One of my favorite traits that skateboarders hold near and dear, is the lust to travel. A few months back my two homies from San Diego, Zane and Mycah, hit me up with an idea. They were trying to plan a month long skating/camping trip, starting in San Diego and traveling up the coast into Oregon. The idea was to go camping until we couldn’t afford much more and were forced to travel back to Southern California. At first I was a bit skeptical because I was a full time student without a job, but once I thought about it a bit more I decided to find myself a job, get a plane ticket to San Diego, and told them I was in.

We crammed all of our clothes, cameras, and skateboards into Zane’s 4-door Volvo and hit the road late June. Our first stop was on the trip was L.A. We couch surfed there for a few days and the homies over at Warco Skateboards showed us around the city. We skated a few of the skate plazas that L.A. has to offer and were luck enough to skate the Berrics for one of the mornings. After staying up in L.A. for five days, we ventured up to Big Sur National Park and camped there for a couple of days. Located right along the coast, it was hands down one of the coolest places we went on our trip. Since we were low on cash, we were trying to find the cheapest place there to camp.

After researching for a while, we were able to find a free campground that was only a five-mile hike in. We camped there for a few days and explored everything that the redwoods had to offer, drinking stream water and eating peanut butter and honey sandwiches for almost every meal. After Big Sur, we made the drive up the coast to San Francisco and stayed there for a few days with some guys that Zane and Mycah knew from high school. It was tight to skate Potrero Park and we had a hell of a good time cruising around the downtown areas at night. After skating SF for a week or so, we cruised up to Sacto for a night then made the venture up to Oregon.

Our first stop in Oregon was this gnarly skate park in the small town Grants Pass. Unfortunately, when we got there the park was flooded with bikers so it was hard to make your rounds. However, we met a few of the locals at the park and they took us to the most perfect pool that was in one of the homie’s backyards. After Grants Pass, we made our way to a small town called Medford. Mycah had family in the area that were able to put a roof over our heads so we stayed there for one night. We found out Medford is huge for growing weed, and were able to get the homie hookup from the people next door. It was also Zane’s 18th birthday the night we were there, so Mycah’s sister-in-law baked him a cake and bought us a bunch of 40’s. After taking a much-needed break in Medford, we cruised up the 5 to Eugene to stay for the next couple of nights.

After Eugene, we continued our way up the coast to our next spot, Lincoln City. Located right on the ocean, Lincoln City is a small town with one of the gnarliest skate parks known to man. We got to the park just as it was getting dark and ended up pitching tents right next to the snake run. The next day we woke up just as the sun was coming up, got some coffee, skated the park until it was dark, and did the same thing over again. We also met another group of homies that were on a road trip from Colorado making their way down the coast of Oregon, who decided to camp with us at the park. My friend Elijah hit us up while we were in Eugene and offered us a house to crash at in Portland. Unfortunately, the day were made it there Elijah fell skating with a glass bottle in hand and got a few gnarly gashes on his fingers, so he wasn’t able to skate with us.

Lucky enough, his homies were able to show us some of the spots that Portland has to offer including Burnside and the downtown district. While we were in Portland, we were looking at a map and realized that Seattle was only about two hours away. So we said fuck it and went to Washington for a day. We skated the city for a few hours, then decided to switch it up from our normal routine and check out the EMP museum, which featured an awesome exhibit on Jimi Hendrix. By this time, we were all running low on money and had been on the road for almost three and a half weeks, so we decided it was time to start heading back down the coast.

We drove for about two days, stopping back in Eugene, and S.F. for a night each, and decided to kick it in L.A. for three days before going back to San Diego. Although we racked up almost 900 bucks worth of tickets, got broke off at every spot we went to, and had to sleep on less than comfortable couches for a month, hands down I can say that this trip was one of the best that I have ever been on. If anyone out there wants to go on a fucking awesome road trip, find some friends that are down and give this one a go. There is no way that you will be bummed.