2023 travel days

I thought it’d be interesting and useful to include a summary of travel days. Here are links to blog posts, and a sample picture of the view of each, so you can see how the landscape changed as we travelled in our coach.

Read to the end for some sneak peeks of places we went that I haven’t yet posted about!

You can see all of the travel-related blog posts via the travel category, with the earliest posts at the top, or the latest posts at the top.

Travel from Corpus Christi to Lockhart, Texas:

Travel from Lockhart to Columbus, Texas:

Travel from Columbus to Lake Conroe, Texas:

Travel from Lake Conroe to Lake Whitney, Texas:

Travel from Lake Whitney to Dallas, Texas:

Travel days to US Virgin Islands:

Travel from NIRVC in Dallas to Gordonville, Texas:

Travel from Gordonville to Abilene, Texas:

Travel from Abilene, Texas to Las Cruces, New Mexico:

Travel from Las Cruces, New Mexico to Tombstone, Arizona:

Travel from Tombstone to Surprise, Arizona:

Travel from Surprise to Kingman, Arizona:

Travel from Kingman, Arizona to Las Vegas, Nevada:

Travel from Las Vegas, Nevada to Death Valley, California:

Travel from Death Valley to Yermo, California:

Travel from Yermo to Palm Desert, California:

Travel from Palm Desert to Orange, California:

Travel from Orange to San Diego, California:

Travel from San Diego to Bakersfield, California:

Travel from Bakersfield to Paso Robles, California:

Travel from Paso Robles to Petaluma, California:

Travel from Petaluma to Meyers Flat, California:

Travel from Meyers Flat to Crescent City, California:

Travel from Crescent City, California to Florence, Oregon:

Travel from Florence to Eugene, Oregon:

Travel from Eugene to South Beach, Oregon:

Travel from South Beach to Seaside, Oregon:

Travel from Seaside, Oregon to Ocean City, Washington:

Travel from Ocean City to Shelton, Washington:

Travel from Shelton, Washington to Buxton, Oregon:

Travel from Buxton to Welches, Oregon:

Travel from Welches to La Grande, Oregon:

Travel from La Grande, Oregon to Glenns Ferry, Idaho:

Travel from Glenns Ferry, Idaho to Alpine, Wyoming:

Travel from Alpine to Yellowstone, Wyoming:

Travel from Yellowstone to Cody, Wyoming:

Travel from Cody to Buffalo, Wyoming:

Travel from Buffalo to Devils Tower, Wyoming:

Travel from Devils Tower, Wyoming to Medora, North Dakota:

Travel from Medora, North Dakota to Spearfish, South Dakota:

Travel from Spearfish to Badlands, South Dakota:

Travel from Badlands to Hot Springs, South Dakota:

Travel from Hot Springs, South Dakota to Ogallala, Nebraska:

Travel from Ogallala, Nebraska to Scott City, Kansas:

Travel from Scott City, Kansas to Guymon, Oklahoma:

Travel from Guymon, Oklahoma to Tucumcari, New Mexico:

Travel from Tucumcari to Albuquerque, New Mexico:

Ruined building

Travel from Albuquerque to Santa Rosa, New Mexico:

Overpass

Towed from Santa Rosa to Moriarty, New Mexico:

Towed from Santa Rosa to Moriarty, New Mexico

Travel from Moriarty to Tucumcari, New Mexico:

Travel from Moriarty to Tucumcari, New Mexico

Travel from Tucumcari, New Mexico to Amarillo, Texas:

I-40

Travel from Amarillo, Texas to Choctaw, Oklahoma:

Travel from Choctaw, Oklahoma to Russellville, Arkansas (post coming in January):

Fun with zoom

Travel from Russellville to Hot Springs, Arkansas (post coming in January):

Overpass

Travel from Hot Springs, Arkansas to Memphis, Tennessee (post coming in January):

Traffic camera

Travel from Memphis, Tennessee to Red Bay, Alabama (post coming in January):

Welcome to Sweet Home Alabama

Travel from Red Bay, Alabama to Toomsuba, Mississippi (post coming in February):

Tombigbee River

Travel from Toomsuba, Mississippi to New Orleans, Louisiana (post coming in February):

Twin span bridge over Lake Pontchartrain

Travel from New Orleans, Louisiana to Spanish Fort, Alabama (post coming in February):

Our coach via traffic camera

Travel from Spanish Fort, Alabama to Carrabelle, Florida (post coming in February):

Road under water

That’s a lot of travel!

