We went to Flagstaff to pick up the centerpiece of the whole fleet, our 2026 Kingdom Camping Caravan XL, and we came home with the rig and a lesson we didn’t expect to learn this early. Here’s how the first run went.

The Route

This trip had a twist baked into it: we weren’t hauling the Caravan out, we were going to get it. Jamin, the owner of Kingdom Camping, drove the Caravan all the way out from Indiana himself. The deal we struck was simple. He’d bring it as far as Flagstaff and run it as his exhibit for the weekend, and in exchange we’d take delivery there instead of trekking to Indiana for it. Good trade. It also meant the boys and I got to spend the show living in the thing and stockpiling questions for him.

Our drive was from Bakersfield, CA to Fort Tuthill County Park, just south of Flagstaff, AZ where Overland Expo West sets up shop every May. We left Bakersfield Friday around 1pm and rolled into Flagstaff just after 9, with one quick stop for food. Call it 482 miles and about seven and a half hours of actual seat time. Our route was east on CA-58 over Tehachapi to Barstow, then I-40 the rest of the way through Needles and Kingman. The drive was uneventful, which is exactly what you want on the way out. My designated “A” driver, Collin, slept through roughly half of it. Cam rode in back, trading off between a game on his phone and the window.

The thing to know about this corridor is the climb. You start down in the Mojave and finish at 7,000 feet in ponderosa pine. I-40 actually crests over 7,300 feet at the Arizona Divide just west of Flagstaff. Low desert to high country in one shot.

The way home is where it got interesting. The expo closed at 3pm on Sunday, though they held everyone onsite until 4 before turning us loose. Once it cleared out, Jamin sat down and worked through the last of my list of questions, and we finally rolled around 5 with the Caravan hooked up behind us for the very first time. We topped off the tank, ate a quick meal we packed, and put about 200 miles behind us before pulling off at Needle Mountain Road and disappearing onto BLM land for the night. (More on that spot in the next section.) Up around 7 the next morning and we ran the rest of the way home.

Conditions, in a word: Wind. Sunday and Monday both, the white-knuckle kind. And here’s what got me. I’ve towed a lot of trailers in my life, and this is hands-down the easiest one I’ve ever pulled. The wind that should’ve been shoving us all over the interstate barely registered behind the truck.

The one sore spot was diesel. Crossing back into California, stations right off the expressway were asking north of $8 a gallon. Welcome home.

The Campsite

Before the spot itself, I have to back up to our first night in the rig, which happened at the expo and not on the trail. Jamin had given me a brief, but thorough walkthrough of the Caravan’s systems the evening we got in, but I’ll be honest. I was so amped about finally standing inside the thing that I absorbed maybe half of it. So night one came with a learning curve, fumbling our way through getting everything online. It also came with us managing to lock ourselves inside the Caravan, stuck until Jamin came and let us out the next morning. For the record, that was down to how the entry steps are positioned, not anything about how the rig is built. The full, humbling version of the story is in the video.

The first real night out, though, was off Needle Mountain Road, and it was such an easily accessible boondocking spot (34.718839, -114.440291). Take the exit, go to the stop sign, hang a left, and you drive straight into BLM land. You genuinely cannot miss it. It’s all dirt and desert scrub, no four-wheel drive needed, which made it a dead-simple place to drop anchor after a long day. A few other rigs were scattered out there, but everyone was spread so far apart you’d never know it.

What made it special was the simple fact of it: our first night all alone completely off the grid, running on nothing but sunlight banked in the batteries. The wind was howling outside, and inside it was dead silent. The only sound all night was a faint banging from the cooktop’s range hood vent flapping in the gusts, and even that had an easy fix. I clicked it on low and let it run till morning. I kept turning to the boys to tell them how cool it was, all of it powered by the sun, no hookups, just us and the desert. They were considerably less impressed than I was. We woke up around 7, Monica’s breakfast casserole did its job, and we packed up.

What to know before you go: access is about as easy as overlanding gets. But the real story is what surrounds it. That whole area is laced with off-road trails, and we didn’t touch a single one. That turned into the biggest regret of the trip, and I’ll get into why in “Off the Trail”.

