The Seasons

Month by Month

Where we actually were in each month of the year, from eight years of dated photographs: the Arizona desert in January, the Maine coast in September.

Van life runs on one question more than any other: where should we be right now. Not the best place in the world. The best place in February, when the mountains are shut and the desert is empty and you have to be somewhere.

We never planned around the seasons. We just kept moving, and it turns out eight years of photographs kept the record anyway: where we actually were in each month of the year, over and over, without anyone deciding it in advance.

This is that record, not a recommendation. Every place below is somewhere our own photographs put us in that month. Some months have six years of driving behind them and some have two, and each one says which, because a pattern you can check is worth more than one you have to take our word for.

If you already know roughly where you are going, build the route and it will tell you which month fits it.

If it is one part of the country you are after, the same record is read by region for the east coast, the mountain west and the Pacific coast.

Every way into the record, on one page

January

August

Home was Denver area, Santa Rosa Beach FL, Finger Lakes NY, then San Diego.

46 places on the road, from 6 Augusts: 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020, 2022 and 2024.

The van's side mirror and a gravel road running into a cloudy sunset
Colorado, 2020-08-11

September

Home was Denver area, Finger Lakes NY, then San Diego.

35 places on the road, from 6 Septembers: 2016, 2017, 2019, 2020, 2022 and 2024.

The van alone on a straight two-lane highway, dunes and mountains ahead
Colorado, 2020-09-01

Questions we get asked

Where do you go in the winter?
The desert and the coast. Our January photographs put us at the Grand Canyon, Sedona, Flagstaff and Scottsdale one year, and strung down the Atlantic from Assateague Island to Charleston and Orlando another. Home in those months was the Denver area for five winters, then Phoenix, then San Diego.
Which months did you spend in the mountains?
June and July, every time. All three Junes in our record are Colorado high country or the Yellowstone and Teton corridor: Telluride, the Black Canyon, Mount Princeton, Mammoth Hot Springs. July is the same country again, plus Rocky Mountain National Park. August is when we push further, to Yosemite, Kings Canyon and the Great Lakes.
Where do you go in October?
East for the leaves, or south into the canyons. October 2019 ran Shenandoah, Asheville, Gatlinburg and the Kentucky bourbon towns; October 2020 was Capitol Reef, Bryce, the Grand Canyon and Arches. Four Octobers are in the record and those two are the ones that went anywhere.
Which month have you traveled most?
August, with 46 places across six different Augusts, more than any other month by a wide margin. September is close behind at 35, then October at 23. The thinnest is December, at 7 places from two Decembers.

Every one of these drives is on the map, route by route, and the same eight years run year by year on the slow version. To go the other way, with a route first and then the month that suits it, plan your own.