Van Life in Leavenworth, WA. Icelandic Van Adventure. & Don't Miss It.

ISSUE 45  |  August 10, 2026

Hello, STORYTELLERS! Welcome to the 45th issue of Galactic Adventures: our community-focused, community-informed newsletter. This issue's featured photo comes to us from MODE Owner, Robert D Simon.

If you would like to see your photo or story featured in Galactic Adventures, please send an email to emma.w@storytelleroverland.com 

Van Life in Leavenworth, Washington

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Trasa Castillo, MODE Owner

One weekend several years ago, we camped with some close friends, and by the end of the weekend, we decided it was long past time that we had an RV. Albert is the most thorough internet researcher you will ever meet, a true research wizard! Eventually (roughly two years) his internet wizardry led us to our “Ghost."


In March of 2024, we flew from our home in Kansas, to Thousand Oaks, California to purchase our 2023 Classic MODE. The very first night spent in the van we knew that we had enriched our lives beyond measure with this incredible investment. The past two years have proven that time and again.

Any time our STO was in storage we found ourselves missing it and the lifestyle it provides so we decided to take the full-time plunge. We’re currently in our second month of full-time van-life and absolutely loving it. Albert’s work now has a homebase of Washington state (perfect for van life!), rather than Kansas.


For our first Fourth of July celebration in “Ghost,” we wanted to find some place fun and quirky with small town mountain vibes to explore. With very little forethought or planning, we headed to Leavenworth, WA. One of the many things we love about our STO is that it allows for spontaneous travel. I used my subpar research skills during our few travel hours to find camp options.


We landed at Eightmile Campground in the Okanogan-Wenatchee National Forest. This is a lovely, secluded Forest Service campground eight miles west of Leavenworth on Icicle Road. The sites were not too close and had plenty of trees for privacy. We enjoy the Forest Service campgrounds when dispersed spots don’t work out. Many of them are reservable online although you must book out far in advance. However, it’s been our experience that if you go in person in the mornings, you can almost always snag one of the last available spots for that evening or the next.

The town of Leavenworth is snuggled into the Cascades of central Washington. In the 1960s Leavenworth was getting dangerously close to “ghost-town” status. Community leaders, inspired by their surroundings, decided to transform the town into a Bavarian style mountain village. It has been thriving ever since. Leavenworth offers something for everyone. Outdoor enthusiasts can float the river, bike, and hike in the warmer months. The winter months offer snow tubing, snow shoeing, and Nordic skiing for folks who crave being outdoors.
 

For those who prefer to explore more indoors every street is lined with shops, restaurants, pubs, and museums. Entertain the kids with the swimming pool, miniature golf course, mountain coaster, and community theater and music events. Everyone will appreciate the charm of the architecture set against the perfect Cascade mountain backdrop and the warmth of the community.

Albert and I had a wonderful time taste testing our way through German restaurants, playing miniature golf, shopping, hiking, and taking in the breathtaking views. We paid to park in one of the many paid lots close to downtown. When we felt we needed a break from the crowds we just walked back to the van, enjoyed short naps and then headed back out to the fun. This is my absolute FAVORITE feature of our STO. This was the perfect place to celebrate our nation’s 250th birthday! If you plan a trip, expect crowds and lines but also expect to be awed and fall in love with Leavenworth.
 

Follow along with Trasa & Albert’s Castle Van Adventures on Youtube, Instagram and Facebook. 

Icelandic Van Adventure

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Dolly Samson & Gordy Hyde, MODE Owners

We don’t need to hype the advantage of van camping in North America to this audience. Our two recent trips are testimony that van camping is THE BEST way to experience Iceland. We visited Iceland for one week in June, 2025 and found that wasn’t long enough to take in the wonders of this island. This year we returned for the last week of May and the first week of June. The timing of both trips meant no Northern lights, but nearly 22 hours of daylight and a couple hours of dusk.
 

We rented a Renault diesel van for about $300/night on both trips. The diesel economy (~40 mpg) was appreciated with fuel prices about $10/gallon everywhere in the country. Though the campers were relatively new, think 1970’s VW Westies as far as creature comforts. No pop-up roof meant cooking was done sitting down. There were two backpacking-type propane burners for cooking, a battery powered refrigerator (think Iceco or Dometic), and a 5-gallon tank that provided water to the small sink via an electric pump. Most importantly, even in June, the diesel furnace, similar to our Rixens, provided plenty of heat to keep us warm. Larger, perhaps more comfortable campers are available to rent, but we found the little Renaults adequate. Some companies even rent 4WD campers that allow people to get further inland and on roads designated with an “F”, for a more primitive backcountry experience.

