Van Life

June 2022

This adventure was a trip of a lifetime! Living out of a van for a week was one of the best experiences I've ever had. Planning this trip was so much fun. I made itinerary after itinerary until I felt we had the perfect schedule. I did so much research months before we left for Arizona. I highly recommend booking with BOHO if you are near the Phoenix area and looking to travel out West. They were quick to respond, and the quality of the van was unreal. I literally could live out of one of these vans, no joke. 10/10 would do this trip 100x over!!

Trip Layout:

I am going to break down the layout of our entire week on the road. Remember, life happens. Which means a perfect itinerary doesn't exactly exist. There were times that we had to adjust or change some things depending on how the day fell. This allowed us to find some pretty amazing hidden gems.

One of the days was extremely hot, and all we wanted to do was swim. I googled some swimming areas near us, and this incredible spot popped up. The Chains was seriously so cool! It is a swimming area right on Lake Powell. To my surprise, the water was freezing! The temperature outside was close to 110 degrees. My body was shocked when I jumped in to such chilling water. It was the perfect afternoon hangout spot.

We flew into Phoenix on Day 1 and went straight to pick up the van. From there, we were off on our adventure. Our first stop was the Grand Canyon. This took us close to 4 hours before we arrived. We had the perfect amount of time to hike to Mather Point for sunset. I did reserve a campground inside the National Park just to be safe. I downloaded an app before arriving in Arizona that allowed us to find different locations we could pull off for free. I was adjusting to van life and wasn't feeling brave enough to go that route yet. I booked us a spot in Mather Campround Pine loop and we had our first night under the stars.

The next morning we woke up and had a 2 hour drive to Horseshoe Bend. Wake up time was well before sunrise and let me tell you, it was worth it!! We watched one of the most beautiful sunrises I have ever seen as we drove out of Grand Canyon National Park.

Horseshoe Bend was a fun easy hike. It is a straight out and back hike with very little to no shade but that never caused any problems at all. The view is spectacular in my opinion. After we made it back to the van, we went to Lone Rock where we could swim in Lake Powell and sleep for the night. Lone Rock did not have any campgrounds. It was wide open space which made for some great stargazing.

The next morning we had an early wake up for a tour I made at Antelope Canyon. Antelope Canyon is on Navajo Tribal grounds so it is not open to the public without making reservations. Absolutely worth it! From there, we drove 2 hours to Zion National Park. Zion was massive. Looking back, we most definitely could have spent 2-3 full days here. But, we were on a mission to see as much as possible so we spent half a day hiking through Zion. We hiked part of the Narrows and Canyon Overlook. I would love to go back and Hike Angel's Landing one day.

The plan was to sleep close to Zion but we ended early and wanted to make it to our next destination spot, Bryce Canyon. Bryce was only an hour and a half drive. We made it there just in time to find an open campground inside the park. Safe to say we were exhuasted after this day.

Waking up in Bryce was ideal. Typically , it is very difficult to find decent parking and we lucked out from being there already. We started our hike early and were some of the only people on the trails. Bryce was one of my favorite parks. The hike took an hour and a half and had so much to see. We started at Queens Garden Trail and ended at Navajo Loop. Starting our morning here was perfect. Now, off to The Arches.

The Arches was a good 4 hour drive. Thankfully, we decided to change pieces of our itinerary because it worked in our favor. I didn't even know it, but at the time, you had to have a reservation to enter into The Arches National Park if it was before 4:00pm. We arrived between 2:00-2:30pm and hopped in the long line of traffic. By the time we made it through the line it was 4:00pm and luckily we did not need a reservation at that point.

The hike we did was the most popular. We hiked out to Delicate Arch Trail. This hike took close to 3 hours to complete there and back. I don't want to use the word dissapointed, becasue everything we were able to see was incredible, but the Arch was a slight let down. It was very crowded which made it difficult to get a clear shot. The hike was fun but the build up made the outcome not as exciting. I would still recommend if you have the time.

One of the coolest pieces to this park is that it is considered a dark zone. Which means there is no light that can pollute the sky for so many miles. Another FANTASTIC spot to watch the stars. We picked a great location in the park and called that home for the night.

The little town of Moab was adorable. We wished we had known about this and had a little more time to explore. After the Arches, we began our trek back down towards Phoenix. I did reserve a campground for our second to last night. We stayed in Monument Valley located near Milepost 2. This spot had hook ups so we were able to fill up our water tank and plug in. We honestly just hung out here for the evening. The sunset was insanely gorgeous and the sunrise the next morning was unreal. Also, another great location to see the stars at night.

Our last day with the van was spent heading toward Sedona. On our way, we found the coolest pull off spot. This would have been a great location to set up camp and sleep for the night. Unfortunately, it was too far from our final stopping point. Instead, we used it as a fun little lunch break... and to freshen up. The van comes with a shower head that is attached to the water tank. During the trip we got creative with showering and used different resources along the way. We tried to save our water tank for the running water in our sink for cooking. But, with it being our last night and we had just filled up the water tank, we decided to give it a try. What a fun experience!!

We arrived in Sedona and hiked Devil's Bridge. The trail was a ton of fun but got difficult towards the end. I love a challenging hike so I thought this was awesome. To top off our trip, we made reservations at an incredible resturaunt with an even better view that evening.

This was a trip of a lifetime. All the laughs, confined spaces, home cooked meals (or cold spaghettio's out of a can), to no service at campgrounds which brought us closer together. We saw 9 National Parks and traveled 1,600 miles. Followed our itinerary spot on and other days forgot we even had it. Nothing beats the little moments that we take for granted in this life. I cherished every second of our trip through Arizona and Utah and look forward to going back again one day.