What’s the plan?

Our plan is to convert our Dodge Sprinter Van into a campervan to hold the both of us, Leika and gear to enjoy our passions – mountain bikes,  skis, trail running, surf, and camping gear. Once the van conversion is complete, around late-April 2014, we plan to drive North from central Pennsylvania into Canada and then west to Vancouver. From there we will start heading south, until we get to Ushuaia, Argentina, taking anywhere from 6 months to a year.

Our intent is to spend time exploring local cultures, communities, climbing, hiking and eating.

As with any proper adventure, we expect this trip to be filled with planned and unplanned challenges, awesome experiences and memorable moments and despite all our planning, the adventure will turn out differently than what we expect… So basically, the plan is to explore, learn (a lot), meet interesting people and have experiences that we don’t expect.

Our itinerary is a work in progress and we would love to hear any recommendations on places to go or things to do along the way!

2 Comments

  1. Dear Van Travellers,

    I couldn’t help but leave a comment on amazing adventure. I love the idea of travelling around with your bikes and seeing all this land has to offer. My name is Marc Ouellette and I am from Devon, AB, or other words known as BikeTown, AB, which is the local governments initiative for healthy living. I personally have been looking into doing a very similar trip myself over the last little while. I was actually just looking at the new Sprinter catalog from the local dealer. Although I am still in the planning stages to see if I can make something work for once I am done my Degree in the fall. That also brings me to by background story. I initially started out my career as a certified Heavy Duty mechanic when I decided to head back to school and pursue some formal business training, which is coming to an end soon, leaving me with the “what next?” feeling. Traveling around in a van with some bikes sounds like a great way to fill the void.

    That’s enough about me and time for more about you. Upon reading your website you mentioned that your plans are quite “loose” as to how you are getting to BC. I thought if you were planning on heading north through Edmonton, it would be great to meet up for a ride! From living in this area my whole life I immediately thought of a cool route for your guys to take, just a suggestion, seeing that you enjoy riding. If you were to come through Edmonton (which has a great network of river valley trails by the way), Devon is only 25 minutes south. We have a great network through our river valley as well, plenty of two track and tight twisty single track that is a blast!! Just about every night of the week in Devon there is a biking event planned from bike polo, cruiser rides through town, road rides, and mountain rides. If you are anything like the people here I think you would enjoy it. After heading through the Edmonton area, you could stop in Hinton, AB, which is a industry town that has put a ton of work into building a great bike park with flowing downhills, xc trails, and boardwalks (http://www.bikehinton.com/trails/). Only 45 minutes west is Jasper, AB which is a great spot for riding, it is located right in the Rocky Mountains and has lots to offer, if you go I can give you some pointers as some great riding and cool little places to eat, check it out here (http://www.pc.gc.ca/eng/pn-np/ab/jasper/activ/ete-summer/velo-bike.aspx). From there, heading south towards Lake Louise down the ice fields parkway is a great way to experience some amazing views of the Rockies, its over 200kms of some of the nicest highways around! That will lead you to Banff and Canmore area, which is also a nice biking destination.

    Well that was mostly me dreaming about how awesome that could be, and it is only a suggestion. If you do plan on heading through this neck of the woods, please feel free to let me know! I can’t offer much in terms of amazing adventure, but I can offer a secure place to park, a warm shower, BBQ’s, and be a local tour guide of the Devon and Edmonton riding areas.

    Here are some links to the Devon biking scene:
    Cruiser Club: (My sister and I started this last year and has been a success so far, originally called booze cruise Wednesday’s) website: http://mouellette44.wix.com/devoncruiserclub

    Devon BikeTown website: (http://www.ridedevon.ca) Devon is host to 4-5 Alberta Bicycle Association races per year: cyclocross, xc, Alberta’s first fat bike winter race, youth races, road crit race. They also were privileged enough to host a beginning stage of last year’s Tour of Alberta race that went through town.

    Devon Bicycle Association: (http://www.devonbicycleassociation.com) the local bike club.

    Edmonton River Valley Trail information: (http://www.edmonton.ca/activities_parks_recreation/parks_rivervalley/river-valley-trail-maps.aspx)

    If you have any questions or comments feel free to let me know, I would love to help anyone on such a great adventure. Congratulations on making dreams become reality. If you are coming through great, if not, all the best to your great journey of a lifetime! I love being able to follow you via the website and Instagram.

    Enjoy the ride,
    Marc Ouellette

    • Hi Marc! Thank you for you for your message! Sorry we didn’t respond earlier, we’ve been under a little bit of a time crunch and very limited service. Anyway, I really hope you have a chance to do your trip! Keep us posted! Happy to talk vans or anything anytime!

      Thank you for the information! We would have loved to meet up in Devon/Edmonton but we went through very quickly. We’re in BC now and headed back to the US in only a few days.

      Good luck with your trip and again thank you!

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