RVing in a CAMPER VAN on a VOLCANO // Haleakalā Sunrise Maui

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Living in a camper van for a week in Maui as a family of four comes with plenty of challenges, but the reason we RV is because it takes us places like this. At Haleakalā National Park, we get up in the middle of the night to experience one of the most beautiful things we’ve ever seen.
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we’re marissa nathan hensley and jj after living in our rv for six years we’re taking a 10-week adventure detour to visit our 50th state of hawaii life is a journey let go and get going last week we flew from oahu to maui to live and travel in a camper van we thought it would be fun and exciting it is this is home in maui for the week but we were quickly shocked to find out living in a van with a family four also has its challenges this week we’re climbing seven thousand feet in an elevation to stay in hosmer campground inside haleakala national park to see if the ups and downs of living in a van with a family of four are actually worth it to check out this national park yeah stop all right welcome to the national park first thing let me give you guys the campground tour there’s the campground six sites done just the fastest campground tour ever i’m just happy that we scored a spot oh look at this you can see people going up to the top over here and i packed this jacket all the way to one way for this one trip but you’re gonna be so glad that you had it oh it dropped uh at least 20 degrees coming out here hey we got fresh water yeah that’s great yeah i think we’re level i think we’re good so we reserved our site just to basically get a spot here but we’re in we’re here and this is awesome it’s so worth it that we had to get up in the middle of the night to reserve this campus jj what are you doing buddy get some clothes on you wanna get your clothes on so i’m gonna be honest here camping itself sometimes is a little challenging like living in this small space is a family of four it can have its challenges at times but the reason we rv is because it takes us places like this it’s just there are places camping and rving that you can’t get anywhere else unless you have a camper an rv and that’s why we love it for the flexibility convenience and simplicity two trails we got a point six and a point four five so did you know marissa this is an alien forest any idea what that means i read the sign so this is an alien forest what happened was there was a huge landslide in the 1800s or early 1900s and to help everything regrow they not only planted trees that were natural to the area they also brought in a lot of trees from all over the world is that why it smells like christmas in here i don’t know it’s delightful i wish this video was scratch and sniff because it smells it’s amazing so they planted all kinds of stuff from all over the world around 1910. peppermint eucalyptus native to tasmania there’s the monterey pine pine eastern red cedar large pole pine and then there’s still 13 alien species that are not natural this area at all brought in from all over so as we look not that we know any different of what’s supposed to be here what’s not maybe you guys can tell but there are at least 13 species here that are not supposed to be here pretty cool in our e.t ish campground it does feel like e.t here it does this is where our kids feel at home in nature in the woods like this is their comfort as well as ours so it just makes me happy to see them like running out of the vans to go explore wow look how big these are what does that say hensley this man you can lift this wow look at these oh my goodness is a big tree you’re right can you hold my hand yes wow these are big buddy been in the van most of the day so everybody’s getting it out look at that wow sneak peek that’s crazy so when we decided to get an rv to travel maui i saw that there were campgrounds in maui and i saw that there were camper vans in maui to rent on outdoorsy so then i thought let’s put the two together let’s have our vehicle be our home let’s go camping that’s what we’re familiar with that’s what we love we decided to book that and then got to looking and the campgrounds were still closed i’m going to be honest we had a little bit of a freak out moment i thought here we have this camper van and nowhere to park it my only hope was that things started opening up there was camp alawalu was the only campground open and that was the one that we stayed in our our first couple nights here our plan was just to stay there the whole time and then we would just have to do really long day trips but then we got a really great insider tip thanks jamie that this was opening up that the national park was opening up campsites this is the one if you caught the video that we woke up at like 3 45 in the morning to grab these sites because it was being released 4 am yeah tomorrow yeah i will be here and it was so worth it that we got these campsites here because to us this puts us so much closer to watching the sunrise so one of the coolest things to do at this national park is to catch sunrise on top of haleakala and that’s why we’re here and our reservation ticket for sunrise is 3 a.m to 7 a.m so if you can imagine if we were having a drive all the way across the island to get here at three in the morning it would have been pretty crazy so that we scored this campsite that’s probably why we look so excited to have this campground [Music] again it’s 2 45 in the morning bundled up and we’re heading up to the summit to check out sunrise this morning we got a little chilly last night so everybody has not gotten a ton of sleep but it’s part of the journey right yeah here we go up up up [Applause] it’s super windy super cold the sunrise is happening in about an hour but right now is what’s called astronomical dawn so it’s kind of like the pre-show to the show so we might divide and conquer with the kids a little bit longer because it’s cold out there so right now we’re at the observation point and you can just see the shadow of the clouds and this glow this pink and red glow behind the clouds the pre-show is definitely worth it to get up here early and check this out i don’t even know how to put this in words and i know the the camera never captures the beauty that we see with our eyes so just imagine with me right now jj is still sleeping and i just can’t bring myself to wake him up out of this warm cozy van bruce is up at the watchtower oh my goodness this is looking like a crazy crazy sunrise hensley you sleepy baby what do you think so far is that one of the most beautiful things you’ve ever seen or what yes it is describe it for everybody because mommy’s not great at description what do you see it’s beautiful up here i see a little mountains in the distance beautiful colors it’s like a painting up here isn’t it [Music] can