Nationwide RV explorers stop in Ishpeming

A pair of seasoned explorers made their way through the Upper Peninsula this week on their annual summer RV tour.

Brad and Amy Herzog have traveled across the country every summer for 15 years, seeing over 150,000 miles on their life-changing journeys. On Thursday the couple made a stop in Ishpeming on the last leg of their ‘Summer of Love 2.0’ tour. Brad is an author who learned about his love for RVs when he decided to drop everything and hit the road.

“This whole experience started back in 1995, when Amy and I were living in Chicago, and it was the middle of the winter and I turned to her one day – we had just been married a couple years – I turned to her and said, ‘how would you like to quit your job, and we’ll get a big old RV, and we’ll travel around the country for a year, and I’ll try to write a book about it?'” Brad said. “To my surprise, she said, ‘sure.’ So we did it for about 314 days, 48 states, 35,000 miles, we had this epic, amazing, life-changing experience, and we realized along the way that the key to that whole experience was the house on wheels: the RV.”

This year the Herzogs are traveling in a brand new, retro-styled Winnebago. Of the over 30 books Brad has written, three have been memoirs of his family’s travels to small towns across the nation inspired by his time behind the wheel.

“One of my favorite things about driving an RV is the big windshield in front of me. I like to describe it as there’s a big movie of America playing in front of me, and any time I want, I can stop the film and enter the picture, and that’s a truly amazing feeling, and I wouldn’t trade that for anything.”

The couple’s next stop is Wisconsin to pick up their sons, who have accompanied them on the trips since infancy, from summer camp. You can follow the adventures of the Herzog family on Brad’s blog at gorving.com.