2023 travel route

Let’s look back at our coach travel in 2023. You may also want to check out the 2022 travel summary and the 2021 travel summary.

We bought our 2017 Tiffin Allegro Bus 40SP diesel pusher motorhome on September 2, 2021, and other than a few times when we’ve been out of it during servicing appointments or flying vacations, we’ve lived in it full-time since then.

When we bought the coach, it only had 5,161 miles on the odometer. In 2021 we drove it about 2,300 miles. In 2022 we drove another 8,772 miles. In 2023 we added 9,945 miles, so have driven it 21,017 miles on our adventures so far, for a grand total of 26,178 on the odometer.

One of our goals is to visit every state in the US. In 2023 we stayed in 11 new states: North Dakota, South Dakota, Nebraska, Kansas, Oklahoma, Arkansas, Tennessee, Mississippi, Alabama, Louisiana, and Florida. These join Nevada, Utah, Colorado, New Mexico, and Texas in 2022, and Washington, Oregon, Wyoming, Montana, Idaho, California, and Arizona in 2021, for a total of 23. Not quite halfway! (We only count states visited since purchasing our coach.)

We also revisited several states last year, as we headed back to our Pacific Northwest domicile. So all the states we visited in 2023 — in order — were Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, Nevada, California, Oregon, Washington, Idaho, Wyoming, North Dakota, South Dakota, Nebraska, Kansas, Oklahoma, Arkansas, Tennessee, Mississippi, Alabama, Louisiana, and Florida; a total of 20 in the year.

Here’s a map of our coach travels and stays in 2023, via the excellent RV Life Trip Wizard website, using a variation of their maps that more clearly shows the state borders and color-coded time zones. We started the year in southern Texas, then the route headed north then west to the California coast, north to Washington, east to North Dakota, south to New Mexico (a detour for the Balloon Fiesta), then east to Alabama (barely), south to Louisiana, and finally east to the panhandle of Florida, where we finished the year:

Map with time zones

Another variation of the map, with more detail:

Map

Here’s the route map with the travel in 2022 and 2021 also displayed in different colors; our 2023 travel in purple, our 2022 travel in blue, our 2021 coach travel in green, and our 2021 Yellowstone rental trailer trip in brown:

Combined map

The same map as an animated GIF, adding each year:

Route map GIF

We actually revised our route a few times from what we planned for 2023; here’s an animated GIF that compares what we had originally planned (as shown in last year’s 2023 travel plans post), and what we ended up doing (as above):

2023 maps

Fascinating!

2023 modifications

Happy New Year! 🎉

As we begin 2024, let’s look back at 2023, as I did this time last year.

I will have a series of blog posts reviewing topics from last year. I schedule my posts following a pattern: Modification Mondays, Travel Tuesdays, Whereabouts Wednesdays, and To and Fro Thursdays and Fridays (okay, those last ones are bit of a stretch). So I will post my annual summaries in that order too, starting with modifications today.

We have done a number of modifications to our 2017 Tiffin Allegro Bus 40SP motorhome, to make it more comfortable as a full-time home, to improve the features, or to repair issues. This is a summary of some of the changes done in 2023; also check out the changes from 2022 and 2021.

For each modification topic I include a link to the corresponding blog post, and a sample picture; see the post for details. (Tip: you can click or tap on either the link or picture to go to the corresponding post.)

You can see all of the modification-related blog posts via the modifications category, with the earliest posts at the top, or the latest posts at the top.

Upgraded TST TPMS display: