VAN Series: First Shakedown & Road Trip in the Van

When tradition and a testing opportunity meet, you get a fantastic first van trip that took us to Las Vegas and the California Coast. After spending the previous 6 months hard at work to build out our Ford Transit, named Hoagie, to be able to chase sun over the upcoming winter, we wanted to test it out first on the road. And this timed up perfectly with our annual tradition of heading to the California beaches over the thanksgiving weekend. To add to some perfect timing, the inaugural Las Vegas Grand Prix F1 race was the weekend before Thanksgiving. So …

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DOG BEACH | Ocean Beach, San Diego, CA

Watching our dog Gregor play with a hundred dogs, all running amuck on the beach, splashing in and out of the ocean, is completely worth the 12+ hour drive from Utah. Which is why we’ve been to the Ocean Beach dog beach twice in the past three years. It has become a tradition, of sorts, for us to make the pilgrimage across the Western states over the Thanksgiving weekend to California. And for the last four years, where we’ve gone has pretty much been based on where our dog could go to a beach. And it has never disappointed. The …

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Huntington Dog Beach

Flat out, I think the best part of California is the Dog Beach in Huntington Beach. On our first trip to California over Thanksgiving in 2018, when our dog Gregor was only 6 months old, we discovered this absolute gem of a beach. And two years later, we made the drive back to California over the same Thanksgiving weekend to go Huntingdon Dog Beach again, because it’s that incredible. And after three days, back to back to back at the dog beach, Gregor was completely wiped out and slept the entire 12hr drive back to Utah. What exactly is the …

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#Vanlife in San Diego, California

After years of Instagram envy, seeing all these couples and adventurers living out of a sprinter van, exploring all the greatest places in the world, we finally did it! We joined the #Vanlife! Well, I guess that’s a stretch. We didn’t exactly quit our jobs, move into a van with our dog, and adventure full time. Come to think of it, we’ve done the exact opposite. Instead, we wanted to see if we’d even like the #Vanlife after all these years of fantasizing about it. We’re used to car camping out of the truck for most of our trips, but …

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