Table of contents for Thirty: April/May 2022 in ROVA

Craig and Victoria We travel full time with our two border collies. We didn’t always dream of RV life, but knew that we wanted to see more of God’s beautiful creation. It was like one day we suddenly realized that our distant dreams of traveling could be our reality full time. Just a few weeks later, we bought an RV, renovated it, sold everything and hit the road. Instagram: @wildrvlife Kerisa and Anthony To pay the bills, Anthony is a workcamper and virtual personal trainer. I (Kerisa) own a digital marketing agency and am a travel blogger. We’ve been full-time traveling in our 17-foot trailer, along with our cat, Tiskies, and dog, Butters, since November 2020. Our goal was to visit the lower 48 states before we got married last…

The first time that I noticed birds (I mean noticed them with interest—I wasn’t living in a bird-free world until this point), I was around nine years old. I was on a four-month adventure with my parents and sisters, living out of a Jayco travel trailer that we pulled around the perimeter of Australia. In Kakadu, a tropical region of Australia’s northwest, my dad pointed out an azure kingfisher. It was small—smaller than my nine-year-old hand—and it was a jewel. Radiant blue feathers, a fluffy orange belly and white head markings made this little bird stand out against the red desert sand and dusty green foliage of Australia’s Top End. I was transfixed, watching the kingfisher survey the water as it waited for its chance to strike. And when Dad…

My dad was probably the one to bring up the idea of a family road trip down the Pacific Coast. It was winter a few years back, and I needed to get my Jeep, named Jenny, down to sunny Orange County from the gloomy Washington coast. I was desperate to get the hell out of those damp, dark woods and on to my next adventure; my Jeep would be parked at my mom’s place in California while my partner and I worked and skied in Japan for the winter season. My mom would not be joining us. She’d visited me countless times while I had held seasonal jobs across the west and Midwest, but she draws the line at cross-country travel. And anyway, her coming on the trip hadn’t ever…

Since hitting the road 10 months ago, my wife and I have had our first in-the-wild encounters with moose, grizzly bears, wolves and bison—to name just a few. And while all of our wildlife encounters have been exhilarating, one stands out from the rest: wild orcas off the coast of the San Juan Islands. “What are the San Juan Islands?” you might ask. “How did you get there, Dan, and what did you see and do while you were there?” Great questions! Let’s get into it. What are the San Juan Islands? The majestic San Juan Islands are an archipelago between the coast of Washington state and British Columbia, Canada—so close to Canada that you can get a slight hint of maple syrup and Labatt Blue wafting over the waters.…

As anyone named John or Sarah—two of the most common names in the United States—will know, you have a lot of work to do if you want to stand out among same-named folks. The same could be said of cities. Vermont’s Burlington is one of 34 American towns of the same name, and what the beautiful lakeside hamlet lacks in the originality of its nomenclature, it makes up for 10 times over in its natural beauty, cool and quirky vibe, and thriving beer scene. Outstanding Outdoors Burlington has the honor of being located on the banks of the wonderful Lake Champlain, which stretches some 120 miles from Canada, down through Vermont and into New York, with the bulk of its area in Vermont. Numerous small towns dot the eastern coastline…

For the Earth Showing up for the Earth is a no-brainer when you love the outdoors as much as we all do. In 2022, Earth Day falls on April 22nd with the theme “Invest in Our Planet,” and you can get involved with hundreds of events across the country, from cleanups to presentations, conservation and demonstrations. One day spent picking up trash, improving trails or educating ourselves or others on conservation is a small price to pay to keep enjoying our wilderness for years to come. earthday.org Read Trip Long drives can be soul-sucking, monotonous slabs of time that you feel like you’ll never get back. Or, they can be the perfect opportunity to get literary. The average audiobook runs for around 10 hours, and the choices of genre, author…

Travel is not the blind step into the unknown that it once was. Regardless of how adventurous our endeavors may be, we are tethered to the familiar by the devices in our pockets. Still, the new and the unfamiliar retain the power to transform us for the better, but only if we let them. Spend a few minutes (or hours) mindlessly scrolling through Instagram and you’re bound to encounter some striking photo of a distant land paired with a well-worn quote detailing how travel inspires us, helps us strive to become better, and gives us empathy for our fellow man. In his work The Innocents Abroad, Mark Twain claims, “Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness, and many of our people need it sorely on these accounts. Broad, wholesome,…

It doesn’t matter where you are in the United States, you’ll always have birds to spot. But setting up camp in a birding hot spot means you’ll have access to sighting areas at dawn and dusk, and everything in between, increasing your chances of spotting a variety of birdlife. The following places are standouts when it comes to combining birding with camping or RVing. J.N. “Ding” Darling National Wildlife Refuge, Florida Florida is well-stocked with amenities for RVers and road-trippers, with tons of RV parks and campgrounds to choose from. In the state’s southwest, J.N. “Ding” Darling National Wildlife Refuge offers great camping, as well as the opportunity to spot several big-name species in birding, including the roseate spoonbill and the yellow-crowned night heron. The area is host to around…

