Traveling North America in our RV, the Ciaowagen

We arrived at Desert Trails RV Park on Saturday, March 14. This is one of our favorite campgrounds, and we'd been here before in 2019 , 2020 , and 2024 . It's an RV park that caters to "snowbirds." When we began planning this trip in November 2025, we'd hoped to spend two months at Desert Trails, but the recovery from Jeannette's two bunion surgeries shortened that time to one month. You can see the Ciaowagen on the left side of this photo of part of the campground. During t

NOTE: Have you ever looked at the " Maps " tab on the Ciaowagen website ? On it, you can see the progress of our 2026 trip-so-far, as well as maps for every Ciaowagen travel year since 2018. You can also see where we're currently located, and upcoming travel plans for the next few weeks. We update all that frequently. We left our Virginia home on March 1, right after the last of the February snows had melted. One of the challenges with planning a vacation in the western part

Happy 2026, readers! After a few surgeries during the late fall and winter (feels like the price of admission once you're in your 70s...), Doug and Jeannette are both ready to get on the road again, and so is the Ciaowagen! You may remember that our 2025 Ciaowagen adventures ended prematurely when our RV's engine crapped out while we were in Nashville, TN and had to be replaced. Fortunately that's all been taken care of. The Ciaowagen is like a heart transplant patient with

Continuing a tradition, here are some of our favorite photos from this year's travels. We've included photos both from our April-May trip to Scandinavia and our September-October Ciaowagen trip on the Great River Road down the Mississippi. Boat Trip on the Sognefjord, Norway Norwegian coastline from the MS Richard With ferry Norwegian coastal sunset A very typical (but amazing) view of the Norwegian cost from the Coastal Express ferry Walking in Longyearbyen, Svalbard, 10:30

Continuing a blog tradition, here are some statistics for this past year's Ciaowagen travel: Days spent on the road: 58 (plus 3 retrieving the Ciaowagen from Nashville) Miles traveled by the Ciaowagen: 4,874 Additional Miles traveled by the Fittata: 2,390 TOTAL miles traveled: 7,264 States visited: 15 Campgrounds visited: 20 Fellow RVers traveled with: 29 (in 15 RVs) Depth of the Mississippi River at Lake Itasca: 10 inches Depth of the Mississippi River at New Orleans: 200 fe