you believe we’re in hawaii on a volcano watching the sun rise and just at this national park our first national park and fly 10 000 feet i just love these opportunities that rving opens up like i’ve missed being in an rv it’s just and we were talking to people who were like sleeping in their cars just to get up here to get this experience to to be a little bit closer i wouldn’t doubt people slept in line this morning probably well the guy had a room at the ritz carlton he said but he slept in his car here to get closer we have everything with us our home our bed our fridge our bathroom and we’re on top of volcano with all that with us there’s a whole world below that cloud cover that’s just uh this is it’s up there in the bay the best ones we’ve ever seen oh definitely i think our sunrise curse is broke socks and sandals everybody except for hisley hensley came with no [Music] shoes so this is super cool so these plants are called silver ward when they bloom they look like this these plants are endemic they don’t grow anywhere else in the world but on holly aquila and what’s very unique about them too is they can survive up to 50 years and they only bloom once in their lifetime but then they spread their seeds and they have very delicate root systems definitely a unique thing to catch up on top of the summit here and along the drive up so beautiful one last look before we say goodbye oh no it’s amazing can’t get an ugly view in this place and i’ve always loved vans for this reason i just think that it’s super cool that you can just lay in bed and see an incredible view you’re not a van life until you’re in a bikini though i would not want to be in my bikini up here that’s for sure you came reassuring mother nature’s procuring there’s no need for doubt in his mind [Music] [Applause] [Music] so here’s the lookout tower we’re just at we have left the visitor center we uh are probably not gonna complete this two mile hike but we’re gonna try jj is not happy about the uh sleeping hours that we’ve been going through like 9 500 feet right here or something oh you hide downhill into the crater we’re just getting what we can get we just want to see this overlook and this lookout that’s the thing with traveling with kids you just do what you can do it might not be a like an epic thing but a lot of hikes we just walked around the corner and look what we found like look buddy so hensley this is a giant crater what did the crater used to be what was it before it was a crater that’s right so this is a dormant volcano it’s been uh hundreds of years since this erupted a couple hundred years a couple hundred years here you see how they like broke broke away it’s all the erosion broke away that used to be a more hot used to be more obvious now it looks more mountainous yeah it looks almost mountainous another crater anymore it will erupt again from this viewpoint huh could be thousands of years but yeah yeah anyway so we have not gone into detail about what jj is using um this is called a piggyback rider he does okay with it he’s doing a little better just has this bar in the back that i wear as a strap and then uh super lightweight super small we’ve been packing it with our bags with our one bag carry and it’s not as comfortable as a full-fledged hiking carrier but because all the weights like on your shoulders there’s really nothing taking the weight off on the waist so it does start to hurt after i don’t know 30 45 minutes you start feeling it we like it we think it’s been worth it it’s pretty cool look at the sandal socks i’m loving it i know right we just do what we can do around here we’re like walking into a crater which erupted at some point this is beautiful look at that i don’t remember seeing so much lush green from the top you can see the heat coming off of uh the lava rock here there’s a little hey hensley look at the little mini tornado over there it looks like a true painting because it’s got so many different colors it looks so fake it’s so pretty you want to come down take a break buddy you want to walk you went down you want to walk so we take them off we just unsnapped these two snaps oh and then he’s off here we go good you want to walk you hold daddy’s hand come on let’s go walk let’s see what you got show me your poses whoa so we just did down to the first switchback which is what was recommended on an app reason called gypsy guide it is these apps you can get that will give you tours of the area you’re in based on gps so we’ve been using it all over hawaii and it gives you great tips and he recommended just coming to this first switch back if you’re like us and trying to just see what we can see in the little amount of time all right piggyback with a passing let’s do it how’s your hair bud mine’s not great it’s actually still got salt water from yesterday you couldn’t shower your mama needs to fix that you look like a mad scientist did anybody fix their hair today or melissa did no we’re checking out different overlooks with a van this redefines cool parking spots next to overlooks let me show you guys a view we’ll get if we open up our back doors we’re still really tired from this morning the kids are tired like let’s just find a really cool overlook park the van take naps this is our view back here mapping in the clouds good job oh silke is so dark oh he’s so tired he’s gotta take a break take a break breaks over great doctor the hustle girl oh he’s so tired climb the steps you almost made it to the top oh one more step okay so i know baby you’re doing so good take a break take a break [Music] [Applause] [Music] it’s been a long day at 2 30 a.m man it was just surreal almost to be like driving around the national park with our home with the motorhome parking where we want taking breaks i’m not saying we’re moving into a class b you know next week because there’s some downsides to it as well with a you know family of four the convenience and flexibility we’ve caught ourselves all day being like is this not awesome that we have everything with us everywhere we go it’s incredible the national parks are so beautiful number one and affordable i was telling nathan i’m like how crazy is that that today we use our national park pass to get in for free we pay the 80 a year to get in all national parks this campsite was five dollars yeah so five dollars a night and you get the whole national park the sunrise sunset all of that with your five dollar camping fee so perfect example of how old maui could be 500 a day or it could be five dollars a day i’ve set up a playlist of five of our favorite national parks we have been to an insane amount of national parks i can’t put a number on it but we’ll put five of our favorites in a playlist for you guys if you want to check those out so there’s our super awesome helico national park day with we love sharing this with you guys until next time catch you guys later