Yo, yo, yo - welcome friends and family!
This is our first entry providing insights into the places we ended up sleeping, as well as any out-of-pocket expenses for overnight stays - aka our route and overnight stays. July was the first month that we were on the road, and it marked the start of our #vanlife journey.
Although our #vanbuild was, and felt, completed, we decided that it would be smart to do a local 'test drive' to Olympic National Park to ensure everything was stable and that we were not forgetting any critical items before venturing off on longer nationwide travels. 🤞🤞
Turns out, (almost) all was well with our build with the exception of 3 out of 11 drawers that slid open on turns. We learned their magnets were not quite strong enough for their weight but after some minor tweaking, we were on our way. No issues since!
From here on out, July was PACKED with driving due to tight timelines for the numerous wedding events on the East Coast that we had committed to attending🤪. We had about two weeks to make it across country, which was just enough hit some cities we hadn't been to and visit family along the route.
On our route we ended up driving 4,262.9 miles in a span of 22 nights! This was a total of 13 states (8 of which we spent a night in) and 14 different cities...woof...
We've had a lot of family and friends (new and old), ask us questions related to the van, and by far one of the first and most common one is some form of,
"Yeah, yeah, yeah... but where do you park and sleep at?"
We've had our trusty-dusty short answer, "Wherever we can!", but if we really wanted to get down to it, we did record all of the places we've slept at and even broke them down into the below categories:
Public parking lots - think parking lots by piers, or ones that cost $ per hour
Campgrounds
Business parking lots - Walmart, Cabela's, Cracker Barrel, etc.
Family and friends driveways
Harvest Hosts - a program that offers overnight stays at over 4600+ locations (including farms, wineries, museums, and more)
Street parking - city street parking, or side streets in some areas
Hotel
In the below graph, you can see a full breakdown of overnight stays in the month of July; the first number is the total number of nights stayed for that category, followed by the category percentage based on the total nights in July. As you can see, 55% (12 out of 22) of our nights were in public lots or business lots, which we attribute to the amount of city dwelling we had to do. We're both curious to see how this changes now that we've slowed down quite a bit.
Curious on the specifics of where we have stayed?
The below table provides a dated view into the month of July and where we stayed, as well as any expenses.
Total 'stayed night' expenses: $308.21
Night #: Date ($ cost) | Location (linked address) | Overnight Category |
|---|---|---|
🌙 1️: July 10th - $0 | 🅿️ Public parking lot | |
🌙 2️: July 11th - $34 | 🏕️ Campground | |
🌙 3️: July 12th - $0 | 🏢 Walmart | |
🌙 4️: July 13th - $0 | 🏠 Colton's parents house | |
🌙 5️: July 14th - $0 | 🏢 Cabela's | |
🌙 6️: July 15th - $0 | 🌾 Harvest Hosts | |
🌙 7️: July 16th - $0 | 🏠 Colton's uncle's house | |
🌙 8️: July 17th - $0 | 🏠 Colton's uncle's house | |
🌙 9️: July 18th - $0 | 🏢 Walmart | |
🌙 1️0️: July 19th - $0 | 🏢 Walmart | |
🌙 1️1️: July 20th - $0 | 🏙️ Street parking | |
🌙 1️2️: July 21st - $52.50 | 🅿️ Public parking lot | |
🌙 1️3️: July 22nd - $28.56 | 🅿️ Public parking lot | |
🌙 1️4️: July 23rd - $0 | 🅿️ Public parking lot | |
🌙 1️5️: July 24th - $0 | 🅿️ Public parking lot | |
🌙 1️6️: July 25th - $0 | 🅿️ Public parking lot | |
🌙 1️7️: July 26th - $0 | 🅿️ Public parking lot | |
🌙 1️8️: July 27th - $193.15 | 🏨 Hotel | |
🌙 1️9️: July 28th - $0 | 🏙️ Street parking | |
🌙 2️0️: July 29th - $0 | 🏙️ Street parking | |
🌙 2️1️: July 30th - $0 | 🏙️ Street parking | |
🌙 2️2️: July 31st - $0 | 🏢 Walmart |
If you've made it this far into the post, love you 🫶🫶. For now, we're logging off - time for another little adventure!
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