5 Weeks Solo Travel in a Jeep | USA

USA in a Jeep
6500 miles / 10,000 km in 5 Weeks? Yep!

Life on the road is not always as easy and fun as it sounds. But it can definitely be worth the sacrifices! You see amazing places and meet great people. Lena Oberhofer, our Visual Storyteller in Residence, recently hit the road with a jeep full of f-stop gear and just a few weeks to travel the USA. On her trip, she visited 18 different states and covered about 10,000 km or 6,000 miles by car! Her main agenda: meet as many of our community as possible with the time and distance given, present f-stop products and connect in person! A few of the challenges she encountered along the way were: limited time, two flat tires (yes two!) , temperature extremes (from desert heat to high elevation chill to damp and cold Pacific Northwest Weather). She also had to cover the basics like packing food and staying warm (or cool), sleeping safely.

Sleeping under the stars, making friends with a Steinbock big horn sheep, getting bitten by a scorpion (not recommended), and meeting as many of our Ambassadors along the way as possiple are some experiences from her USA trip! With every single challenge there were plenty of rewarding adventures following. One of the upsides of long distance driving almost every day is - you get to see a lot!

"I knew my agenda was quite a ambitious task. With one jeep, the car packed with f-stop gear and about 5 weeks time I traveled about 6500 miles which is about 10 000 km.You start to realize it is massive! “ - Lena Oberhofer

Organization 

• If your hands have to be on the wheel while driving you can not do much else on the side Effectivity in terms of combining various tasks was key. Keeping the schedule or short notice change of plans was the standard day to day struggle. As your working with serious visual storytellers they get to be called out to impressive projects frequently. Meaning - You have to move fast to catch them at home!! After only a few days she adapted to the new scedule. She drove until an empty tank (means about 5 hours!), fuelled up, got food and did some research and connects during this time etc. This gave her the possibility to move very fast even without a second driver. You have to get creative to accomplish your tasks! 
  
• Roadtrip / Traveling alone 
  Not one, but two flat tires, and one was a blow out on the highway. The upside: The community of f-stop is spreaded all around the world and with friends and Ambassadors throughout the USA too you'll never be completely by yourself. "There is always someone you can ask or who offers you to help!" One of the first stops in Denver she got help from an Ambassador changing the flat. With the second blow out she got help from a local store even for free. When she was struggling to find a place to sleep - a quick camping trailer was set up at David Cliffords place. High up in Lake Tahoe she got a cosy meditation tent at Pablo Durana's place to spend a night.
  
• Finding and making the time to create 
  As a creative herself she had a lot of "itchy fingers" while driving. Creating ( photo or video) while beeing mostly in the car is quite challenging - you pass through incredible places but you might not have the time to stop. No doubt there is definitely stunning options for Landscape as well but finding the right timing, light and spot if your moving fast is quite a tricky thing to achieve. It requires planning! If the photo mood and place and time was right she then had to sacrifice something else. Sometimes even sleep or a dinner - but all was definitely worth it! When meeting our ambassadors she tried to adapt to their sceduled as best as she could. It is quite different if you follow a professional filmmaker around in the field for a week or if you meet them at home. Next to connecting in person and while meeting our ambassadors she also worked on Behind the Scenes stories, talked about f-stop gear and much more. 
  
• Safety and adapting plans
  Sometimes she was wondering "why does a motel have 4 looks on the room door?!" Making room in the car to sleep or finding a motel to feel save in. She ended up camping out whenever possible. You get to sleep under the milky way instead of an eventually shabby but very expensive Hotel/Motel. "Tired from driving but under an incredible sky in the Salt flats close to Salt Lake city you need to figure out what is more important - food, sleep or just taking time to play around with the camera - solution was eating while starting a time lapse. After a while I was suddenly wide awake again just in awe for the Milky way and the place I am at." she gladly sacrificed some sleep. In the end if you truly enjoy what you’re doing you can push through boundaries and sometimes just get rest afterwards. The next morning in the Slat flats she took it slow then and did "just" did some remote work in the middle of the Salt flats. 

What she might tell you and thats why we got her in our team as well - As a result when pushing boundaries you start to get even more creative in adapting to almost any situation.


