On June 1st, we will be moving into a van.

This van

We are college graduates who have been living in Philadelphia a little over a year trying to save up money for this open-ended trip. We are moving into this van for as as-yet-undetermined amount of time, trying to see as much of the country as we can. We have a vague but open-to-changes plan of where we're going to go, and we're hoping to hike, camp, and WWOOF our way through the most beautiful and interesting parts of the US and Canada.

Our van is a converted Dodge Ram equipped with a toilet, sink, stove, and bed that folds up into side benches, along with a small amount of storage.

Bed folded up

Bed folded down

This blog is just an account of the preparation for this upcoming trip and the trip itself, whatever strange and awesome things it may bring us! We looked at a bunch of maps and planned out a total bullshit itinerary which will mostly likely change drastically depending on what we feel like doing, suggestions we get from people about places not to miss, and various shows/festivals/awesome shit we hear about that we decide to detour for. However, our general plan is as follows--

We'll start out in Philadelphia and begin with the obligatory (and welcome, of course!) visits to our respective families before we head out on this opened ended journey. That's Western PA and the Boston area. Then we'll start out on the real trip. This is just a general map of our route, but all along the way, we'll be hiking, camping, exploring cities, and looking for opportunities to pick up work.

From Boston, we'll head north to Maine, and then into Canada and west to Montreal.
Then through Ottawa to the Upper Peninsula
South, through Wisconsin, hitting Madison and Milwaukee.
South, to Chicago, where we have an invitation to stay with a friend for a week
East to Iowa City, and then to Des Moines
North to Ames, and then to Minnesota, mostly so we can hit Minneapolis
Then Northwest through Bemidji, and then to Moorehead/Fargo
West through North Dakota, south to South Dakota
To Wyoming, where we'll make sure to hit Grand Teton Park and Yellowstone
North to Bozeman, MT, southwest to Dillon and Jackson, spend time hiking/hot springs
North to Butte and then Missoula
West to Cour d'Alene
North to British Columbia, where we'll hit:
              -Harrison Hot Springs
              -Tofino (VC island)
              -Vancouver and Vancouver Island
South to Mt. Vernon, Seattle, Tacoma, and Olympia
N. through the Olympic Peninsula, where we're planning:
             -Mt. Ellinor
             -the Skyline Trail (30 miles) loop hiking/camping trip
             -down to Astoria
East to Portland, then west to the coast of Oregon, hitting Newport, Florence, Yachats
East to Eugene
South to Eureka
South to Sacramento
Southeast to Yosemite National Park and Mammoth Lakes
West to Berkeley, where we have an invitation to stay with my aunt and uncle
To San Francisco
Around the Bay Area, to Santa Cruz
South, down the coast of California, to San Luis Obispo, Santa Barbara
South to LA, south to San Diego
East to Arizona
North to Tempe and Phoenix, then to Sedona
North to the Grand Canyon
North to Utah, east to Moad, Castle Valley
East to Colorado, to Aspen, then NE to Denver and Boulder
South to Sante Fe, south east to Carlsbad Caverns
Beeline to Austin, TX
then east to NOLA

The last leg of our trip, i.e. the California/Southwest part, is less developed in ideas and things we want to see. That'll come! But mostly we're going to be making it up as we go along, hearing about places and decided to detour to go check them out.

Anyway this was super long but that's the plan. If you know anywhere we should go, or anything we should do along the way, let us know.

Oh! And here we are.

sup

sup

uhh okay bye