"On the road again, Going places that I've never been, Seeing things that I may never see again and I can't wait to get on the road again"

Wondering what life on trek is all about and what happens during your time away with Trek America? In this post I'll be giving you an insight on what goes on whether it's a short time away or a longer length trip that you have chosen.

My trip "Grand Trek" was a total of 42 days away, but I also added extra days before and after the trek.  I chose to do a camping trip. Trek America also run budget lodging, plus tours and bolt tours alongside this so there are a few options for you depending on what you would like.

Now the first thing shall I mention is, I have never ever been camping in my life. Yep no camping whatsoever and I happen to chose a trip which is camping for the majority of the time away, so yeah I didn't really know what to expect with this and how I would be. Before choosing the trip I did do a little research into this and found that quite a lot of travellers who had previously been on trek before, did say that they found camping tours to be a lot better due to the fact they found that their group bonded more together as each night they got to spend that time together. Personally for me this is something that I wanted out of my experience.

For the Grand Trek, if you go online it states how many nights you are camping. For example with this trek it is 29 nights camping, 4 nights budget lodging (hostels.. and again I've never stayed in a hostel either) and 8 nights in a hotel (yesss, a bit of luxury! and trust me you're always on the countdown for a proper bed and your own bathroom) everything was running through my mind, how do I put up a tent, what about all the bugs, is my back going to be broken by the end of the trip, what if the hostels are dirty etc and honestly looking back now, it was totally fine and its hard for me to say this but I do kind of, slightly miss the camping life haha! Oh apart from being eaten alive by mosquitos, DO NOT FORGET THE BUG SPRAY!! But with camping you also get to experience amazing sun rises and sunsets which I will never forget for example camping in Monument Valley, with no covers over the tent and all you see is the night sky and stars then waking up to a beautiful sun rise in the distance. Also one thing to remember too is, depending on which part of the USA you're visiting some places at night can get cold so remember to pack clothing items suitable for this too. With our trek covering south and north USA the temperatures on a night varied, from being sweltering heat at night in Lafayette and then to cold nights whilst in Yosemite and Yellowstone National Park were we had to stop off to get layers and blankets beforehand.


And with camping tours comes..... cooking and the food kitty! This is $10 a day which covers all your meals whilst you're camping and everyone chips in their own $10 and gives it to their trek leader on day one of trek then at the end of the trip if there is any money that is left in the kitty your trek leader will share it out between everyone. This kitty covers breakfast, lunch and dinner for whilst you're camping and then on the hotel/hostel stays you have to budget for these out of your spending money. During your trek you will stop many times at the most famous Walmart (which we loved and miss) to gather food for the up coming days. You get put into groups and get given either breakfast, lunch or dinner and you have to go off and get those items. Each day there is a rota as to who is cooking for that night. Due to the cooking facilities trek has onboard the trailer think easy meals, a few that we had during our time away were stir fry's, hot dogs, pasta, burgers for example.

Being on trek comes with a lot of travelling around in a mini van where you can travel anywhere from 3 hours to 9+ hours (in which they are called the Van Appreciation days!) So as you all probably know the USA is huge, therefore getting from A to B does mean it can take a good few hours to reach your destination and sometimes that means you haven't even left that state. This was also slightly worrying for me due to the fact that I suffer from travel sickness and I was dreading the thought of me being or feeling sick constantly, I packed loads of tablets with me and also had to sickness just in case but to my surprise I was never sick and I only felt sick once during the whole trek and after stopping by the road, taking some time out and a seat swap I felt fine again. For me personally I think that as there was always a lot going on in the van it took my mind off it.

The number one thing when it came to travelling in the van was to catch up on sleep! Long drives meant early starts with the majority of the time leaving base at 7am or around that time. But be warned falling asleep in the van only means one thing...…..


Everyone taking photos of you whilst you're sleeping! For our whole trip this is what our group did if any of us fell asleep during van time. I think I literally have a whole album full of photos of which we sent each other in our group chat of who was asleep.

Each trek leader is also different too with how they plan their drives, like for me I found our first trek guide Joel was pretty laid back with his drives where as Cat our second leader got us involved in games, had funky dress up glasses, cards in the back of the van and also a tutu in which you had to wear if you were ever late or the last one to get to the van, she also stopped off at a lot of places and too see different scenery views for us to take photos .

Before you travel make sure you make a playlist to play in the van, who ever sits in the passenger seat is the DJ for the day. Although the majority of the time we just got Dean to play his music and we would all take it in turns to request songs. I have so many songs now that just relate to this trip for example Big Girl from Kevin and Perry Go Large Movie and Ali G - Me Julie. Very random I know! But we literally played these songs nearly everyday of the trip and I'm sure every trek group will have their own songs that remind them of trek. We also started every van journey with the song On The Road Again by Willie Nelson and we all had a little sing a long to it. I love listening to songs now that remind me of trek or a place that we visited.

So during our van time we played "Hey Cow" a game in which who ever was sat in the passenger seat at the front along with the trek leader, had to roll down the window every time they saw a cow and shout Hey Cow!! During the first few days on trek me, Issac and Dean counted how many times we saw the USA flag when we drove passed one but in the end we had to stop as there were just too many! Think we literally saw about 100 maybe more in just an hour of driving. Again catch up on your sleep if you're feeling tired, read a book or listen to podcasts, write in a travel journal and take note of things you have done or seen so far on trek, listen to songs and have a sing song or simply just take this time to relax and take in the views as you drive by.


And the main thing, getting the chance to meet new people from all over the world (and like this trek, this meant that we had 2 groups of new people), spending time together and sharing one thing in common you all have... the love of travel! Getting the opportunity to see lots of new places, ticking things off bucket lists and creating memories than you can look back on in the future. Getting to know each other whilst sat round a camp fire, playing card games together, taking photos together, being on trek allows you to do this whilst exploring the USA.

Whether you all keep in touch or not, remember you all did it, said yes to going away whether it was as a solo traveller or with a friend/relative, experienced trek life together, made amazing memories and shared moments together that only you as a group will understand.



I would definitely recommend choosing a trip with Trek America, if you're looking to travel and like my self wanted a bit of security knowing it was as a group and had a trek leader with you.

If you have any questions about this or anything else relating to trek please leave them in the comments below or tweet me @chloe_louise56