The Route

Lena’s Trip started off in St. Louis. She packed her jeep full with f-stop gear and essentials like a sleeping mattress, blanket, water, icebox, and clothes. Her first drive took more than 10 hours as she made her way across Missouri and Kansas on the most direct route to Denver, Colorado. Shortly after arriving in Colorado, she experienced her first flat tire. 

Lena first meet up with Ambassador Josh Berman, and just as she arrived to meet another f-stop Ambassador, Alex Hansen who noticed the back right tire was flat. It took Alex and Lena about an hour to change the tire.
She got the broken tire patched up soon after and at the end of the trip it happened again. Another more serious flat. The second tire mishap was a blow out on the highway. Lena made an emergency over night stop to wait till the repair shop opened. She was helped by the store who even changed the tire free of charge since they used the old one on the back of the Jeep.

From Denver, she moved on to Carbondale, Colorado where she spent time with f-stop Ambassador David Clifford. From there, Lena travelled on to Salt Lake City to meet f-stop Ambassadors Jon Glassberg, Tim Kemple, and Jacob Moon and Scott Markewitz. 

On the way to San Francisco she met f-stop Ambassador Pablo Durana on the way in Lake Tahoe. Read another story about Pablo's take on gardening. Few days forward in San Francisco she met with Ambassadors and friends Anthony Lapomardo and later on Henry CK. Afterwards down the coast towards Los Angeles. In just 1 1/2 weeks she saw quite some change in landscape from midwestern praire, the Rocky Mountains, Norther California forests, the unforgettable scenes in San Francisco, to the Southern California desert and LA!

Each day of her tour was packed. For example in LA she assisted f-stop ICON Andrei Duman on a X-Ray project, hung out with Ambassador and friend of f-stop Jonny Zeller, and she attended an exhibition opening with Ambassador Jussi Grznar. In between these meetings, Lena found time to meet f-stop User and friend of Ambassador Alex Kavanargh, Mike Lindle for some FPV drone action. After that mad dash through meetings and events, Lena drove south to San Diego to meet Ambassador Will Saunders. And, because she just hadn't enough from driving, she circled back through Salt Lake City. Her tour through the Rocky Mountains wasn't done, yet. From there she went to see Ambassador Greg von Doersten on the way to Jackson, Wyoming to visit another ambassador - Renan Ozturk. 

Wrapping up her trip and time running out, Lena drove to Houston, Texas to meet Scott Niedermaier, our B2B Sales representative. Lena and Scott reconnected a few days later again in Athens, Georgia for a photography education trade show. Together with Scott she met Chris Greer, another Ambassador. Since her time was getting short, she stayed in the southeast and drove to North Carolina for a lunch with Ambassador Charles Glatzer. Slowly now making her way back to St. Louis she went from Huntsville, Alabama to see Ambassador Dan Darnall and made her last stop in in Tennessee to see Dusty Doodridge.

The highlights were meeting f-stop ambassadors, camping out in nature, and on the side as well some quit interesting animal encounters. Back in St. Louis she unpacked and cleaned out her trusted Jeep and getting packed up again starting the next Journey a Van tour through Europe 

Why would one do that you may ask ? Well on one side she is quite the adventurer and creator herself - also she had the car full of gear so the f-stop Ambassador team had the chance to view and try different products in real life. These one-on-one in person meetings are also very valuable. She gathered direct product feedback, answered questions, updated ambassadors on future initiatives and brainstormed ideas and if time allowed it create visuals. Quite impossible to cover that much in a 20 minute online meeting.

The Gear

Smart packing is essential. You need to be fast, know where your belongings are and be able to repack fast. Lena ended up using the Tilopa DuraDiamond® 50 L in Cypress green everyday during her journey and it became her day to day pack. 

Due to its flexibility and size she could use it to carry all her expensive technical gear and some clothes whenever she had to leave the car behind. She kept everything she needed in her pack. She could use the carry handle to move the pack in and out of the car easily, access her camera quickly through the back panel so she could grab her camera, get the shot, and put it back in the pack even without unbuckling the pack. (Yes - the pack used a seatbelt for the whole trip.) 

When wanting to be a bit more flexible and blending in in a city she used the Ajna DuraDiamond® 37 L in anthracite for a less day to day equipment.

