Cover photo: Mark Fagan
Story & photos: Emily & Mark Fagan
Issue: Fall, 2014
Posted September 26, 2014
The Fall 2014 issue of Coast to Coast Magazine is featuring our photo on the cover as well as our article about RV travel to Phoenix, Arizona.
iPhone Simulation, Landscape
We have made some changes to this site that should make it a little easier to view on mobile devices. Yay!
It was partly “mobile ready” before but there were lots of niggling problems.
The post title overlapped on itself, the header image and comments stuck way out to one side, the menus were goofy and stacked on top of each other. Those and other annoyances have been tidied up.
It’s not perfect, but it’s way better!
A Full-time RVers Metamorphosis
Escapees Magazine, Sep/Oct 2014
Article by Emily Fagan
Last spring we met a special couple, Phil and Ann Botnick, who have been living in an RV full-time for twenty-six years. As we got to know them, I was so taken by their story (and their rig — it is amazing!), that I wrote an article about them for Escapees Magazine. It is appearing in the September/October 2014 issue.
August 2014 issue of Trailer Life
Story and photos by Emily & Mark Fagan
The August 2014 issue of Trailer Life Magazine is featuring our story about two delightful and fascinating ghost towns in Montana: Virginia City and Nevada City. Back in 1863 these two towns were absolutely bursting with activity. Over time their good fortune faltered, and today they are loaded with ghosts and are really fun to visit.
Silky water on the Crooked River
We have left Bend and the central Oregon area and have ventured northeast to what may easily be the most beautiful and tranquil part of this state.
Article by Emily & Mark Fagan
Motorhome Magazine July 2014
The July, 2014, issue of Motorhome Magazine is featuring our article about RV sanitation systems and RV dump station procedures called, “Keep It Clean!”
This article first appeared in Trailer Life Magazine, and the good folks at Good Sam Club liked it so much they decided to customize it a little for their MotorHome readers and publish it in that magazine as well. Continue reading
Sailing Magazine – February 2014 issue!
On Newsstands Now!!
Posted February 3, 2014
The February 2014 issue of Sailing Magazine is featuring our story and photos about beautiful Huatulco, Mexico. Of all the places we sailed to on the Pacific coast of Mexico, the lovely Bays of Huatulco were by far our favorite cruising grounds.
Although it is just a ten mile stretch of coast at the southern end of the country, each bay is unique and charming. With snorkeling galore, a variety of tropical beaches to explore, two small villages and intriguing places to head inland, we had a hard time tearing ourselves away from the area when our months of tropical bliss there finally ended.
Sailing Magazine is a beautiful, big, glossy magazine that takes pride in publishing fine photography and high quality writing about all things sailing and cruising. Sailing has been around for many decades, and when I was a little girl growing up in the 60’s it was on our coffee table and was the magazine my father turned to when he dreamed of sailing off over the horizon. I am so proud to be counted among their contributors this month!
Our DVDs cover the Bays of Huatulco in depth
To get a copy of the February issue of Sailing, check out their website’s list of newsstands around the country that carry it. You can also subscribe to Sailing in either their print edition or their Kindle edition.
If you want to learn more about traveling to Huatulco, have a look at this page where you’ll find links to all our blog posts from our four months there. We have also created two DVDs about this area. One gives a visual picture of where the best anchoring spots and snorkeling and beaches are in Huatulco and the other takes you on a virtual trip to the vibrant city of Oaxaca, a day’s drive inland.
If you are planning to go to Mexico or are already down there, be sure to spend some time in these special bays.
New to this site? There is lots of great info for both sailors and RVers, especially those heading to Mexico. Please visit our Home page and our intro page for cruisers and our intro page for RVers to find where we keep all the good stuff!
We received a special email message the other day from the the folks at Florida Outdoors RV Center saying that they have compiled a list of their 50 favorite RV blogs, and that our blog is on the list.
Now that’s a heartwarming email to wake up to!
Photography and writing have become a passion for us since we hit the road full-time.
Compiling any kind of “Best Of” list is time consuming and sweat inducing, to say the least, and my hat is off to Brandon Esparza who took it upon himself to run all over the web hunting down RV blogs, read them all, and then pick out his favorite ones.
Getting the morning started right —
Home is where the heart is!
Before we started full-time RVing in 2007, the blogging world was just getting going, and not that many travelers had websites.
How fabulously far the online world has come!! Nowadays, almost every full-timer has a blog, and they are as varied and distinctive as the special travelers who create them.
Compiling a “Best Of” list is daunting, as everyone out here has great stories to tell and excellent tips to pass on.
This list from Florida Outdoors RV Center includes a wonderfully wide variety of blogs from younger folks to older folks, from singles to families, from people in small, simple rigs to those in big, fancy ones.
Just seven months into this crazy full-time traveling lifestyle in December, 2007,
we parked in the Quartzsite, Arizona, desert with a million other RVers!
Each blog offers a unique perspective on the full-time RV lifestyle. I am really proud that our site appears in such great company.
Brandon made his selection based on several criteria, including content, design, popularity, and activity within the online RV community, and for these last two I want to say “thank you” to all of you, our readers.
Our popup tent trailer was “The Luvnest” and the name has carried on
through two full-time trailers!
By returning to our site on a regular basis to see what we’ve been up to, and by sharing our many stories and links with your online friends, and by subscribing to our RSS feed and email newsletter, you have given our site a far greater reach than I ever would have imagined.
