The Open Road Generation
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Meet the athletes, adventurers, and entrepreneurs proving that it’s never been easier to pursue your passions while enjoying life on the road
The Adventurers
The Athletes
the change makers
The Adventurers
When your life is defined by outdoor adventures, it helps to be able to park your basecamp at the trailhead, beach, or river put-in. Here, adventurers of all stripes—from a biomechanical engineer turned BASE jumper to an enterprising surfer—show why life on the road is the only life for them.
The #VanLife Entrepreneur
cyrus sutton
The Athletes
The Adventurers
the change makers
Featured
For most of us, cruising up California’s iconic Highway 1, catching waves and having campfire jam sessions with friends along the way, while sleeping every night in your truck camper, would be considered a dream trip. For Cyrus Sutton, a semi-nomadic filmmaker and entrepreneur, it was just a typical week this past spring. You see, Sutton, a former pro surfer, is part of a growing generation of young professionals who have decided to take their show on the road, working, living, and playing from their van or RV. While a lot of folks are new to the lifestyle, Sutton has been living out of the back of his van off and on for the past 16 years and was one of the originators of the movement. (He helped develop the now ubiquitous #vanlife hashtag with fellow filmmaker Foster Huntington.) These days, he runs Manda, the organic, food-grade sunscreen company he founded, and manages the media content for Guayakí Yerba Mate, although he’s probably best known for his thoughtful films about surf culture. In what may be his most poignant film, Stoked and Broke, Sutton and a friend took a 10-day surf trip where they walked 50 miles through Southern California, carrying their boards on homemade rickshaws while examining gentrification in the beach towns.
learn about cyrus's tips for living on the road
The #VanLife Entrepreneur
cyrus sutton
The Olympian/
Advocate
gus Kenworthy
What do this Olympic skier, adaptive mountain athlete, and professional mountain biker have in common? They’re all redefining what it means to be an athlete in their respective sports.
The athletes
The King of Highlining
Mickey Wilson
One of the best things about the new wave of RVs, from camper vans to travel trailers and motorhomes of all sizes, is how accessible they make the outdoors—and that’s exactly what these change-makers are all striving toward, too.
The Change Makers
The Community Organizer
Tyrhee Moore
the Equalizer
claire smallwood
the Scientist
Gregg Treinish
The LGBTQ+ Leader
perry cohen
the Educator
José Gonzáles
the Climbers
brothers of climbing
For fly-fishing guide Maddie Brenneman and professional photographer Nick Kelley, nothing matches the freedom of a home on wheels. “My favorite spots to fish are spots where nobody else is around,” Brenneman says. “And the best way to reach those places is by road-tripping to a lesser-known stretch of water.”
The duo has road-tripped in everything from a small RV campervan in New Zealand to Nick’s pickup truck, sleeping in either the back of the truck or in tents. Their favorite rig? The uber capable and comfy Lance 1172 truck camper they tried out on a spring fishing mission in New Mexico a few years back. “We’ve gotten vehicles stuck before,” admits Brenneman. “The beauty of this setup was that, with four-wheel drive, we could go anywhere a truck would go.” Which made it the perfect vehicle for their southern New Mexico adventure. “The ability to shrink it down when you’re moving,” adds Kelley, “and then expand when you make it to base camp was really nice.”
For three serene days they settled into a familiar routine: fish, cook, hang out at the RV, fish again, repeat. “The benefit of having the truck camper was huge,” says Brenneman. “Since we didn’t have to come home and set up a campsite or start a fire every night, we were able to stay out and fish longer. It’s just easy living.”
more highlights from their new mexico road trip
The First Couple of Fly Fishing
Maddie Brenneman
& Nick Kelley
When pro freeskier Gus Kenworthy came out in 2015, it was a big deal: the Olympic silver medalist became the first openly gay action-sports star. He immediately started using his status to push for inclusivity in the world of professional sports—and hasn’t stopped since. “I wasn’t doing anyone any good by keeping it under wraps,” the 27-year-old says. “If I had had a skier to look up to who was killing it and was gay and proud, it would’ve given me so much more confidence.”
Most recently, Kenworthy has been working hard to educate the public about HIV awareness and safety, pledging to do the AIDS/LifeCycle, a seven-day, 545-mile road ride from San Francisco to Los Angeles, raising $1 million for HIV research in the process. “HIV doesn’t get enough attention,” Kenworthy says. “It’s not something that’s over now; we need to talk about it and be educated about it.”
other all-stars working to make the outdoors a more welcoming place
The Olympian/Advocate
gus kenworthy
Balanced on a thin strip of nylon anchored high above a remote canyon in the southern Rocky Mountains, professional slackliner Mickey Wilson is working on a new sequence of stunts. His fiancée and semi-pro slackliner, Purple, is there, along with Wilson’s father, Duffy, a former pro skier—all of them living out of a fully loaded Winnebago Paseo that lets them turn any camping spot into their living room.