Additionaly she used the Camera insert Slope Medium Camera Insert and Accessory pouches for cable organisation or as a charging station and Harddrive case and the Packing Cell Kit to keep her clothes together. Fun Fact: She also used the Dustbag in which our packs are shipped as a laundry bag - something she highly recommends.

Recap from Lena - The biggest differences traveling the USA vs Europe 

According to Lena, for a European, actually driving through the USA, it is very different than looking at maps - even more so if you have never visited the US before.  

1. Distances: Number one difference is probably the crazy long drives. As Scott Niedermaier said, "Driving through Texas is kind of like crossing the EU." I started to get very comfortable with long distances. I listened to audiobooks and just enjoyed the ride. Big advantage is that the roads are usually very straight so it requires less energy when driving then it does in Europe with it's patchwork of curvy roads.
2. Wildlife: Be carefull of where you sit, walk and set up camp. We don't ave that many animals that could give you some hard time in Europe! Even if its hot you want to be aware of aligators in Texas, rattlesnakes or scorpions in the desert or bears in Colorado, Lake Tahoe or Alabama. Make yourself familar and get local advice like no food in the car when camping in a bear zone. Don't put your fingers in holes where you don't know whats in there, whatch your steps, and learn to be aware of your surroundings. 
3. Climate: Traveling through snow, desert, prairie, and to jungle heat (yes - seriously - it's very humid in the south!). I had it all. If you plan a route like this, take a lot of layers and active wear. Breathable socks are a must have if you don't want to run around with stinky feet and organization is key. Repacking was an almost daily task. You have a lot of different weather zones in Europe as well, but in the US, there can be extreme changes driving a 10 hour drive.
4. Overnight stays: I tried to avoid motels and hotels. I preferred to sleep outside or in the car. Some motels made me feel like I was in a CSI episode, and I did not always feel safe. Why would a hotel room door need 4 locks for example? And when you turn on the shower in some of the more remote motels, you never knew if you'd see red water coming out. I really liked waking up in the most incredible spots. Compared to Europe, whrere you can not usually sleep anywhere you want, because the location is private or wild camping is forbidden. The USA is quite different. With government owned land all over the USA, finding beautiful places to camp is a lot easier.
5. Nature: WELL - as I mentioned, you have kind of everything, so it's a big playground for photographers! It's quite different to Europe where you don't usually have huge and wide landscapes without any human in sight!"

Never underestimate Nature
Two close up meetings with Nature

A little adventure anecdotes from the Valley of Fire (a state park in Nevada, near Las Vegas) really stuck in my mind - one was wonderful, and the other - well , lets say interesting: 

Arriving a little after Sunset in the Valley I was frustrated to not get the perfect light and wanted to at least use the time to get a timelapse. After setting up camp and already starting the timelapse I was very much aware of scorpions in the desert so I looked for a good spot beforehand where I could actually sit and found one - so I thought. After I'd been sitting for about 2 hours waiting for my timelapse to finish, a scorpion found me. It took me a while to realize what happened...Just a little pain in the beginning that grew stronger and stronger till I finally got up and thought I better check. After I got stung my first concern was about what would happen to my timelapse. With slow fear creeping up I even forgot to take a photo of the scorpion, but it was small and black.

Allergic to bees, and not knowing how dangerous the little scorpion was I was definetly a bit unsettle. As luck would have it, I had no cell phone reception except in one little specific spot where I chatted with a nice lady on 911. They even started to send someone. Meanwhile a couple in a camper arrived (it was almost midnight), and it turned out both are emergency room nurses who gave me some good advice and calmed me down.

I did learn the exciting way that all scorpions are indeed venomous, BUT their venom varies greatly in potency. Mine was indeed hurtfull but it would have already turned out worse. Lesson learned. Hesitant to sleep outside or put up a tent - even though it was 40° C at night I slept in the jeep with the windows open. 

The next morning I woke up hearing some soft tip taps very close to the car. When I opened my eyes a Big Horn sheep stared right at me about 1 meter away. 

After a while since I had to get moving to make my next meeting I got confident to leave the car, washed my hair at a nearby waterspout. Big horn peaking carefully around the car hearing the water running. I ended up staying the whole morning, refilling a plastic bowl I found over and over until my new found friend was satisfied and left. Like in a movie he gave me one last turn over his shoulder, like saying good bye and off he went. Only the soundtrack of the movie was missing