WHERE ARE WE GOING IN 2026?
Over the years Route Plans have been based on what we call the Big Pins. Those places or those people that we really want to see or events we are going to attend. This year, our first with the RV, due to our December pivot, was a bit different than we originally planned...so we had to come up with an edited plan. While we wanted to head to Texas for RV Tech School first (that will, hopefully, happen next year) we still wanted to make it back up the West Coast and get to see and do a bunch of the stuff we missed in 2024, including spending more time with family in the area. So that meant we needed to fit the new Trip Route into the new, much shorter, time frame.
The first rule of Route Planning is that there are always going to be PIVOTS. At one point or another things will not go as planned. Roads will be closed. Storms will get us stuck in one spot or make us leave a spot early, or we just won’t be able to book a campground where we want and have to keep driving a bit more than planned. So that brings us to the 3-3-3 Rule.
This rule of thumb means that you drive 300 miles or 3 hours on a travel day and stay 3 days. We won’t be able to really follow the rule completely because Harry is still working remotely Monday through Friday 8-5. This means we need to cover the miles in chunks that can be accomplished either after work or on the weekends in order to end up at the next Big Pin on our map. Our ideal route would be to drive 3-4 hours, stay 10-12 days and then move on to the next spot on our map.
And speaking of the map! You can see on our map that we have the Big Pins in place but that doesn’t mean we won’t find new and fun stuff for you to visit along the way. So, each time we move, we’ll add little pins of fun recommendations of what to go see, do, and where to stay as well as our picks for where to eat as we make our way from Big Pin to Big Pin. You will get all the details down in our “Recommendations” section of this page which we’ll fill in, along with the “Pivots” part of the page, as we go along.
As we started discussing our route we realized that most of our Big Pins, are to see family and friends or National Parks. That’s the bonus of taking your home with you…you get to hang out with people you love and not feel like you are putting them out by them having to house you.
1. Our first section begins with a dash up to Washington in July. Now it’s hot as Hades in July so we will be breaking that 3-3-3 rule right away!
2. We will be Harvest Hosting it (we'll talk about how we do that in upcoming videos!) till we get to my cousin's house where we will spend a few days hanging out at the river and trying to stay cool!
3. The next section of the Route has us heading up to the Olympic National Park for most of August. It’s in the 70’s in this area in the Summer and we are really looking forward to hanging out with my brother and his family while being able to truly take our time and explore it.
4. Next the Route takes us to Seattle where we get to spend some time exploring the city with friends and family as well as more of that coastline and little towns from the Canadian border on down.
5. End of Summer means it’s time to head East towards Yellowstone. This is where we, once again, get to hang out with my Aunt in Couer d'Alene, Idaho and do some camping in this gorgeous area for a few days.
6. We’ll spend September making our way over to the Northern Gate of Yellowstone National Park and camping our way South. And this is where we may get derailed and have to Pivot.
7. If not then we'll get to spend a week in Grand Teton National Park as well! If an early snow hits we may be changing routes here but we really hope to move on to Rocky Mountain National Park.
8. While in the area of Rocky Mountain National Park we are meeting up with friends in Denver and Breckenridge, hopefully before the snows hit. We will have to be watching the weather apps daily and making our travel decisions based on that.
9. Heading down to Phoenix, the Route takes us to see friends in St. George, Utah which is right outside of Zion National Park so you know we have to stop in!
10. Next up is Phoenix, and if you've been watching the Channel for awhile you know we have family and lots of friends there. But, up till now, we haven't really had a chance to explore the area...this is our chance. We'll be in this area a few weeks checking off several items on our Bucket List.
11. And speaking of Bucket List, our next stop on the Route is Tucson, Arizona where we find another National Park as well as the Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum which we visited many years ago and have wanted to return again since.
12. Finally, we head West again on the Route to family near the California Border. This will take us through Palm Springs and Joshua Tree National Park before we settle down with them for a few days.
13. The final section on the Route takes us to San Diego to celebrate Harry's Birthday! This is truly the homestretch for us.
14. We'll drop by Los Angeles for a mini Family Reunion as well as camp in the area to hang out with friends who live in the greater Los Angeles area.
15. Then it's back to Monterey for the Holidays and our regular break.
Are you tired just reading this? Well, rest assured it's over 4 months and there will be LOTS of downtime where we will just be hanging out at the campsite.
All along this journey we are going to be keeping track of the finances so, at the end, you will know how we were able to do everything we did and what the approximate cost would be for you. Of course there are always variables. There’s only two of us and I do a lot of home cooking. But there may be four of you and no one really cooks in your family so you eat out a lot. Or you may want to move faster in your travels and not be able to take advantage of the weekly rate discounts at the campgrounds.
There are lots of ways to up the cost and many to lower the cost of living like this. But for us that is what it is. We are not on a vacation, this is our life. This is our house and our office. So, our expenses may be much lower or much higher than yours but we do want to give you a transparent look so you can get an idea if this lifestyle is for you too.
We were very grateful to the YouTubers who took the time to keep track and share their first year’s expenses so that we could decide if it was something we could afford to do!
We hope you will have fun following along, laughing at our mistakes and pivots, as well as discovering new places to add to your List.