A Look Back At Frankenstein The Pop Up Campers 2021 Adventures
Well 2021 has wrapped up and what an amazing year it was for us. We spent seven months straight this year traveling the country and living full time in our pop up camper Frankenstein.
This was our second year of full-time travel and it was a way different experience than 2020. The pandemic really changed everything in 2020.
I thought I do a post with a few of the stats from this last year of adventure.
- States Visited: 11 (5 new)
- National Parks Visited: 9
- National Monuments/Historic Sites: 20
- Museums: 11
- Campsites: 29
- Roadside Attractions: 20
- Miniature Golf Courses: 5
- Zoos: 3
These stats are estimates after a quick look through my planner.
Since we are full time we have the luxury of usually spending 1-2 weeks at each location to really explore the area. Our favorite new state we visited this year was Wyoming. Man it’s gorgeous there!
We had a lot of fun in Utah and there’s a ton to do there, but we figured out pretty quick we aren’t desert peeps. Too much sand and way too hot. We did enjoy the non desert parts a lot though.
We stayed at some gorgeous locations in 2021 as well. In total we had 29 different campsites. We primarily boondock so we ended up only spending $70 total on camping!
Green River Lakes in Wyoming was by far our favorite. It is absolutely gorgeous there and we saw our first wild moose right at our camp.
Vermilion Cliffs National Monument in Utah was another favorite as well as Flaming Gorge National Recreation Area in Utah. They are completely opposite of each other, in comparison to landscape, but both are incredibly beautiful in their own right.
We actually knocked a number of bucket list locations off our list as well this year. We spent time in the towns of Deadwood, Tombstone, Roswell and Moab. We saw the Valley of the Gods, Gila Cliff Dwellings and the incredible Horseshoe Bend.
We also fell in love with the small towns of Pinedale in Wyoming, Blanding in Utah and Custer in South Dakota. I highly recommend visiting them all.
In our first year of travel the only National Park we got to visit was the Badlands in South Dakota. This year we made it a priority to visit more. We hit up nine national parks in total for 2021 and plan on hitting even more than that in 2022.
White Sands National Park was my favorite and I think a big part of that was because our furry friends got to enjoy the entire park as well. Pets are allowed on every trail in the park (very rare) and they had a blast.
I liked Guadalupe Mountains National Park a lot as well. Saguaro National Park was easily my least favorite.
Besides national parks we hit up a lot of national monuments and recreation areas also. Natural Bridges National Monument is an amazing area that I don’t think anyone knows about. It’s located in Utah and should not be missed.
Custer State Park in South Dakota is just amazing. There is so much hiking to do there we only got about half the trails done in the week we visited. They are also completely pet friendly!
Plus, they have a ton of wildlife including a massive herd of bison. We saw are first mountain goats in the wild here and fed wild burros.
We also love the weird and quirky so whenever we have the opportunity to check out some odd roadside attraction we do. We saw a number of the world’s largest this year including: wooden bigfoot and wooden Smoky Bear statues, fishing lure, pistachio nut and Kokopelli.
We also stopped to see The Thing? in Arizona, searched for the Fouke Monster in Arkansas and visited a Bedrock City graveyard in South Dakota. If it’s strange or unusual we try to stop.
The hiking we did in 2021 was insane! So many hikes and so many miles we racked up in seven months. Most people only have a day or two at a national park, but we have as much time as we want and that means really exploring. We love hiking and so do the pets so we are always hitting the trails.
Our favorite hike was probably the Little Hole National Scenic Trail in the Flaming Gorge National Recreation Area in Utah. This trail follows the river the whole way and is just breathtaking! Hiking the loop around Green River Lakes was a pretty incredible hike as well and was probably our second favorite hike.
Let’s talk museums. I think we hit up about twenty different museums in 2021. You would be surprised at how many excellent museums are hidden in small towns across this nation and most are fairly cheap to visit.
Some of our favorites included: Black Hills Mining Museum, The Museum @ Black Hills Institute, Museum of the Mountain Man, The Dinosaur Museum and The International UFO Museum and Research Center. I highly recommend a visit to each one.
We had planned on staying out longer than seven months, but Frankenstein had other plans. He is a very old camper to begin with and after almost two years traveling and living in him full time he needed some maintenance. Truthfully, we were starting to tire of all the extra work with a pop up and wanted something a little easier.
In September we came back to Ohio and have been moochdocking at my parents ever since. Instead of putting money into Frankenstein we decided to look for a travel trailer. In November we found and picked up Cruella.
After spending the holiday season with family it’s now time to focus on getting Cruella ready for traveling. Over the next couple months we will be adding solar to her, replacing the toilet with a composting toilet and doing numerous upgrades. Then we will save up money again to start traveling.
I am itching to get back on the road and am already over being stationary this long. The reality is we probably won’t be hitting the road again till May though. Until then we will work on our new trailer and save up money to get back to our travels as soon as possible.
My plan is also to get this blog caught up on all our adventures. I still have posts from 2020 to do (I know so sad)! I also have a ton of camping reviews to put up that I know people are probably interested in the most.
So there’s a little review of our travels from last year and a sneak peek of what the future holds. I can’t wait to get started again!
Thank you for sharing about your pop up travels! This is something I’ve always wanted to do. My husband and I had planned to do a camping trip from Western Canada all the way across and then into the United States and all the way back to Oregon where we live. We were going to do that for our 50th anniversary last year but unfortunately Covid put a stop to that.
This year we did spend six months in our tent trailer but that was because we gave up our bedroom in the house to help out our granddaughter and her child. Being as we live in Oregon, we had to walk through the rain to the tent trailer many a night, so I guess you couldn’t call it dry camping!! But the experience did prove to us that we could live in it for an extended period of time. We are really looking forward to doing a lot more camping this year. Your adventures are an inspiration!
That road trip sounds like a blast! I hope you get out this year on some great adventures!
My husband and myself and my niece are going to head out next end of July and head out west my husband is from Wyoming I’m worry are doing it in a pop up so what is so great to follow somebody who has done that any tips I would love to have them
July will be hot! If your not boondocking and have hook-ups at a campsite you will be fine just bring plenty of fans if you don’t have air conditioning!