Slacklining has taken Wilson around the world, but he can often be found rambling around out West, looking for cool spots to string a highline across a chasm. That’s where the Type B RV comes in. With it, he can set up close to the slackline site, with enough room for he and his crew to eat, sleep, and relax comfortably. “An RV means more time on the ’line,” Wilson says. “Instead of wasting half a day setting up camp and then undoing it all at the back end, we just throw in our gear and food and go.”
See Mickey's RV set up
The King of Highlining
Mickey Wilson
As a young man, Gregg Treinish pulled off some remarkable expeditions, including a 7,800-mile trek along the spine of the Andes, but they weren’t completely fulfilling. “I wanted to do more,” the 37-year-old says. “I started working as a field tech for wildlife scientists and realized that these researchers were limited in where they could go because they didn’t have the outdoor skills or resources that my friends and I had.” It was a lightbulb moment that led him to create Bozeman, Montana–based Adventure Scientists, a research project and nonprofit that turns trips into data-gathering expeditions for science.
Today, Adventure Scientists’ goal is to be the most efficient provider of hard-to-obtain environmental data. To that end, its staff and volunteers are working on a timber-tracking project with the U.S. Forest Service, a butterfly project with the University of Arizona, and a wildlife connectivity study that recruits cyclists and runners to record roadkill observations in an effort to reduce the number of animal-vehicle collisions.
other all-stars working to make the outdoors a more welcoming place
The Scientist
Gregg Treinish
City Kids, a Wyoming summer camp for urban youth, changed Tyrhee Moore’s life. It set him on an adventurous path that has included mountaineering expeditions all around the world. But most of his peers from the program never pursued the outdoors beyond camp. “I saw other kids grow out of it because there was no buy-in from their community back home,” he says.
That’s why last fall Moore, now 26, founded Soul Trak, which engages Washington, D.C.’s African American community through “brunch and adventure” outings. “People are naturally willing to try new things if their family and friends are into it, too,” he says. Moore is parlaying the early success of Soul Trak’s adult programming into versions for D.C.’s universities. “College is when you start making your own decisions. I want to give these young adults the opportunity to choose the outdoors, and make sure there’s a community to support that decision.”
other all-stars working to make the outdoors a more welcoming place
The Community Organizer
Tyrhee Moore
Claire Smallwood speaks four languages and is an accomplished private chef and ripping skier. But for the past few years she’s been laser-focused on a single goal: to get more women and girls outdoors. This led her to found the nonprofit SheJumps with pro skier Lynsey Dyer and writer Vanessa Pierce. Since its inception in 2012, SheJumps has become a prominent force in making the outdoors more inclusive. “We want to serve everyone,” says Smallwood, “from people that already have the experience in the outdoors to people who are resource-challenged.”
SheJumps now has events in 19 states, such as the new Forces of Nature Program, which took 24 immigrant and refugee girls on a series of outdoor outings in 2018. And Smallwood hopes to replicate the program by partnering with community organizations already doing work with underserved populations. “We want to provide a layer of outdoor education that the organization might not be able to provide otherwise,” says Smallwood.
other all-stars working to make the outdoors a more welcoming place
The Equalizer
claire smallwood
In 2014, Perry Cohen had a job he didn’t like and was in the process of coming out as trans. Things were tough. So he went hiking. “I climbed this bald summit in New Hampshire that had awesome granite slabs,” Cohen says. “It was a stressful scramble without handholds, so I had to trust my feet, and I had this epiphany: this body—that I felt so alienated from my whole life—was getting me to the top of the mountain. For once, I trusted my body. It was wonderful.”
Cohen hiked down the mountain, quit his job, and immediately founded Venture Out Project, a nonprofit that leads day hikes and backpacking trips for the queer and trans community. The once local project is now a nationwide effort, with hikes in almost two dozen cities, guided by 24 volunteers. “There are so many queer and trans people that want this experience,” Cohen says. “And the outdoors is a wonderful place for this community because there are no mirrors, no gendered bathrooms, everyone’s wearing a T-shirt and shorts … All these ways we typically gender ourselves in our society just aren’t present.”
other all-stars working to make the outdoors a more welcoming place
The LGBTQ+ Leader
Perry Cohen
Palmer Morse
José González’s mission started with a single question: Where are the other people like me? In searching for an answer, González founded Latino Outdoors, an organization that helps Latino communities engage in outdoor pursuits in culturally relevant ways.
“I want to expand and move beyond our culture being subjects of programming,” González says. “There’s no shortage of programs getting youth of color outdoors. What’s missing is ways in which parents can be involved in the experience as well. What’s missing is the cultural connection between the outdoors and the Latino community.” That’s where Latino Outdoors comes in. Last year, the nonprofit organized more than 100 events across the country, helping thousands of kids and parents enjoy and connect with the outdoors.
learn how an rv helped josé connect to nature
The Educator
José González
Mikhail Martin and his buddies have scaled boulders and crags all over the eastern and southern United States. But they’d never climbed anything like the otherworldly boulders at New Mexico’s City of Rocks State Park. The ancient volcanic rocks appear out of nowhere on the high-desert plain in the southwestern part of the state, around 65 miles north of the Mexico border.