A primary advantage of visiting Iceland in a van camper is the flexibility provided by bringing your bedroom and kitchen with you. The country has laws prohibiting boondocking, but there are literally hundreds of campgrounds sprinkled around this small island, and we never made reservations. Some of the larger towns have municipal campgrounds, some near a community pool/spa which can be enjoyed for a nominal fee. Many of the island farmers have improved campsites, some with electrical hookups, all with heated restrooms/showers. Some of these
campgrounds have kitchen facilities and we even stayed in a couple that had improved geothermal pools. Typical camping fees are less than $20/person.

We discovered that the rental company we used (Happycampers.is) provided a “food bank” of supplies left from previous campers. We found staples like rice, sugar, coffee, even unspoiled fresh food like potatoes on their shelves. This formed a basis for menu-planning during our stay. Likewise, we contributed to the “food bank” our useable leftovers upon returning our campers at the end of our trips.
 

While we found a majority of Icelanders speak English, the items on the grocery store shelves are typically labeled only in Icelandic. This makes for “interesting” food shopping! We found the translatorgo app on our iPhones VERY useful (though not always perfectly accurate!) Coupled with the challenge of shopping in a different language came a difference in diet. Icelanders eat a lot of fish, lamb, and dairy products which is fine with us, but good, fresh fruits and vegetables are harder to come by and comparatively quite expensive.
 

Speaking of language difficulty, one thing we learned is…don’t try to pronounce Icelandic words or placenames. Many of their words are multisyllabic which is challenging in itself. Our guidebook gave us some clues to translation like foss means waterfall, vik means town, and fjord means fjord. But how to pronounce the settlement of Kirkjubaejarklaustur? (The locals just call it Klauster!) One town where we stayed appears on the map as Höfn which we pronounced “Hoefin” and later discovered the true pronunciation sounds like an inhaled Hiccup!!

Some takeaways from our three weeks in this gorgeous country…
- Everything in Iceland is expensive…count on paying at least twice as much as we pay in the US for everything.
- Parking at most of the developed natural attractions is by fee. There is an app “PARKA” which makes it easier. The downside? In one place we drove into, we could not find a space and got charged anyway.
- Arguably there are more sheep in Iceland than people. Sheep ALWAYS have the right-of-way!
- Blue Lagoon and other upscale spas are expensive. We splurged on a newer, lesser known one for $100/person and had a very nice experience.
- Spend a day (or two) around Reykjavik. There is a lot to see and do there. About 70% of Iceland’s population (~400k) live in the capital city and surrounding communities.
- If you live on the East Coast…if you are going for more than three weeks, or considering additional travel in Europe, investigate shipping your STO rather than renting…You know your van, what you have, and where you put things. That offsets some of difficulties of a rental.

 

The number of natural features and “can’t miss” attractions are too numerous to mention, so the pictures will give you an idea of some of the features we have seen on our trips.

Don't Miss It

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Jeffrey Hunter, Storyteller Founder & Chairman & MODE Owner

Greetings, fellow Storytellers throughout the galaxy!

Have you ever seen the movie Ferris Bueller's Day Off? If not, I highly recommend it. It's a timeless classic. Never gets old.

Eleven-year-old me fell in love with that movie the first time I ever saw it in the theater back in 1986. There was something captivating (and a little punk rock) about watching those characters exercise their free will (intentionally or reluctantly) and step outside of what everyone expected of them on that particular day just to experience life on their own terms.

That movie probably deserves at least partial credit for the fact that I've spent the last forty years of my life living in some polite form of open rebellion. But I digress...

Every time Matthew Broderick's character, Ferris, broke the “4th wall” and looked straight into the camera with all of his main character energy and wit, I felt like he was looking at me and speaking directly to my soul. Especially when he said:

"Life moves pretty fast. If you don't stop to look around once in a while, you could miss it."

Even then, I knew I didn't want to miss it.

As many of you already know, my name is Jeffrey Hunter, and among many other things in this life, I've had the incredible privilege of founding this infinitely rad, wonderfully weird, adventure-ready lifestyle brand we all now know and love as Storyteller Overland.
Over the past seven or eight years, our team has dreamed up and built what has become the fastest-growing, most all-encompassing, and definitely the vibiest overland vehicle community on the freakin' planet.

Together we've helped thousands of people choose to live more adventurous lives on their own terms out on the open road and beyond. And their individual stories of life-change, connection, and fulfillment are the substance that have fueled this movement since day one.