I know a few of you found us early on and have been following our adventures from our first days on the road, and I am both humbled to have sustained your interest this long and utterly delighted that you enjoy traveling along with us in spirit!
Sunrise in Phoenix Arizona just a few days ago…
I also know that many of you have gone on, after reading our pages, to embark on your own full-time travels and create your own thoughtful blogs where you share your experiences and insights. It is really satisfying to know that our blog played a small part in helping you fulfill your dreams!
One of the most special rewards of creating this site has been that it has become a springboard for communication. Not only has it kept us in touch with people as close as our immediate friends and family, but it has put us in touch with others as far distant as Afghanistan where three years ago a marine corresponded with me at length about which kind of truck to buy once he got home and could live his full-time RV dream. What a surprise it was when, a year after that, another marine emailed that he was “writing from a tent in Afghanistan” to touch base about the costs of RVing and cruising, as he strove to keep alive his dreams of casting off for new horizons once his military duties ended.
It is really gratifying to know that our adventures on the road bring both pleasure and inspiration, and I can’t tell you what it means to be able to put something from our hearts out there into the online world and receive such positive feedback through your comments on our blog posts, Facebook, Google+ and email.
We found magic in Guanajuato!
I’m actually a really reserved person, and this cocktail party style of online social media conversation is a bit out of my comfort zone. However, the friends we have made through our online connections have been wonderful!
It is my sincerest hope that our blog will continue to paint a vivid picture of what our life on the road is like, and that it will help future adventurers plan and prepare for a new phase of life that is a little unconventional and a whole lot of fun.
Check out this new list of top RV blogs, get inspired to go traveling, and when you are in Florida, have a look at the rigs at the Florida Outdoors RV Center — we will!
Escapees 2014 Travel Guide
Photo: Emily & Mark Fagan
Posted January 6, 2014
The 2014 edition of the Escapees RV Club’s Travel Guide features our photo on the cover. This image was a true collaborative effort between Mark and myself. We were walking down a road in La Manzanilla, Mexico, while staying at the lovely beachside villa, Casa Maguey, when we came across a string of beachfront RV parks.
It was the off-season, so the parks were virtually empty, but there was one lone Airstream trailer that looked so inviting. I climbed up on a wooden fence and leaned on Mark’s shoulder to get the photo. It turned out a little underexposed and lackluster. Luckily, Mark loves post-processing, so he adjusted it in Lightroom to create a wonderful final image.
La Manzanilla is a tiny town near the popular cruising destination of Tenacatita, known locally as Bahia de los Angeles Locos (Crazy Angels Bay). It lies about 100 miles due south of Puerto Vallarta in the middle of Mexico’s Costalegre, or “Cheerful Coast,” which cruisers have dubbed the “Gold Coast.”
Each year the Escapees RV Club puts together a members’ Travel Guide that highlights inexpensive overnight RV parking spots. It is divided into three main sections: 19 members-only Escapees RV parks which charge as little as $5/night for dry camping; many pages of public RV parks that offer Escapees members discounts of up to 50% off their daily rates (sometimes with seasonal or day-of-the-week restrictions); and dozens of free overnight parking spots at members’ properties (some charge for electricity).
The first and last categories are our favorites, since we are avid boondockers/dry campers, and our preference is for free or nearly-free camping. This little book is one of the many benefits of joining Escapees.
For our travel stories from the area where this photo was taken, see:
Casa Maguey – Kindred Spirits in a Beachfront Villa — Describes our surprise invitation to experience Mexico as land-based vacationers rather than as boat-based cruisers, and the bigger surprise of discovering that our host grew up touring North and South America in a 26′ RV in the 1980’s.
La Manzanilla – Exotic Animals and Copper Canyon — Tells a bit about what we found to see and do in this tiny seaside village, and continues the wonderful story of our host’s 12 years of boondocking adventures between Alaska and South America.
New to this site? Here is a link to our most recent posts and our other published work.
Escapees Magazine
by Emily & Mark Fagan
November-December 2013 Issue
Posted November 9, 2013
The November/December 2013 issue of Escapees Magazine is featuring our article Enchanting Ensenada about Mexico’s fun-filled waterfront city in northern Baja California (you can read the story from the link above).
We lived in Ensenada, Mexico, for six months as we outfitted our sailboat Groovy to go cruising, and we recently enjoyed another month there. When we first arrived nearly four years ago, we weren’t sure what we would find, but in the ensuing weeks and months we fell in love with the energy and vitality of this multifaceted coastal city.
Very much like the recent Baja Ha-Ha sailing event that took 130 sailboats on a two week voyage from San Diego to Cabo San Lucas en route to further sailing adventures in Mexico, the Escapees RV Club’s “Mexican Connection” Chapter is hosting a ten day RV rally that will bring 50 RVs from San Diego into Baja California on February 3-13, 2014.
Starting at the KOA RV park in Chula Vista, this rally will spend a week in Ensenada and then travel down to San Quintín where the RVers will regroup either to return north or to continue their road trips south to Baja hot spots like Bahía Concepción, Loreto, Los Cabos and La Paz.
Ensenada, Mexico, is a fabulous destination for RVers and cruisers alike. Lying just 70 miles south of San Diego, it is a lively university town that offers a full-flavored taste of life in Mexico, whether living aboard a sailboat in one of the two excellent marinas or staying in one of the RV parks along the shore.
For more info about what we found to see and do in and around Ensenada, please visit the following links:
For a glimpse of what life is like in the rest of Baja and mainland Mexico, please see these links: