the lush forests, raging waters, and snow capped mountains that surround us. One of our favorite things to do has been selecting different towns within Mt. Hood Territory to spend a half or full day in. A recent destination includes Oregon City. Willamette Falls can be viewed from above after taking North America’s only vertical street up via the municipal elevator. We also visited a working farm in West Linn, a riverfront state park in Canby, and a suspension bridge in Marmot. The hidden gems sprinkled near us are so fun to discover . When we feel a little more adventurous, we hit the road early and go further out of town. Within only two hours we can be in Bend, Seaside or Vancouver, WA for a full day of fun! After so many years on the road, we’ve found that local exploration beats out tourist traps any day. There’s something to be said about avoiding crowds and learning from the locals for recommendations!
Tent Camping
When we settled into RV Life, we never imagined we would ever want to downgrade to tent camping! Why sleep on the ground when we could sleep on our memory foam king bed? Why use a tiny camp stove and cooler when we have a full kitchen in our home on wheels? Because life is an adventure and we want to experience all of it! As it turns out, tent camping gets us closer to nature and each other. Slowing down, simplifying and stepping away from our routines creates a calming mindfulness and appreciation for how we’ve been able to live our lives.
We love our high end glamping set up in our 42-foot fifth-wheel. Having a home-base campground and flexibility to take longer trips with a guaranteed full-hook-ups spot (bonus points for a big rig friendly pull thru site). But we also love sleeping next to a river and waking up to a beautiful blue sky above our tent! Tent camping has always been something we daydream of, but we never felt completely called to the rustic experience that it is often portrayed as. We aren’t keen on bugs, we have hips and backs that enjoy a comfortable sleeping surface, and we love a hot shower in the morning. What we have found out is that tent camping can be as versatile and adaptable as RV living!
After borrowing and renting options to try things out last year we finally got ourselves our own gear. We scored a steal on REIs 6-person Wonderland Tent, got our Magma 15 sleeping bags on a recent REI campaign we did, and found ourselves accessories that really work for us, including Rumpl blankets and pillows, Barebones lanterns, and a Stanley pour-over for morning coffee. We have managed to make even tent camping very comfortable.
We sleep on blow up air mattresses with buoy in air pumps. These are powered by our Anker Battery, which recharges with our 100 watt solar panel. These purchases came with a lot of thought and decision making, alongside a decent cost. We waited until we knew that we would be frequent tent campers before deciding on and purchasing gear. We also shopped used options from REIs Resupply stores both locally and online.
We had our first tent camping experience at Tollgate Campground in Mt. Hood National Forest early in the summer and knew we had made a lot of right choices for ourselves and the products we chose! We slept soundly, enjoyed slow mornings fueled with camp coffee, breakfast and the trickling sounds of the Salmon River just feet away. We were able to have a lot of things figured out, but still took away two big tips for future trips:
- Plan Less. We thought we would want to get up from camp, go on a hike and then eat out, but every time we have camped we find ourselves just wanting to be at camp. To take a midday nap, enjoy writing or reading outside, and slow down our usual fast paced daily lives.
- Be Uncomfortable. It’s okay to fall out of our daily routines when we are camping. We usually get up, shower and do our RV chores first thing every morning before getting to work on our small biz. When we are camping, we lean into changing things up, but it isn’t always comfortable. We didn’t shower during our two nights at Tollgate. We had no cell service, so work was out of the question, and it was cold in the mornings, which meant we stayed tucked into our sleeping bags hours past our normal wake up times. It’s okay to let go and loosen up a bit when we’re camping.
Pride Events
Beyond our day trips and tent camping experiences, we have been traveling weekly for LGBTQ+ Pride events throughout the PNW. We began our Pride Month in Bend, traveled to Vancouver, WA and wrapped up in Seattle. This is always a busy time of year for us, but we love to take the time to appreciate all the different places we get to go to. In Bend, we finished our weekend with a local hike around a glacial lake. In Vancouver, we perused the Saturday Farmer’s Market before our event started, and in Seattle we ate at delicious local restaurants. Although we are busy busy busy when we are vending at Pride events, we also see this type of work as our most fun and it fills our hearts with queer joy to meet and be a part of Pride!
When we stopped traveling full-time in the RV, we felt a bit of an emptiness. We often ask each other, “what now?” What we are coming to realize is that we have hearts of exploration. We will always go out and find some fun new places to visit, new trails to hike, and new cities to skip through. It wasn’t RV life that made us travelers, we have always been travelers. We’re unsure if we’ll hit the road full time again, but for now we’ve found ways to diversify our adventures!
Learn more from Wander Free and Queer:
Travel Planning Lessons from Wander Free and Queer
Stationary RV Life vs. Traveling RV Life with Wander Free and Queer
Running a Small Business from the Road with Wander Free and Queer