In every way, on every level, it has been and remains an incredible honor.

But somewhere along the way, I became so consumed with building and scaling the “is-ness of this business” that I slowly drifted away from the very things that inspired me to want to create all of this in the first place.

Despite the apparent photo ops and consistent public appearances to the contrary, I wasn't really living free. I wasn't exploring endlessly. I wasn't telling better stories.
If anything, I was living smaller. More isolated. Less present with my family. Less effective for my team. Less friendly to my friends. And constantly deferring my own sense of adventure for some undefined point in the future.

I convinced myself I was simply playing to expectations and doing what was needed.
The truth is, I had stopped looking around.

And I WAS missing it.

But then a little over a 1 ½ ago, something broke through to let me know I had basically become a one dimensional character playing a walk-on role using someone else’s script. And regardless of how it came across on camera, ultimately I was playing to the wrong audience. 

In December of 2024 while on a quick, and all too rare, off-season getaway up to Cape Cod with Lisa, my wife and love of my life, we found ourselves enjoying a brand new kind of moment together… one with no obsessive 24/7 always on connectivity, no priority stacked urgent email checking, no “hold on a second while I text this person back real quick and check on…”, etc.. etc.. etc... And as we looked out over the waves over a new horizon that neither one of us had ever seen before, Lisa leaned over and asked me a simple but life-changing question: 

“Do you think this is what it might be like for us someday if we were ever able to live more like Storyteller customers than Storyteller owners?”

In an instant the “4th Wall” crashed down, and I knew exactly what she meant. She knew that for years I had obsessed over every single detail of the growth and health and experiences of our Storyteller van fam and community… but throughout that time was very rarely, let alone fully present in the moment with her and our own family.

To make a long story short… that conversation with Lisa on the Cape set in motion a series of events and decisions that ultimately led to me handing over the CEO keys to my dear friend and business partner, Neil Grimmer (big round of applause for that soulful dude) back in April of this year, and trusting the day to day disciplines of Storyteller to the greatest and most infinitely capable (and awesome) team ever assembled anywhere, at any time, for any cause. 

Obviously we haven’t peaced out of Storyteller in any way, and we’re still long term obsessed owners who are deeply committed to supporting Neil, Lee Conn and the team to ensure that Storyteller vibes stay high, the brand stays true, and ultimately the community goes global as the most trusted adventure-ready lifestyle movement for all generations of adventure seekers out there! 

But with full confidence that STO & Co is in the exact right hands and day after day is already getting even better than it’s ever been… now Lisa and I are turning at least part of our attention to the kind of outward journey and the inward expedition our own souls have been craving for the past several years. 

Believe it or not, so much of this way of life is all brand new to us. But the good news for Lisa and me is that for years now we’ve had the benefit of following and connecting with you all across all of our Storyteller community groups and apps and social media platforms and have taken meticulous notes from all of your MODElifer tips, tricks, suggestions, and points of inspiration… and now we get to go put them into practice for ourselves. 

So with all of that said, here are a few pics from our most recent inaugural lap around parts of this beautiful country of ours in our own MODE. Hopefully you’ll recognize some of the friendly faces that we were able to connect with along the way.

While we’re back home in Alabama for now… the call of the wild is real. I have absolutely no idea where / when we'll be headed out next. (At the moment I’m trying to talk Lisa into fully connecting the TransAmerica Trail from East to West in a Grand Bohemian.) But who knows…? Curiosity is high, and possibilities are endless, and that's exactly what makes this life so exhilarating.

Like Ferris said on his own epic day off… “The question isn’t what are we going to do. The question is what aren’t we going to do?!” :)

Buuuuuut anyway… I love you all and I’m infinitely grateful for this beautiful Storytellers community of exceptionally rad and kind humans. S0 stay true and keep on keeping on until everything is everything! And Lord willing, we'll see you out on the trail soon.

Until then… whatever you do, don't “miss it."
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Service your Storyteller van or GXV truck at STO Fest - for Free!

Our Service Team will be on-site at STO Fest, running 30-minute diagnostic and tune-up appointments. One appointment per owner. 
 

These service appointments are for diagnostics, tune-ups, questions and a review of related parts that are located throughout the Storyteller/GXV portions of your vehicle (non-chassis related issues). If you're unsure whether your request fits, send us a note service@storytelleroverland.com.

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Life's Greatest Luxury is saying YES to the Next Grand Adventure!

We'd love to hear your stories and see your pictures from the road! Send to Emma at: emma.w@storytelleroverland.com

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