Part of RV life is carrying everything with you, and that means absolutely everything—your home, your water… and your waste. It’s what makes that vagabond life a such sweet dream, and a bit of a nightmare. You get to see new landscapes, explore and adventure, but eventually you’re going to have to use that RV bathroom. And not long after that, you’ll need to empty your blackwater tank. RVs have three main holding tanks: the freshwater tank, the graywater tank for drainage from the shower and sinks, and the blackwater tank—the receptacle for your toilet. The blackwater tank is your portable sewer, and it needs to be managed with a delicate hand. Neglected blackwater tanks can ruin your day in a hurry with a whole slew of smelly, germ-ridden problems.…

I was 11 years old the first time I visited Flaming Gorge. I remember cliff-jumping and floating down the Green River in an enormous raft with a dozen other Boy Scouts. I remember the blazing heat, the surprisingly cool nights, and the wonderfully quiet atmosphere that permeated the whole area. Almost two decades later, I’m still as captivated with Flaming Gorge as ever. The Flaming Gorge National Recreation Area straddles the Utah–Wyoming border, in the extreme northeast corner of Utah. The area is home to Flaming Gorge Reservoir, which was created by damming the Green River back in the 1960s. The reservoir is nearly 100 miles long, but the recreation area encompasses camping, hiking, and wildlife viewing opportunities in the surrounding Ashley National Forest. The Green River below Flaming Gorge…

Shopping for a compact camper has become something like attending a magic show. Say you’re at an expo with displays of tons of different types of vehicles, and you pop your head into a cool-looking van: compact and well appointed, but undeniably small inside. The company representative reaches past you and hits a button. The roof of the van pops up, giving you an extra foot of headroom, and suddenly this little adventuremobile feels positively roomy. You turn around and wander towards a small crowd gathered around a box on wheels. The demonstrator grabs one end of the lid of the box, flips it up and over, and before your eyes the box becomes a tent, with a bed in the trailer and a living area extended out to double…

While getting around in an RV is a great way to follow temperate weather, there will be times when you can’t avoid the heat. Without an effective way of cooling your rig, when you try to retire inside to escape the sun and soaring temperatures, you’ll discover a heat box that rivals the most intense sauna at an upmarket day spa. Perhaps you’ve chosen not to have AC in your rig, or maybe you’re an off-grid traveler without any type of electricity available to you. If that’s the case, you’ll need to be smart about positioning your rig, making sure that you’re parked in a spot that maximizes shade and cross breezes. Roof vent covers can help to channel breeze through your van or RV, while your awnings and window…

After leaving my coastal home in Carpinteria, California, I head northeast on Highway 33, then east on Highway 166, and finally take a left-hand turn on Soda Lake Road and into the Carrizo Plain National Monument. Every time I do it, it feels as if I’ve taken a big step back in time. The Carrizo Plain represents the last of California’s semi-arid grasslands, a remnant of what the entire San Joaquin Valley used to look like. All that remains is this incredible 250,000-acre grassland biome that still teems with native flora and fauna. In fact, the Carrizo Plain is home to more endangered species than anywhere else in the Golden State. Following wet winters, the Carrizo Plain explodes into a sweeping palette of colors, wildflowers brightening the grasslands, foothills and…

”I’ll bet you a can of Coca-Cola that Sedona Red becomes your favorite color!” My cousin sang out boastfully as he danced around his living room in Phoenix, clearly more excited than I was as I told him about my family’s upcoming road trip, which was to begin in the morning. My cousin was born and raised in Phoenix, and accustomed to the red haze mirage cast across the Arizona desert all year round. I figured that Sedona Red would be just another one of the many new shades I’d seen since I touched down on this thirsty terrain. My preference was always green. My suburban Detroit upbringing was full of thick, grassy lawns, primped hedges between the neighbors’ houses, and leaves that turned a different shade of this verdant…

This is Florida, so at 6:30 a.m. on a September Monday, we took our bikes off the back of the truck to beat the oppressive heat. Despite the soupy humidity and the occasional mosquito, it was hard to believe that we were cycling in Florida. The paved, multiuse, recreational Palatka–Lake Butler State Trail stayed quiet, with just a dash of birdsong, intermittent tapping from a pileated woodpecker, and the call of cicadas waking up in the looming oaks and sweeping Spanish moss. I was cycling with my husband and three children, ages 9, 12, and 14, and we were the loudest creatures in the forest. Our bikes buzzed down the flat trail under the cave of branches on this (thankfully) overcast day. It was so quiet that you would think…