Welcome to our Van Life blog. The stories highlighted on this website are journals of our favorite places and our best days while traveling. In reality, we have a lot more stories we haven’t posted yet. Our blog is always adding and updating our content. Thank you for visiting our site. We hope you will enjoy our travel journal and will return routinely for travel ideas and information.
TRAVEL SLOW – STOP OFTEN
Fitness Life By Design
When we started our Van Life By Design website and blog, our mission was to write about and photograph our travels in our Sprinter van Alice and other travel related topics. This is still true. Gail is also interested in writing about exercise and fitness, healthy eating and other lifestyle topics so we have launched… Read more
Spring in the Smoky Mountains
We visited the Smoky Mountains in the spring when the forest was coming to life. During our stay, the renewed plant life in the forest introduced me to more shades of green than I had ever seen in one place. It’s interesting what one notices when visiting a new place. Who would have thought the… Read more
Take a Detour
“The really happy person is the one who can enjoy the scenery, even when they have to take a detour.” ~ Sir James Jeans Read more
USS Alabama Battleship
During a family trip to the Florida panhandle, we happened to pick a week when the weather was less than ideal for hanging out at the beach. For this reason, we began to seek out places to visit in the area with our grandkids where the rain would not hamper our fun. One day, we… Read more
Should You Convert or Buy a Van?
The Van Life culture is a growing movement that lures in people of all ages and income levels. The free spirit mindset that this lifestyle embraces is an indicator that people want freedom and simplicity in their lives. The question many ask when making a purchase is, “should we convert or buy a van”? The… Read more
A Daily Dose of Hiking
Gail and I generally hike somewhere every day. Granted, if we are going through the neighborhood on our 3-mile route, we will call it a walk. Some might say it’s an Urban Hike. I call it putting one foot in front of the other. Getting outside and trekking makes me feel happy. It’s good for… Read more