After spending north of 1.5 years on the road in a tiny self-built travel camper, I’ve come to the conclusion that the Pacific Coast Highway is the most transformative highway in North America. I left my small town in Wisconsin with my 10-year collection of cameras, countless pieces of adventure gear, and a van most people wouldn’t survive a long weekend in. 

The newly purchased 2016 Ford Transit Connect (Micro Van) sat in my parents’ driveway like a dare. I had purchased it from Facebook marketplace and took a one-way flight to Florida to drive it home two months prior. This vehicle was going to do the perfect job, white paint, no windows in the back, plastered with stickers collected by the previous owners of ski hills and coffee shops around the west. It wasn’t the glamorous high-top build you see on social media, no cedar paneling, no standing room, no built-in shower, and just enough space for a mattress platform. I had plastic bins of camera gear and some ski poles wedged between duffels with a cooler of PB&J material in my passenger seat. 

I had around $20,000 to my name when I graduated college in Chicago with one goal: to get out and turn some of my photography dreams into reality. Fourteen thousand disappeared the moment I bought the van, leaving me with six thousand for fuel, food, repairs, and whatever uncertainty waited on the horizon. I told myself that if the money ran out before I felt accomplished, that would most likely be the end of the road.

I was terrified the morning I left. I wasn’t taking a gap year, and wasn’t necessarily on vacation. I was gambling the only savings I had on an idea: that immersion would sharpen my art more than any classroom ever could. I had grown up collecting pins of far off coastal locations, and it was time to see them with my own eyes. Alone, I hugged my family and pointed the van west.

All Roads Lead to the Pacific

I spent the first three months of my journey chasing winter storms across the Rocky Mountain Range, filming short-form ski edits and posting Youtube Shorts/ Instagram uploads regularly to keep gas in my tank. I was making just enough to justify not turning around.

Eventually, the snow melted into the desert. Red rock swallowed the horizon for the first time in my life, coming from “Cornlandia” (a term I have been using to describe my home in Wisconsin). The now peaceful desert softened, flattened, and finally gave way to something that felt mythic: the California Coast. 

I reached San Diego on a clear afternoon. The ocean looked impossibly wide, like it had been waiting for me, specifically coming from a few 100 degree nights in Phoenix, Arizona. I parked the van near the coast and slept my first night to the sound of waves rattling the thin metal walls.

The next morning, I began driving north on the famous Pacific Coast Highway. I had no idea this stretch of road would become the spine of my entire year, showing me no signs of returning home (as long as the tacos remained plentiful). The coastline was filled with endless surf, familiar faces, and stories of people who had found their way to the west just like me, and never returned. 

Santa Barbara (The Ghost of a Former Life)

When I rolled into Santa Barbara, it felt like stepping into an old photograph of myself. I had gone to school here at Santa Barbara City College, studying photography (really only partying and shooting photographs) for two years before finishing in Chicago. Back then, I was always rushing… classes, assignments, constantly having neighborhood homies at my spot. Although I was surfing most weeks and exploring with my roommate Avaish and a 1997 Grand Marquis (We dubbed “The Silver Surfer”), I was living beside this ocean without absorbing it.

This time was different.

I parked near the bluffs of the beaches I once knew… and watched the Channel Islands dissolve into distant haze. I walked slowly, shooting photos deliberately. Slept in the van within earshot of the tide. The town felt softer now. Spanish-style buildings glowed in golden hour light. The mountains behind the city seemed closer and more dramatic than ever, or maybe I was just paying attention for the first time…

Driving north out of Santa Barbara, the highway narrowed. Civilization thinned. The cliffs sharpened as the Pacific Coast Highway ran on. The landscape began its transformation.

Chuck

By the time I reached San Francisco, the Pacific Coast Highway had already rewritten me. Crossing the Golden Gate Bridge for the first time during this journey felt symbolic. The red towers rose out of fog like sentinels guarding the unknown north.

Everything below San Francisco had been breathtaking. Everything above it felt uncharted.

The light changed, the air had cooled, and the forests thickened. Fewer people, fewer cars, longer stretches of silence. I had never driven this far north on the coast before, it felt like entering a different country without ever having to cross a border. I found comfort with my longtime college friend from Santa Barbara, Chuck. His hospitality while showing me the underground locations of Marin County was so warm that I felt like I could’ve stayed here forever. It was indeed time to return to the Pacific Coast Highway once again.

Oregon

Crossing into Oregon, the coastline turned mythical. Massive sea stacks rose from the surf like ancient monuments. Bluffs dropped sharply into churning water. The green was deeper here, feeling electric against the gray sky. Unlike the not-so-far-away Southern California, these beaches were empty. I felt small in a way I’d never experienced before. This feeling was not insignificant, just a better awareness of my surroundings.

One afternoon, somewhere along this stretch of magic, I took the nastiest slam on my skateboard at a local skatepark. It was a rainy day in a fully concrete park, I was really just trying to move my body from being crammed in the van all day and night. I was reckless in that early-twenties way where consequence feels theoretical.

I fell hard, my elbow taking the impact. The pain was immediate and clarifying. At the hospital, they confirmed it was broken. I remember sitting in the van outside this small town Oregon hospital, arm in a sling, with a full coastal itinerary in front of me to move forward that I had built in a small notebook. Rationally, I should have turned around. Realistically, I found myself at another local dive pub for more fresh fish & chips.

The coastline ahead of me was only growing more beautiful by the mile, so I kept driving.

Not out of stubbornness nor ambition, but because I knew this window of my life wouldn’t be around for long. This was a strange freedom balanced on financial fragility, which would not be re-opening again. I called home in tears, but it felt like now or never. I had all my money wrapped into this van, and hadn’t reached my goal of Canada.

Washington, not D.C. 

By the time I entered Washington, the coastline felt extremely different. Forests pressed tight against the road, and driftwood covered entire beaches. The sky seemed lower, moodier, and cinematic in a darker way. Every pullout felt like a secret, and every hike felt like trespassing into a fairy tale. I felt rain tapping the roof of the van at night, and an overwhelming sense of alignment. I had never seen a coast like this, crossing between the islands of the Olympic peninsula shooting on my 200mm lens. The broken elbow healed slowly, and the van kept running. My sights were still set on driving further north. 

Looking back, what amazes me most wasn’t the distance of getting here, It was the grand scale of the entirety of the Pacific Coast Highway.

The smaller the van felt, the larger the world became. Because I couldn’t stand up inside it, I was spending more of my time outside. Because I didn’t have excess money, I noticed the value of each mile. Because I was alone, I had no buffer between myself and the landscape.

There was no luxury separating me from the experience. This was simply metal walls, a mattress, and a camera. People often assume adventure requires the perfect setup; the high-top van, the financial cushion, the certainty of return. This Pacific Coast Roadtrip proved the opposite. Adventure begins when you go anyway.

When you leave Wisconsin terrified, driving north on the Pacific Coast Highway with no guarantee. When you break your elbow and keep moving, or the van breaks down and you decide the story isn’t over. I thought I was documenting the coastline, but in reality… the coastline was shaping me. Somewhere between San Diego and Vancouver, in a sticker-covered white Transit Connect with no windows, I found not just epic scenery, but the quiet confidence that I could build a life on risk, resilience, and opportunity.