Van Go

By Julie Snyder Decades ago, on the eve of my wedding, a long-married friend took me aside to share her take on the institution I had dodged for forty years. “Being married isn’t better or worse than being single,” she declared. “It’s just different.” The essence of her observation applied

  By Julie Snyder After the 10-plus-hour drive from Portland to the Bay Area that launched our trip (read Part One here), Joe suggested that we limit driving to no more than five hours a day. I’m a road warrior, and with a bed in the back of Van Go,

  Story & photos by Julie Snyder Wide awake in our Barstow, California hotel room at 3 a.m., Joe and I pondered our next move. Did we carry on east to the Grand Canyon despite the winter travel advisory and frigid temperatures? Or cancel our reservations and point Van Go

By Julie Snyder The plan was simple enough. Point Van Go due north for the four-hour drive to Port Townsend, Washington, visit some friends living there, and overnight at a vintage hotel. The next day, head west to the Pacific Coast for beach time, then south to Lake Quinault Lodge

By Julie Snyder An enormous cherry pie perched atop the carefully packed provisions for our Van Go venture to southeastern Oregon. “What’s this?” I asked Joe. Space was tight in our VW camper, and a cumbersome pie wasn’t part of the plan. “Just a little campfire dessert,” said my sweet-toothed

  Story and photos by Julie Snyder By the time the hazardous forest fire smoke over Portland had begun to dissipate, my husband, Joe, and I were frantic for fresh air. So we pointed Van Go toward Bavaria. Not that Bavaria—Americans are still personae non-gratae in Europe. But visitors are

By Julie Snyder Shafts of mist-filtered sunlight shot through the rusty, perforated hull of the Peter Iredale, a once-proud English sailing ship. Shadows checker-boarded the sand that had imprisoned the four-masted steel bark since 1906 when a mighty southeast wind and strong currents rammed the vessel aground on Clatsop Beach.

By Julie Snyder The hunt was on. Our mission? To find an idyllic coastal campsite within two hours of Portland. A scenic spot close to the beach that we could pop off to with a minimum of planning. What a silly idea. Campsites on the coast are scored far in

  Story and photos by Julie Snyder  “Keep an eye out for Bigfoot,” said my husband, Joe, as Van Go rolled through the lush old-growth forest in Mount Rainier National Park. We spent three days exploring southwestern Washington’s Sasquatch Country, but the fabled large, hairy creature played hard to get.   At least the living version. Shortly after exiting Interstate 5 at Woodland in favor of

  By Julie Snyder So what’s a couple to do when their thirtieth-anniversary travel adventure—a Transatlantic cruise on the Queen Mary 2 and two weeks in Italy—is derailed by a global pandemic? Buy a camper, of course. If we couldn’t comfortably travel to distant destinations, then we’d explore close to