No Wrong Turns: RV Adventures

by Kelsey Mulyk on

The USA is all about RVs. And not small camper vans, I’m talking about massive, gleaming houses on wheels. I know Canadians RV as well, but it seems to me that the US has a definite love affair with recreational vehicles. I’ve never seen this many in my life!

The other night, after about 7 hours of driving the California coast, we pulled into the Westport Beach RV and Campground. The guy was friendly enough even though he grumbled at us that he was closed. I pondered letting him know that he had his ‘open’ sign on but, decided that being smart might not win him over. Instead I made friends with his cat, aptly named “Miss Kitty,” and he let us camp on the beach. On the short drive down to the beach we passed about 25 RVs (according to the locals this is the low season) and set up our tiny two-person tent.

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I woke up around 9am the next morning and was interested to see that most of the RV owners were already up preparing their mammoth vehicles for the road. After a rather chilly evening in the tent and a sore back, I was beginning to understand why people love their motorhomes.

So, what if you wanted more of an RV adventure rather than the typical North American road trip?

I did a bit of research before we left on our trip, and located a company called Adventuretours that specializes in RV tours to Latin America. They take no more than 15 vehicles into Central and South America from the US. Pretty cool if you like to travel with all the comforts of home. I know that many people like to travel with others to enhance their time away and meet new people. The neatest thing about this company is that they encourage travelers to break off from the group and explore on their own instead of as tour group where everyone wears the same color shirt, takes the same picture and remains in a group at all times. I contacted them a few months ago when I was trying to figure out how to get around Colombia thinking they might have some inside information. They were more than helpful and even offered to meet up with us on the way.

Hmm…maybe I should have convinced Tom to buy an RV…

“No Wrong Turns” chronicles Kelsey and her husband’s road trip — in real time — from Canada to the southern tip of South America in their trusty red VW Golf named Marlin.

Design your own sleeping bag

by Justin Glow on

It’s getting close to camping time here in the Midwest. I love camping. I love loading up the car with my tent, sleeping bags, coolers filled with various meats and beers, and heading into the wilderness. Had I not been recently gifted a pair of new, cold-weather sleeping bags, I’d consider building my own from the UK’s PHD Mountain Software.

The company’s website has a slick Flash interface for constructing your own sleeping bag, and offers two “trails” to getting it done: the “free route” — if you know what you’re doing — or the “guided route” for the novice. Since I don’t know the first thing about building a sleeping bag, I chose the guided route.

From there you’re given various features to choose for your future sleeping bag: minimum temperature, outer fabric, inner fabric, stuff patterns, width, length, colors, and many, many others. Make your selections, submit your order, and you’re done.

The prices, unsurprisingly, are not cheap. The bag I built was 270.00 GBP (about $530 USD), and I’m sure it could have been much higher had I selected more add-ons. But this might be the perfect thing for the hardcore camping or mountaineering enthusiast with some extra cash to burn. For now, I’ll stick to my Keltys.

The real Great Wall, and how to get there

by Jerry Guo on

The girl in the photo is my girlfriend, in the process of slowly freezing to death on the Great Wall. We were stuck in a snowstorm with the nearest hikers miles away. And that path? Yep, it’s as narrow as it looks, and I’m not exaggerating here, but one slip, and you’ll be falling a few hundred meters down straight cliffs.

Yet that hike at Simatai has been one of the most fun adventures we’ve taken. Why? We got to experience the real wall (which is rapidly crumbling), avoided the masses of tourists (see this ridiculous shot at Badaling, the most over-touristed section of the wall), and the climb was actually strenuous in parts.

We had such a blast that we returned to the wall a few months later, this time to Jiankou (translated as the “arrowhead”), the steepest section of the 3,000 mile Great Wall. Here, we camped in one of the watch-towers for a night, which I’m sure is not exactly legal, and hiked an untouched part of the wall that has been almost covered with dense vegetation. Here’s some info about hiking to Simatai and Jiankou. Backpackers in Beijing and hostels will also have more info for you (it’s a bit strange that Westerners will actually know more about the “wild” Great Wall than the local Chinese).

This gallery has photos from both trips.

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The most remote (and beautiful) corner of Costa Rica

by Iva Skoch on

If you want to experience Costa Rica for its natural parks and avoid beautiful-but-touristy places (such as Quepos) head over to Osa Peninsula, home of Corcovado National Park, which is the largest park in the country (and much of Central America). I was just there in November and would recommend it to anybody who is looking for adventure travel. November is a good time to go, too, because it is the end of their rainy season but not quite their high season yet. You will end up doing a lot of trekking–both in jungle and on the beach–so plan accordingly and bring a lot of sunscreen.

We took a local flight on Sansa from San Jose to Puerto Jimenez and rented a 4X4 car from there. You can also take a “colectivo” shuttle bus (cheaply) or a taxi (expensively). It is about a three hour drive to Carate. This is where “the road ended” and we hiked 3 miles on the beach to the eco lodge. The beaches are amazing and so are most of the eco lodges. Still, the key here is modest: tents, simple meals and lots of scenery. Anyone looking to get “eco-pampered” with a massage in the sunset should probably go to Quepos instead.

Costa Rica is a beautiful country that has so much to offer to different types of travelers. Don’t get discouraged just because your neighbor told you it is getting touristy. There are still real gems to find in Costa Rica.

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Also: Check out the story + gallery (below) of Gadling blogger Jerry Guo catching bats in Costa Rica.

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Supersize your next camping trip: Cheeseburger in a can

by Jerry Guo on

Want more variety than the standard rice and beans when you’re out mucking around in the field? Believe it or not, a German outdoor outfitter has managed to fit a cheeseburger (with onions, lettuce, and pickles to boot) into a can.

One cheeseburger is an affordable € 3,95, and for that, you get 260 calories. And since you can apparently find anything on the World Wide Intertubes, I just came across one guy who ordered one of these burgers-in-a-can. He has posted plenty of pictures (see the gallery below) from his little adventure.

For one, it’s a bit disconcerting to see someone cooking a tin can in a pot of boiling water. But from what he says, the burger’s actually decent, and he recommends getting a few if you’re on a camping trip.

It reminds me of the recent upsurge in interest over Meals, Ready-to-Eat (MREs), the military meals-on-the-go, which you can now find all over eBay. Has anyone bought some and enjoyed them on a camping trip? What’d you think?

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