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We were hiring a van from Indie Campers for the fifteen days of driving after some research online back in 2025 about the different reputations of other van rental companies. During the journey I will revisit the reviews and see what holds relevance after a minor crisis!<\/p>\n\n\n\n We visited 20 states over the three weeks and travelled 4383 miles in total in the van that we would be sleeping in and doing some long days of driving. Wildfires, wildlife, wild drivers, wild views and all sorts of other adventures were waiting but we didn’t know it at the start.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Friends have asked me why we did this journey and had we done anything like it before? The answer was that we had driven the NC500 in the North Coast of Scotland a couple of years ago in a Ford Transit Campervan and found the experience to be amazing in general. We did 1000 miles on that holiday over eight days and thoroughly enjoyed the sights, the sounds, the smells, and the ability to examine parts of the United Kingdom that we had not seen before. This US road trip would be a slightly grander scale version with hopefully a more comfortable bed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The plan that we had drawn up was the three nights in hotel to acclimatise at the beginning and to relax at the end and in between we picked some landmarks that we wanted to see before planning a route that took us through them all. I even used Chat GPT to assist in finding the campgrounds that might best suit the route, ensuring that were staying the night close by to the attraction we were visiting. It helped us identify the campgrounds and we were able to book them throughout the 18 months leading up to the holiday. Some campgrounds such as those in the State Parks will only open up tickets three months before the date so we had to calendar these in so we did not forget to book them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The plan was to set in stone some major points of interest and then search for interesting things to see on the journey before we set off for the day travelling. We found some strange places, some beautiful places and had a lot of fun exploring.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The blog posts to follow will concentrate on Part One: San Francisco, then the different stages of the camping, followed by the last section in New York City. I have logged the mileage of the trips, the times we’ve used gas stations and even the costs of the Uber’s and other transport.<\/p>\n\n\n\n There was one catastrophe too that left us both feeling upset that we had no control over but had a big impact on our family. This happens a few days into the trip and had ripples that continue to this day.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I’m studying for a Bachelor of Arts Degree in Photography at the University of Wolverhampton so this trip would yield a few photos. Over 7500 digital photos and 250 captured on Kodak film through my 35mm camera. There is even some drone photos and video. Some of these will accompany the blog posts, some are for instagram and I may at some point create a YouTube video. I am a photographer at heart and its very rare that I am not carrying a camera and taking photos of random things I see. I have. a penchant too for concrete buildings and architecture that I find interesting so as well as some of the usual touristy holiday photos there may be some rather niche images displayed too.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In my bag I had stashed my Leica M6 with 28 and 35mm lenses, my Leica Q3 with its builtin 28mm lens and my DJI Mini 4 Pro drone. I also had my iphone 16 Pro with me too to capture the things that didn’t suit a camera. This is mainly for the documentary side of the journey rather than the arty side.<\/p>\n\n\n\n <\/p>\n\n\n\n For now I’ll draw the line there and prepare for the write up of the first part which was our journey to and a three night stay in San Francisco. There will hopefully be many photos, scans of souvenirs, videos and many memories, some around Chicago even based around the Batman movies of Chris Nolan and Matt Reeves.<\/p>\n\n\n\n <\/p>\n\n\n\n <\/p>\n\n\n\n <\/p>\n\n\n\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Welcome to the first post in this series about a road trip across the US.…<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/bobgriffithsphoto.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/L1020569_2048px-1024x682.jpg\")
In A State<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
Plan A<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
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Catastrophe<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
Photography<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
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Same Bat Time Same Bat Channel<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
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