3mnth loop - LA > Vegas > Calgary > Vancouver > Portland > SF > LA

[Midwest Michael]

Your every other night plan will not work very well, especially when you're going to be in a pickup camper. As others have mentioned, there are limited places where you can legally park overnight, especially when you're in a National Park setting. Perhaps more importantly, when you're boondocking, you really can't appear to be camping - as in you can't have chairs out or anything like that. The amount of space you'll have inside a truck camper is really quite small, with almost no room for 2 people to move around. If you're not in a campground and are confined to that small space, I'd expect a lot of "friction."

I would also warn that a truck camper will itself be a challenge considering the time of year you'll be camping. You're going to be still seeing very cold temperatures, and even into May and June, it could easily below freezing overnight in mountain areas like Yosemite, Yellowstone, and Banff. I don't know what kind of heating system you'll have, and RVs typically aren't very well insulated anyway, so that will be another issue to keep in mind.

[Southwest Dave]

Have you looked into Escape campervans in California ? I would expect flights into LA would be a big saving (?) and you could explore some of the desert southwest early on in your trip and visit Yosemite/Sequoia on your return. The one possible [likely] downside is that you would probably arrive in Yellowstone to early to really be able to explore the park

[roker_lad]

We did indeed Dave! We actually planned to use them if we started in LA. We switched to Vancouver with a view of chasing the good weather south, then by the time we looped back up to Banff it would be June and (hopefully) better weather.

If this seems too ambitious perhaps we should cut our Canada loop out and start in LA. What do you think?

[Midwest Michael]

With 3 months, you've got enough time to do everything.

I will say, if you are planning to use your full 3 months - or even a bit more, it may be easier from a customs/immigration standpoint to start your trip in Canada. That would delay the start of your 90 day clock.

Also worth noting, There will be free admission to all of Canada's National Parks in 2017, in celebration of the country's 150th birthday.

[Lifemagician]

In Canada it is quite legal and safe to stop in roadside rest areas (not in national parks). In some places it is even encouraged, with marked camping spots behind the rest area.

Having just travelled through Canada for a couple of weeks, I had no problem finding places to park overnight. Only issue is all those spots only have primitive vault toilets. So if you have a toilet in the camper, you will be OK.

Lifey