63 A Vanlife Guide to Our National Parks

Are you a national park enthusiast? Then this book is perfect for you! This book will inspire you to get out and explore U.S. national parks. Whether you have a camper van or not, this book will be extremely helpful as most parks are only accessible by car. There is an emphasis given towards vanlife in this book that is helpful for those camping from their car as well. This book provides the perfect route to maximize good weather while driving to all the national parks in a year.

My name is Brandon, and I just visited all the national parks in the United States! The 63 parks are spread throughout the entire country making this a tough accomplishment. My love of national parks began when I was 13 years old. I went on a family trip to Hawaii in July of 2006. Here I visited my first national park–Hawaii Volcanoes National Park! We did a sunset hike out on the lava field to see the red glow. I was mesmerized at this astonishing phenomenon. That was the moment I started to appreciate national parks.
In high school I was going through my grandparents things that they were getting rid of, and I found a book on the national parks published in 1985. I then learned that my grandma had actually worked in Yellowstone when she was in high school which sparked my interest even more. After graduating college I visited my second national park–Zion! Hiking to Angels Landing blew me away with its beauty. This was the moment that set my national park journey in motion. As a Christian, Zion was especially intriguing to me for all the biblical references throughout the park such as the three sandstone peaks named Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.
For the next few years I made it a point to visit a few more national parks each year. Then in 2022, I decided to buy a van and convert it into a campervan to use for visiting the parks. It took me a year to fully convert the van while working full time. I then decided to take a year off of work to accomplish my goal of visiting all the national parks. I had saved up money and was making some rental income to support myself for the year. I wanted this experience of getting to hike the parks while I had the physical capabilities of doing everything I wanted to instead of waiting until I retire. Having completed my goal of visiting all 63 parks, I am beyond grateful for the time I was able to spend admiring God's beautiful creation.