For Martin, 28, and his cohorts David Glace, Pieter Cooper, and Marc Balilo, founders of the Brooklyn-based climbing group Brothers of Climbing (BOC), the trip offered the perfect opportunity for them to try something new. To get there, the crew picked up a 40-foot RV in Albuquerque and headed south. Four hours later, they reached the remote park. “We pulled into a secluded campsite and just unwound,” Martin says. “Other campers there were a little surprised to see us out there, a bunch of guys from New York City, but there was something about our RV—people were friendly and neighborly.” Experiences like this are what BOC is all about.
read about BOC's rv road trip around new mexico
The Climbers
brothers of climbing
The First Couple of Fly Fishing
Maddie Brenneman
& nick kelley
Shah Selbe
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other all-stars working to make the outdoors a more welcoming place
other all-stars working to make the outdoors a more welcoming place
other all-stars working to make the outdoors a more welcoming place
The Artist/Activist
Brooklyn Bell
Brooklyn Bell, an artist, social-justice activist, and mountain-bike racer from Bellingham, Washington, has always sought solace in her artwork and the outdoors. As a kid, she’d draw characters and assign personalities to them, a habit she kept up as she grew older and began mountain biking and skiing. “I’d draw these characters and I realized that there were no archetypes that looked like me,” says Bell. So she created her own hero, Ruby J., who has a septum piercing and cool goggles and a slouchy hat. “Ruby J. is basically the ski role model that I always wished I had as a kid.” Today she hopes Ruby J. and the rest of her artwork will inspire young women of color to pursue gravity sports.
Bell’s artwork is just one of the ways she’s working for more representation of people of color in the outdoors. She’s been featured in ads, profiled in videos, and written up in the pages of mountain-bike magazines. She speaks at events and is an outspoken ambassador for a handful of outdoor brands. All of which is to say that Bell spends a lot of time on the road. So when she and a friend decided to drive south to the flowy trails around Hood River, Oregon, this spring, she knew the creature comforts of an RV would make the trip that much better.
More About Brooklyn’s Art, Activism, and Adventures
The Artist/Activist
Brooklyn Bell
Featured
The Olympian/Advocate
gus Kenworthy
The King of Highlining
Mickey Wilson
Brooklyn Bell, an artist, social-justice activist, and mountain-bike racer from Bellingham, Washington, has always sought solace in her artwork and the outdoors. As a kid, she’d draw characters and assign personalities to them, a habit she kept up as she grew older and began mountain biking and skiing. “I’d draw these characters and I realized that there were no archetypes that looked like me,” says Bell. So she created her own hero, Ruby J., who has a septum piercing and cool goggles and a slouchy hat. “Ruby J. is basically the ski role model that I always wished I had as a kid.” Today she hopes Ruby J. and the rest of her artwork will inspire young women of color to pursue gravity sports.
Bell’s artwork is just one of the ways she’s working for more representation of people of color in the outdoors. She’s been featured in ads, profiled in videos, and written up in the pages of mountain-bike magazines. She speaks at events and is an outspoken ambassador for a handful of outdoor brands. All of which is to say that Bell spends a lot of time on the road. So when she and a friend decided to drive south to the flowy trails around Hood River, Oregon, this spring, she knew the creature comforts of an RV would make the trip that much better.
More About Brooklyn’s Art, Activism, and Adventures
The Artist/Activist
Brooklyn Bell
The Olympian/Advocate
brooklyn bell
Featured
The Nomad
Linda Littlewing
Featured
What do BASE jumping, RV life, and neuroscience have in common? In most instances, absolutely nothing. But in the case of Linda Littlewing, as the RV-driving, sky-diving PhD neuroscientist is known on Instagram, they’re the fundamental elements of everyday life. While her personal and professional passions may seem incompatibitable to most, Linda is living proof that, with the right mindset, you can live exactly as you’d like. For the past four years, she’s lived a semi-nomadic existence in her 24-foot Winnebago RV, skydiving, BASE jumping, rock climbing, and generally enjoying the outdoors—all while holding down a career that puts her PhD to work.
MORE TIPS AND INSPIRATION FROM LINDA HERE
The Nomad
Linda Littlewing
The Nomad
Linda Littlewing
Featured
What do BASE jumping, RV life, and neuroscience have in common? In most instances, absolutely nothing. But in the case of Linda Littlewing, as the RV-driving, sky-diving PhD neuroscientist is known on Instagram, they’re the fundamental elements of everyday life. While her personal and professional passions may seem incompatibitable to most, Linda is living proof that, with the right mindset, you can live exactly as you’d like. For the past four years, she’s lived a semi-nomadic existence in her 24-foot Winnebago RV, skydiving, BASE jumping, rock climbing, and generally enjoying the outdoors—all while holding down a career that puts her PhD to work.
MORE TIPS AND INSPIRATION FROM LINDA HERE
The Nomad
linda littlewing