Car Trek: The Next Generation

My wife, Sarah, and I recently downloaded a significant campering upgrade. We retired the slide-in pop-up camper we'd been venturing around in for the past half-dozen years, and went fully next-gen: We invested in a customized camper van. 

We searched around a lot over the past few years and developed a clear vison on what we wanted in both a vehicle and the customization. We settled upon (or perhaps more accurately, what came to us) was a 2018 Mercedes Sprinter, customized by Titan Vans, in Boulder, and molded to near perfection for us by the previous owners. They, to our good fortune, shared our traveling tastes and practical peculiarities, and created a space tooled for those. 

Our first venture has already told us this was the right move at the right time for our traveling style at this point in our adventuring lives. A new multi-year mission ... out there. 

This first venture was significant for other reasons: It was in some remote out there in the canyon country, at a gathering for our son's 30th birthday. The outdoor event lasted two nights and was attended by a number of friends and couples -- each bearing their own solutions to the challenge of spending nights out of doors. Spread around the campsite there were a couple of variations of pick-up campers, several slept-in truck toppers, the back of hatchback car, and a tent. A couple others opted for open-air sleeping under the cool but lovely early May night skies. The common ground is everyone there knew how to spend a couple of nights in the out of doors, in ways that widely varied, suited to individual and couple's budgets and needs. 

Sarah and I are in a different point in life from this particular wonderful and outdoorsy tribe of admirable Millennials. We are retired professionals who still work seasonally, and take our available time to get out, around our region, our country, and, in particular, our on nearby public-land, multiple-use countryside. And after nearly four decades together, we're no nouveau campers -- or camperers, as we tend to think of ourselves since we acquired that pop-up camper. Camping-wise, we've put in out time in tents and under the stars -- extended periods living out of backpacks, the backs of cars, under the toppers of trucks, and the gear frames of rafts. And as for the campering, it's in our blood: Both our parents had campers -- hers a tent trailer (for two parents and five kids!), and mine a pickup camper, with which they took me and my sister all over the Northeast, from Pittsburgh to New Hampshire to New Brunswick, Canada. 

And as we've gotten older and made efforts to get out more, we've come back to our parents' way of thinking. 

So why more campering than camping these days for us? And is the expense worth it? How about the ethics of motorized front country travel? That -- and more! -- will be what this appropriately random, rambling, roaming blog will explore. 

As Sarah and I continue our mission of exploration in our van ...