Before we knew that our van would be ready ahead of schedule, my girlfriend and I had already booked lodging for a month in a condo in the small mountain town of Angel Fire, New Mexico.
It seems that for most people who purchase a van and decide to jump into full-time van life, it’s their first foray into full-time travel. For these people, van life is synonymous with travel. They view residing in a mobile abode as the breaker of chains that will liberate them from the oppression of being confined to one building, one city, for the rest of their lives. The van can definitely prove to be the great liberator, opening up an entire world of adventure to one who’d only dreamt of exploration before.
…but that just wasn’t true in our cases. In fact, we had both been traveling full-time for well over two years, with over a year of that time spent traveling the nation together.
Personally, I had already dabbled in many different types of travel:
Five months spent camping across North America in a tent camper trailer.
Several months spent traveling abroad, including maxing out my 3-month Schengen Zone Visa.
Monthly AirBNB rentals across the USA
…and so many shorter excursions, like an Alaskan cruise, family visits, and shorter camping trips to various areas.
Instead, we now view the van as a tool that will help make our ongoing travel easier, more economical, more enjoyable, and most importantly—it will allow us to immerse ourselves more deeply in nature, every single day.
The month-long stay in Angel Fire proved to be the perfect transition time to let us get fully moved into the van. While we thought the process would be quicker, it actually not only took the entire month but extended beyond, as we continued to dial in various elements of our small space to suit our particular needs.
Part of the lengthy move-in process was due to still working full-time as digital nomads, fitting the van chores around our normal work schedules. And part of it was due to ordering parts and supplies online, waiting for shipments to arrive, setting up accessories, realizing those accessories wouldn’t work quite as well as we had hoped, moving things around, etc. etc. Who knows if the dialing-in process will ever be fully complete?
We also sold our second car during this time, which completed our transition from owning two CUVs to owning one single converted Dodge Ram Promaster 159″ high-top cargo van.
We were all-in on van life.
Angel Fire: Best Bike Park in the Southwestern USA
While Angel Fire served as our transition zone from monthly rentals to full-time van life, as a destination it proved to be a fantastic stop in and of itself! This small mountain town is low-key and well under the radar, partly due to the dramatic lack of amenities in comparison to most other mountain towns, even in this region of New Mexico.
But if you’re a mountain biker, you’ve undoubtedly heard of the Angel Fire Bike Park. For some reason, this small ski resort has built not only the best downhill park in the Southwest, but one of the best bike parks in the entire country! The variety and density of trails served by their one high-speed chairlift are truly impressive.
Not willing to rest on their laurels, the Angel Fire Bike Park Trail Crew is constantly improving and maintaining existing trails, as well as cutting in fresh lines down the mountain. During my month-long stay in Angel Fire, their work was readily apparent, especially mid-week, as they closed certain sections of trail to spruce them up for the weekend crowds. Excavators would be hard at work moving dirt, chainsaws felling trees and milling wood for features, hand tools employed to finish the trails to perfection—the work never ends at Angel Fire.
Angel Fire fills up with tourists on the weekends—mostly mountain bikers—but mid-week, the town almost completely shuts down. Most of the restaurants close, many of the shops take a few days off, and you’re simply left with a tiny grocery store/gas station combo… and the bike park. After years of living in Colorado, whose mountain towns have become inundated with tourists on seemingly every day of the week and at any time of the year, the quiet and remoteness found in Angel Fire was a breath of fresh air. Yet due to its lack of amenities, there’s little danger of this small town changing anytime soon!
Using the “Discover” Tab to Discover Rad Trails
While I had ridden the local backcountry epic ride—the South Boundary Trail—several years ago, I was still largely unfamiliar with Angel Fire before my month-long visit there. Right before I arrived, FATMAP launched a revamped version of the “Discover” tab in the app. So naturally, the first thing I did was to check out the Discover tab and see if there were any local rides that had been posted recently.
As I perused the list, I spotted a nearby ride that looked pretty rad… but I didn’t even know there were any mountain bike trails in that area of the mountains. Naturally, I had to download the route and go check it out for myself! The result was riding my first reasonably-big backcountry epic of the summer season on the Elliot Barker Loop. This little-ridden backcountry trail had all of the ingredients of a great mountain bike ride: challenging climbs, beautiful views, and rowdy descending. To get the full scoop on the ride, be sure to check out my write up here!
