463 days, 50 states and the adventure of a lifetime

While college graduation often marks the end of a long adventure, it was just the beginning for recent UD grads Sarah Harper ’23 and Sarah Brightfield ’22. Ten days after Harper graduated in May 2023, the couple began a 463-day trek throughout all 50 states and eight Canadian provinces with their beloved bright yellow camper van, Peace Blossom. 

Brightfield, who graduated with a civil engineering major and sustainability minor, decided to renovate a 2007 Ford wheelchair van into a camper van with her dad during the pandemic lockdown. She added solar panels, a refrigerator and air conditioning. She created a special water pump system for the van, which she turned in as a project in one of her UD engineering classes.

Brightfield began dreaming of #vanlife in 2019 during her first road trip in a rented camper van while studying abroad in Australia and lived in Peace Blossom during summer engineering co-ops, during which she learned the best approaches to van living. Harper, on the other hand, had never been camping before. A communication graduate with a focus in public relations and minors in marketing and English, Harper had an interest in travel and adventure but never expected that would come in the form of a camper van. 

The couple first embarked on short trips, starting with a week-long road trip to the Upper Peninsula of Michigan in August 2020. After this, they gradually increased the length of time of their road trips, visiting iconic national parks in places like Utah, Wyoming, Colorado and Arizona for two to three weeks at a time. Ultimately, they decided to set out on the trip of a lifetime following Harper’s UD graduation.

“One thing led to another, led to another. It started with Sarah B’s dream to just go out West and [it] snowballed into all 50 states.” 

To prepare, the two did a great deal of planning. Brightfield pooled her savings from internships and co-ops and quit working to serve as the van’s bus driver. Harper worked part time on the road for a PR agency. 

They hit the road with clothes for all seasons and no expectations.

The trip literally started with a bang, as Peace Blossom’s brake lines went out while the two were leaving Kansas City at the trip’s start. To make matters worse, the two decided to ride their bikes around town while waiting on the van repairs, but the bikes were stolen after Brightfield and Harper parked them in a friend’s driveway when they went inside to change clothes. 

“This was the first 24 hours of the road trip,” Harper said. “This was day one.”

Luckily, they were swarmed with generosity on the rest of their trip. In Arizona, a man named Dusty pulled them out of a sand dune (under the condition they would film a TikTok of the rescue process for him). They made countless friends, some of whom they met through an Airbnb-type service for vans called Boondockers Welcome. Strangers offered them places to stay, do laundry and take showers.

“People were really generous,” Harper said.

“The hospitality and generosity we received from total strangers was a grounding, humanizing way to experience America.” 

Besides giving them opportunities to make new friends across the nation, Harper and Brightfield’s trek was a tremendous learning experience.They witnessed social justice history at the Emmett Till Memorial in Mississippi, Whitney Plantation in Louisiana, Lorraine Motel in Tennessee, and MLK Jr. National Historical Park in Georgia. 

They also saw the real-life effects of climate change in the midst of intense wildfires in Washington State and western Canada, bleached coral as a result of the warming ocean in the Florida Keys, and receding glaciers and even a Tsunami threat in Alaska.

“At UD, we learned a lot about social justice, especially through the Marianists and Catholic Social Teaching. During our trip, we made it a big focus to go deeper and learn about the experiences and realities of the communities we visited,” Harper said.

Brightfield, who studied civil engineering and water quality at UD, was fascinated to see issues related to water resources on the road. 

“It's something I’m passionate about, so it’s impactful to learn about it in a classroom, then actually see it firsthand and take that perspective with us as we move into the next chapter,” she said. 

Brightfield and Harper are about to start the next adventures of their lives at their new jobs in Washington, D.C., but still plan on using Peace Blossom for more adventures around the country and world — and encourage others to do the same. 

“Whatever you can do, do it now,” Brightfield said. “Don’t wait and put it off because you never know where life is going to take you.”