We bought a new Airstream adventure van!

After two years with our Airstream Basecamp travel trailer, Kelly and I decided to go back to van life in a big way, and we traded it in for a 2023 Airstream Interstate 24x adventure van.

So, for some context, right now me and Kelly are in Spokane, Washington, on our annual western adventure trip. This year our plan was to travel through South Dakota and Montana to get to the Oregon coast, meet the kids and hang out. After that, it was me and my sons in Montana, Idaho, and Wyoming for a week of camping, and then me meeting fishing buddies in Wyoming for the last leg of the trip.

Since 2021 our camping platform has been an Airstream Basecamp 20x - a pretty rugged tow behind trailer. I like it. It’s cool, comfortable, and big enough for us.

As much as I loved the Basecamp, I hate towing. Kelly says it makes me grumpy. There’s this constant nagging anxiety that something will go wrong, there’s lots of alarming sounds, and multiple points of failure.You have to be very careful where you pull in to. Driving is harder and slower. Backing it up is difficult. And you have two units to take care of.

I have a complicated relationship with towing that began when I was 12 and lost a load of hay driving a tractor on Voyles Road. It just sort of escalated and I’ve never been thrilled about it, culminating in my total destruction of our first travel trailer a few years ago with a stupid mistake. I think there are some people who were meant to tow and some people who shouldn’t. I’m one of those who shouldn’t.

So somewhere between the Badlands and Montana I started seriously considering another platform and a return to the van life that we enjoyed some much a few years ago.

As we navigated this trip the problems with mobility and the worries you are driving down the highway and see your trailer in the lane next to me convinced me that we needed to go another direction. By the time we got to Missoula I knew I was going to go in a different direction, and I thought “why not just do this now?”. There are way more Airstream dealers and options out west, many of them along our route. If we could make it happen, we’d have the new platform for the second half of the trip.

I was already familiar with most of the options out there because this thought had been nagging me for awhile. We did more research and decided on trying to stay with Airstream because of the quality and high resale value. We researched and test drove different rigs in Missoula and the Interstate 24x was the clear winner. The combination of off road ruggedness and comfort seemed perfect for us.

It drove like a dream with great visibility and road control. Nothing like the other rigs that I’ve tried. The Sprinter chassis is amazing.

We didn’t like the deal that they were offering in Missoula and reached out to a dealership in Spokane. They gave us a much better price right away. That day we visited, looked at the unit, and pulled the trigger.

It’s not easy to make a purchase like this on the road and at the last minute. We had to hunker down in Spokane for four nights while the paperwork was being processed and the van was getting prepped. But somehow it all worked out and we made the switch. Now we’re out on the road headed toward Portland.

When we bought the Sportsmobile 4x4 van almost ten years ago I never regretted it. We saw every corner of the West and the freedom it gave us was the best feeling in the world. This is just like that and . . . More.

I won’t lie. . . The price was steep. People might say I’m crazy for doing this. But I’ve been on this trip every year for 11 years and it’s the highlight of my year. Sometimes life moves fast and you have to be decisive. You only live once. We’re looking forward to exploring every nook and cranny of the beautiful wild places that are out there, family weekend camping, fishing trips, music festivals, secret city boondocking, and maybe spending a few months out there one day.

So far, so good. The van needs a name, and we’re open to suggestions. It’s been amazing and I don’t regret it for a second. We’ll keep you updated, and I’ll have a few walk through videos as time goes on. Make sure to visit our travel blog, SchadPad.com, for updates, travel tips, adventure stories, and random musings.