A Dip Into Van Life: Our Kurgo Road Trip Adventure

I don’t talk about it much on my blog, but our wedding is quickly approaching. In fact, it’s just over two weeks away.

Yowza!

Naturally, life is a bit bonkers with wedding planning and work and life, but more importantly: we’re planning our Kurgo honeymoon!

Quick refresher: a few months back, Kurgo hosted a contest where winners would receive $5000 to take their pooch on a puppy adventure. We submitted a video, went through an interview process, and dealt with an online voting contest {my favorite.} In the end, we were crowned one of the four winners; Tally gets an adventure!

The itinerary is loose: we’re driving to Canada in hopes of stalking fall color down the Rockies. But before we hammer out specific route options, we decided that a vehicle was kinda more important. Sure, we could drive our Subaru all the way up and back, but let’s face it: that would be a whole lotta gear, bodies and fur in one car! {Not to mention, way less fun!}

Enter: Rocky Mountain Campervans!

When we decided on this plan, we both knew one thing: we wanted a vehicle we could live in. There won’t be hotels on this trip: just camping and cars. We looked into a few options: an Airstream, a pop-up, a large SUV. In the end, a campervan just made sense. The Airstream would be fantastically cool, but it would be a pain to drive down dirt roads all the time. Same goes for the pop-up. A van just sounded perfect: plenty of space for our family of three but small enough to navigate backcountry roads. Plus, if we found the right one, it could be totally livable. Fortunately, we found the right one!

I’m not sure where I stumbled upon Rocky Mountain Campervans, but I knew it was kismet when I realized the owner went to CU-Boulder when I was there and actually knows a few of my close college buddies {small world!} We talked over details for weeks, playing ridiculous games of phone tag, but it was all worth it in the end: we found a van to rent!

Because of the large amount of mileage, we are renting a Volkswagon Eurovan. It’s the most modern member of the Rocky Mountain fleet and thus, our best option for a two-week adventure. But y’all, this isn’t a regular van; it’s so fancy!

To begin, it has a pop-up roof that raises the ceiling height to seven feet when parked. Will is six foot even, and I know he’ll appreciate being able to stand inside our temporary home. Of course, the coolness doesn’t stop with the roof! The front seats swivel 360 degrees which really opens up the interior. There is a bench/couch in the back of the van that collapses to a full bed when stopped. Additionally, there is a second two-person bed in the roof when it is popped up.

But wait….there’s more!

When you step in through the side door, you’ll immediately see our kitchen. We have a two-burner stove, a small fridge, a sink, a dining table, and a small counter top for cooking. The van is outfitted with lights for nighttime reading and whatnot, and even has climate control like a house. Rocky Mountain rents this van year round and they realize people sleeping inside will want to be warm when traveling in the winter. I’m not sure we’ll need the heat necessarily– depends on how cold Canada is in September–but it’s nice to have the option!

Lastly, there is a flipping ton of storage to house all of gear. As you can image, we’re bringing a lot of outdoor gear and Kurgo doggy gear on our adventure. When combined with Will’s photography gadgets, we have quite a few items. The Eurovan has us covered with a wardrobe closet AND a back storage area.

Y’all, I’m so excited! We don’t leave until mid-September {a week after our wedding}, but I can barely contain my excitement. Things have been stressful the last couple of months and the thought of loading into our Eurovan with my little family and hitting the road? Pure bliss. Plus, words don’t describe how psyched I am to visit Canada. I’ve been to the country before, but never for a long period of time and never with this type of {temporary} freedom of schedule. We know we’ll head north through Montana and into Alberta. We probably won’t go farther north than Jasper National Park, and no further west than the middle of British Columbia. But really, the itinerary is open to explore the beautiful country as we want.

Anyone have travel suggestions for us?!

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