An Anecdote From A Full Time Solo Traveler

On December 11, 2019, I set out toward the desert in my new (to me) campervan. I bought the van in October, following my 48 state, 3 month, solo journey. This journey changed me, and inspired me to keep going, traveling by road full time.

National Parks are safe and sacred places to me, and Joshua Tree is the park I know the best of the 33 I’ve visited in my young life. It’s only 3 hours from my hometown, so it made sense, in the beginnings of winter, to head there, instead of my van’s namesake, Sequoia.

I had to do a test run before I headed off on a plane to Southeast Asia for the rest of the winter, because upon returning home in mid-January, I’d be hitting the road for good almost immediately.

This was my first stay on BLM land. BLM land is free to camp on, and is run separately from Forest Land and Park Land by the Bureau of Land Management. Joshua Tree has BLM located at the south entrance, near the Cottonwood Springs visitor center (one of the only places with flush toilets in the park, for those of you who are planning a trip out there).

My experience on the BLM was amazing. There are tons of designated spots there, it’s free to camp, and you get a fire pit. There are no toilets, so I was more than thankful to have the toilet in my van. I didn’t have my propane for my van stove yet, so I broke out the old camp stove that traveled with me all over the country, and made lunch with a view of my California desert mountains in the distance. My first day consisted of yoga, filming a van tour for my YouTube channel, and, once the sun went down, catching up on all my friends’ videos I’d missed out on while I was working.

My view of the BLM land, facing the park

It was a chilly night, but with three blankets and my windows covered in reflectix, I was plenty warm, and woke up to the sun peeking out over the mountains and through a crack in the window covers.

The real adventure would start just a couple hours later. I made breakfast, I got dressed, I got everything all ready to go, and then… the van wouldn’t start. It wouldn’t even turn over. And the oil light was on. I was calm about it, I’d run into issues on the road over the summer (like locking my keys in the car), so I know that there wasn’t a universe where this didn’t work out. My first instinct is always to ask my neighbors. Only one family was awake, and they didn’t have oil, which was obviously the problem, so my next response was to call AAA.

The first lady I got on the phone was incredibly nice, made sure that all I needed was oil, and told me to hang tight until a dispatcher would call with an arrival time. It wasn’t until he called me that any of this became a problem. My whole day came crashing down with one sentence: “We don’t bring oil.”

I was frustrated at this point because the first person had made it sound like getting me oil wouldn’t be a problem. So, he told me he’d talk to his supervisor and call me back. When 20 minutes had gone by without a phone call, I hopped back on the phone with AAA, and did exactly what every millennial bone in my body didn’t want to do: asked to speak to a manager.

After about 20 minutes more of back and forth with her, explaining that I couldn’t pay for a tow (which is also, not actually complimentary), and that I was alone in the desert, she paused, and said, “let me see what I can do.” I was put on hold, and eventually, when she got back on the phone she asked what kind of oil I needed. By some miracle of the universe, her dispatcher in Indio had decided to make an exception for me, and would be bringing me oil as long as I could reimburse him.

Road through Joshua Tree, near the Yucca Valley entrance

Long story short, he showed up, and I was still able to make it into the park to hike Ryan Mountain. But the moral of the story is, carry extra everything if you have an older vehicle. I don’t know how I got so lucky to get on the phone with such nice people in the end, but it’s something my other overlanders out there should be aware of.

The first night was amazing, the next day could’ve been a disaster. But it wasn’t, because everything works out the way it’s meant to work out, and I was able to drive through the park still, and feel a little bit at home again.

For more about this little vanlife breakdown, I will be coming out with a video of the whole thing, plus a bit of a guide to Joshua Tree in a couple weeks on the Halle’s Wandering Soul YouTube channel. Make sure you subscribe and turn on notifications so you never miss a video!