Category Road Trip Adventures

We have zig-zagged across the country and, boy-oh-boy, do we have some gems to share! Browse campsites, off-road trails, scenic outlooks, oddities, museums, hiking trails, and more.

Proctor Campground

1970 Avion C11 truck camper at campsite 10 in Proctor Campground, Arizona.

Tuscon, Arizona is in a magical warm pocket where winter never seems to fully take hold. While the rest of the country may be freezing, we toss our coats in the car and explore the surrounding country in short sleeves. It's no wonder that the region draws nomads in the winter. And while there are many camping opportunities circling the metropolitan center, boondocking can be hit or miss. This time, however, we are lucky to score one of the last spots in Proctor Campground.

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Castle Dome Mine Road

Avion C11 truck camper navigating a rocky dirt Castle Dome Mine Road in Kofa Wilderness Refuge.

Kofa Wilderness Refuge is a special destination to us. It's the first place we ever boondocked and we fell in love with the remote and dramatic rock formations. That said, as much as we have explored the area, we stuck to relatively major roads in the past. Yes, all of Kofa's roads are dirt, and, yes, they can have some mean washboard or washouts. But the main arteries in the park that connect to the highway are recognizable on maps, wide enough for two vehicles to easily pass, and easily distinguished from the rest of the landscape. But when we turn down Castle Dome Mine Road, we don't encounter another soul. And we're grateful for that because this trail gets incredibly narrow and rough with tight turns and high brush. But when we reach a clear vista point, that view is all ours.

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Boondocking Outside Lake Havasu

1970 Avion C11 truck camper driving along a dirt road with mountains and Lake Havasu in the background.

Lake Havasu is a popular resort destination on the border of Arizona and California. It's charming, from the little of it that we've seen. But it's sufficiently built up to not be a place for boondocking. While much of the lakefront is privately held or part of limited-use parks, most of the land on the outskirts of Lake Havasu is Bureau of Land Management (BLM) wilderness and open to dry camping. So, when we roll through on the lookout for a place to spend the night, we may not have a lakefront campsite, but we certainly have a fantastic view.

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Historic Railroad Tunnel Trail

Man astride a bike on an overlook from Tunnel Trail in Lake Mead National Recreation Area.

There's no shortage of activities to enjoy along the shores of Lake Mead. The expansive reservoir is flanked by mountains for hiking, surrounded by beaches for exploring, and filled with water for boating. But we feel like biking. And after a visit to the Lake Mead Recreation Area's Visitor Center, we have a recommendation: the Historic Railroad Tunnel Trail.

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Boulder Beach Campground

Parked in the shade of a tree on a cement pad, a 1970 Avion C11 truck camper is settled in Boulder Beach Campground, Lake Mead National Recreation Area, Nevada

Boulder Beach Campground is one of many camping options in the Lake Mead National Recreation Area—minutes outside of Las Vegas, straddling the border of Nevada and Arizona. There are even dispersed campsites along the lakeshore. But for those looking for convenience, it's hard to do better than Boulder Beach.

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Omega Mart

1970 Avion C11 truck camper parked in front of an airplane and Area 15: home of Omega Mart, Meow Wolf's Las Vegas location.

For all the craft of Hollywood, the ingenuity of Silicon Valley, the eloquence of authors painting the images of alien terrains in our mind's eye, we have not been able to touch these bizarre and fantastical worlds of imagination. And yet, in an industrial corner of Las Vegas, a collective of artists have created a captivating dystopian parallel universe known as Omega Mart. And we can poke and prod every corner of it. In fact, that's the point.

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Goldwell Open Air Museum

Plaster ghost sculptures in the form of the last supper on a wood platform.

Strange things happen in the desert. It is a place of extreme temperatures and temperaments. It is a place of rugged self-sufficiency and creative invention born of necessity. Those that survive here are the outliers. And in the remote outskirts of the Nevada desert, along the border of Death Valley National Park, is one of the strangest destinations we have encountered: the Goldwell Open Air Museum.

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Rhyolite Ghost Town

Looking out the window while driving Nevada Highway 374, the land seems desolate. Sparse, dry shrubs dot the flat desert landscape, ringed it by mountains. Yet, drive two miles northwest on Rhyolite Road and there are the remains of a once-thriving boom town. There may not be much left standing in Rhyolite Ghost Town, but what remains bears witness to what was a rich and active town during the launch of the twentieth century.

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