It turns out, you can fit a surprising number of existential questions into a van.

I learned this in August on my first Class B trip to Telluride, Colorado, dubbed my home state’s “Switzerland” for its towering San Juan Mountain Range — where my fiancé, Matt, spent 25 hours running a 65-mile race (yep, you read that right). Not exactly the leisurely getaway I was expecting. Crewing an ultramarathon for a runner climbing 22,500 feet of elevation put “remote work” in a different light.

Our weekend home on wheels, a 2021 Ford Transit rented from Outdoorsy and packed with enough gear, food and backup plans to form a tiny command center, gave us front-row seats to the lifestyle I’ve only reported on at RV PRO. And boy, does coffee taste extra good off-grid.

Somewhere between prerace nerves, the van-accessible aid stations and 12 hours on the road, I found myself thinking about why RVing works so well in places like this: It brings us closer to the “why.” For Matt, it was never about winning medals; it was about pushing boundaries and having an extraordinary experience in the great outdoors.

I thought about how much we ask of the places we travel to — and how much we owe them in return. That question feels particularly relevant right now, as our public lands and national parks face a complicated future.

As of when this letter was written, the 110-year-old National Park Service (NPS) is grappling with significant staffing and funding challenges amid cuts to the agency. Protections have been largely reduced for national monuments like Arizona’s Grand Staircase-Escalante and Utah’s Bears Ears — both with stories spanning eons — the latter recently seeing 91% of its protected area stripped.

More recently, controversy over a proposed land exchange near Yosemite National Park raised concerns about the possibility of private development and access to federally protected land.

Acres of roadless national forest land, home to thriving ecosystems, are being threatened by the millions. A recent fact I learned about those ecosystems: According to NPS estimates, 80%-90% of wildlife species living within national parks are undiscovered by science.

So whatever your politics, the bigger question is worth asking: What do we believe public lands are for?

In the RV industry, the answer should matter to all of us. Our businesses are built around the idea that there’s always something worth driving toward — we manufacture what gets people there and sell them the equipment to stay. Public lands are part of the RV lifestyle’s infrastructure.

And maybe that’s why our little Class B adventure stuck with me. When you spend a weekend living out of a van, you realize how little you truly need to feel at home: a bed, a hot meal, someone you love and a place worth waking up for.

Our public lands belong to all of us — to the family trying something new, to the runner seeking a trail to humble them and, equally as important, to the people who haven’t discovered them yet. The RV industry has a vested interest in protecting that notion. Because the best part of RVing is where the vehicle can take you — so let’s make sure those places are still there when we arrive.