Happy New Year to all our regular readers, we hope 2024 was kind to you and may 2025 be even better. After a 6 month hiatus, Lois and I are finally back at it, however the continuation of our ongoing global van travels required yet another long drive to kick things off; this time, a “return” journey of sorts. You guessed it – right back to Baltimore, Maryland !
Some background first. During a wonderful 6 month sojourn back in Canada, our 2025 plans were firmed up with the decision made to travel first to Europe. The plan was to focus on the Baltic states and Scandinavia initially, especially areas we had not seen in the past or had visited only briefly, and following that we’d head south through most of the states of the former “Eastern Bloc” towards Turkey, again with a view to exploring areas we’d missed in the past. Beyond Turkey, our plan remains open – the Middle East, Central Asia perhaps, or possibly even shipping on to somewhere further afield. But first, we had to get to Europe.
From the west coast of North America ( where we live), there are really only two options for getting a vehicle to Europe :
A) put the vehicle on a ship in Vancouver or Tacoma, send it to Panama where it is offloaded to a dock awaiting a connecting ship from Asia (to transit the canal) which would pick it up and take it to Europe ( Hamburg, or Antwerp), or
B) drive it 4,800 kms ( almost 3,000 miles ) to the east coast ourselves and ship it to Europe DIRECTLY from there.
As tempting as “A” was ( much less driving and no duplication of the very same trip I had made just 6 months ago ), the theft and damage risk of trans-shipping in Panama, the considerably more complex customs requirements, the much higher cost and considerably longer total duration of this option made “B” the obvious choice – as such, the return trip to Baltimore ( in the middle of winter ! ) was just a cross we had to bear. At least this time there would be two of us to share the driving !
Saying goodbye to our family, especially our newest member – gorgeous little Hadley – was incredibly hard, but we’d enjoyed six months of pretty intensive family time, and even with that we still did quite a lot of Facetiming along the way. Facetiming it will have to be that will help us through the coming months away from her.
Throughout the summer I’d firmed up shipping arrangements with the ever helpful folks at Sea-Bridge in Germany ( we had used them before, from Argentina to the US, so were happy to lean on them again ). SeaBridge specialize in shipping overlanding vehicles to all corners of the globe – the second image below shows our ship to Hamburg, the “Atlantic Sky”. We would depart Kelowna late January, planned on approximately a week to drive across to Baltimore, would put the van on the ship in early February and then we would find something useful to do for the three weeks it took the van to get from Baltimore to Hamburg. More on that in the next blog – but first, a long drive across the United States, once again !
While cold, the forecast for the first few days across the northwestern United States called for generally clear and sunny weather, which is what we experienced as we headed out from Kelowna down Highway 33, crossing into the US at Midway and then heading east on the US I90 through Spokane ( Washington), onto Billings(Montana), Rapid City and Sioux Falls (South Dakota) and on through Minnesota, Iowa, Indiana, Ohio, Pennsylvania, West Virginia and finally on to Baltimore. Below are a few images of the route, the weather and some of the scenery we experienced during the long drive east:
Being the middle of winter, camping options were limited but since we are fully self-contained we only really need a relatively flat space to park and we can overnight almost anywhere. A mixture of Cabelas ( an outdoor store that welcomes RV’ers to overnight ) , the occasional Cracker Barrell (restaurant chain ) and a mixture of theme towns ( such as the venerable “Al’s Oasis” seen below, in South Dakota ), and a couple of State/National Parks provided suitable parking for all our overnights – a few images below:
Arriving in Washington DC ( very close to Baltimore ) just a bit ahead of schedule gave us time to do a little exploring however the weather, having been amazing all the way across ( considering it was mid-winter ), just did not cooperate. Howling winds, a colder snap and persistent rain really limited what we could do there – disappointing for Lois, especially as she had not been there before. Apart from driving around the city and seeing what we could from the vehicle, visits to the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum, the Washington Monument and a walk along the Mall were memorable parts of our very short and rain-soaked visit – oh, that and some vocal and zany 9/11 conspiracy theorists out on Pennsylvania Avenue ! See images below:
With that our ( rainy ) stay in DC was done and we drove on towards our final destination, Baltimore, just an hour away. Here we chanced upon an excellent US National Park ( Greeenbelt ) which provided us time and privacy to repack, clean out and generally prepare the van for shipping the next day. Fortunately the rains eased, making things a bit more pleasant just when we needed it. Ready now to hand it over to the shipping line !
Stay tuned next week where I’ll document the first part of the shipping process ( delivery to the port ) and outline our plans for the next 3-4 weeks while our rig is in transit to Germany ( spoiler alert – there’s a bit of a twist ! )
Till then……
Post Script: ( WordPress):
Most readers will recognize WordPress as the format we use for this blog. After 5 years of using it I have picked up the basics and can generally handle creating the weekly blog with little difficulty. At least that was the case until 2025 ! It seems, very suddenly, that the good folks at WordPress have decided to significantly restructure the backend ( where I build the content each week ) and as a result it’s a bit more of a struggle to pull it all together. Changed from the user friendly format I used to know. I share this only because regular readers will likely notice the weaker formatting, some lower resolution images, and fewer video in this blog. I’ll endeavor to study up in the weeks ahead to get back to doing what I was able to do before. My apologies in advance for the ( hopefully temporary ) deterioration in content quality. Open to any coaching tips from WordPress experts that may be reading !
Till next week…..