What Worked

Taking delivery at the expo instead of Indiana. The arrangement with Jamin was the smartest move of the whole trip. Instead of hauling out to Indiana to get the Caravan, we let him run it as his exhibit for the weekend and took delivery in Flagstaff. That alone saved us a brutal cross-country tow. But the real bonus was the vendor passes. We got to live in the rig for a couple of nights before ever hooking it to the truck, and we had Jamin right there to answer questions while we figured the thing out. If you ever have the option to take delivery somewhere you were already going, take it.

The Caravan tows like it isn’t even back there. I’ve pulled a lot of trailers over the years, and this is the easiest one I’ve ever had behind a truck. The fact that it stayed planted through two days of genuinely nasty crosswinds sold me completely. If the towing experience is this good in bad conditions, I’m not worried about the good days.

The electrical system did exactly what it promised. Our first night off the grid, running on 1,380 amp hours of lithium charged entirely by the sun, and power was never even a thought. No generator, no hookups, no rationing. Just a quiet, comfortable night in the desert. For anyone shopping off-grid rigs, that kind of capacity has the potential to change the logistics entirely.

Monica’s pre-made meals. Small thing, big payoff. Being able to reheat our food in the microwave and not worry about preparing meals made the experience much easier. I don’t say it will be like that in the future, but for this first trip while we were trying to get the hang of this, it sure was nice.

Picking a dead-simple spot for a tired crew. We rolled out of the expo late and drove into the dark, so the last thing we needed was a tricky approach. Needle Mountain Road was the opposite of tricky. No four-wheel drive, no hunting around, just a left at the stop sign and you’re there. When you’re worn out and it’s getting late, accessible beats scenic every time. However, the view was still pretty amazing.

What Didn’t

I only half-listened to the systems walkthrough. Jamin gave me a brief rundown of how everything on the Caravan works, and I was so excited to finally be standing in the thing that I absorbed maybe half of it. That turned the first night into more of a puzzle than it needed to be, fumbling to get systems online that he’d already explained to me just an hour earlier. Lesson learned: when someone hands you the manual in person, pay attention, or at least record it. Being stoked is not a substitute for listening.

The gray water tank level indicator isn’t reading. Not a dealbreaker, but worth noting for anyone tracking how our rig holds up out of the gate. The gray water level sensor isn’t working. Jamin acknowledged it right away and offered to send a replacement sensor if it doesn’t sort itself out, so it’s already on the path to fixed. I’ll report back once I know whether it was the sensor or something simpler.

What we filmed

There’s a video for this one, embedded at the top of the post. It opens with the saga of locking ourselves inside the Caravan on night one, then cuts to several quick RV walkthroughs at the expo. If you want the full, unedited, slightly embarrassing version of the lock-in, that’s where to find it.

Notes for next time

  • Explore before you exit. Build trail time into the plan and don’t point the truck home until you’ve actually used the place you drove all that way to reach.
  • Record the systems walkthrough. A phone video or a few notes. Excitement is not memory.
  • Keep make-ahead meals on the permanent packing list. Monica’s casserole earned its spot.
  • In high wind, flip the cooktop range hood vent on low to kill the banging. Known fix now.
  • Fill the diesel tank before crossing back into California. The border-adjacent stations are highway robbery.
  • Follow up with Jamin on the gray water sensor if it doesn’t self-correct.
  • Needle Mountain Road is a reliable, no-stress overnight worth keeping in the back pocket, and worth a real stop next time to actually ride the trails out there.

Off the Trail

Here’s the part that stuck with me and put a small knot in my stomach.

That BLM spot off Needle Mountain Road was surrounded by off-road trails, and I chose not to drive down a single one of them. On the drive back I mentioned to the boys that I screwed up, we had a real opportunity sitting right there and traded it for an earlier arrival in our own driveway. We had the rig. We had the time. We had nowhere we actually needed to be. And we left anyway.

The whole point of The Second Life is to stop treating the good stuff like something you’ll get to later. To be in the moment while the moment is still here. And on our very first outing to pick up the Caravan this entire project is built around, and I ended up treating the trip like a task to check off the list instead of something to actually experience. We rushed the one thing we’re trying not to rush.

Of course this didn’t hit the boys like it did me, that’s understandable. But I felt it. We know exactly what we’re after. The execution is the part that needs work, and the only way that gets better is to say it out loud and mean it. Next time, the trails get explored before the wheels ever point toward home.