At a crossroads in life, Mandy and Stephane Fitch chose action over certainty. Traveling from coastal beaches to snow-covered mountains in their Outpost 6.5, they’ve embraced truck camping as a tool for exploration, adventure, and rediscovering themselves. Hold on tight—and let go!
Between exploring extreme sports meccas in Baja, Mexico and Washington State, and running a successful business from their Outpost 6.5, Mandy and Stephane Fitch have faced some of life’s toughest questions:
Who are we? What do we want? And where are we going?
The path to answering these questions hasn’t been easy. In fact, it took multiple challenging turns before they discovered truck camping and its natural connection to their passions for windsurfing, rock climbing, skiing, and enjoying their newfound freedom throughout North America.
The fog of uncertainty lifted for Mandy and Stephane when they gave themselves permission not to have all the answers, to let go, and allow their next chapter unfold with time. Soon enough, what began as an existential road trip transformed into life-affirming experiences.
Hold on tight! There’s a shift in the winds, and adventure is on the horizon!
Mandy and Stephane Fitch wind foiling. Photo by Markus Marschall.
How did you and Mandy first land on the idea of traveling in a truck camper?
Stephane: We imagined for years what our empty-nest life might look like, knowing our daughter would be off to college in 2025. We knew we’d want to hit the road for a while and lease our house.
Mandy and I spent a lot of time researching and loved puzzling over what adventure platform would best allow us to run our creative agency from the road while simultaneously supporting our love of windsurfing, skiing, and rock climbing. We knew we would need a platform that could get us where we wanted to go while simultaneously being comfortable enough to work out of.
“We feel lighter and freer. The anxieties we had were unwarranted. We feel like ourselves now. We just decided to give it a try.”
Mandy and Stephane Fitch
As your empty-nester timeline approached, did the decision become clearer?
Mandy: Not exactly. As the date of our daughter’s graduation and our departure approached, our dream was inching closer to becoming reality. We started asking ourselves some big, almost existential questions that went far beyond the relative merits and affordability of various campers, vans and RVs.
Mandy shares a moment with her daughter
How did we want to live? What would words like home, house and community mean for us going forward? Where did we want our adventure vehicle to take us? Where did we want our lives to lead?
We looked into the abyss and started to feel stuck.
“Once our daughter launched, we launched ourselves.”
How did you get unstuck?
Stephane: Ultimately, Mandy said, “Let’s just not think too much about the big picture and instead just say we’re hitting the road for two years.”
The truth was, we didn’t definitively know who we were or who we’d become. We didn’t have a crystal clear plan. We just needed a couple of years to let things unfold. And we wanted a camper that could serve as our primary home for a few days or months at a time as we skipped from place to place for a while.
Chevy Silverado 2500 with Outpost 6.5.
Let’s rewind. Tell us why you chose a truck camper.
Stephane: We needed a bunch of conflicting things in one: something spacious, luxurious, and well-insulated while also being light, airy, rugged, and affordable.
When it came to the amenities we wanted in a travel platform, we knew we would travel with our two dogs and cat, so our bed had to be seriously comfortable, the kitchen had to have a real sink with running water, and we wanted a perfectly comfortable bathroom.
Mandy: We also needed a closet and cabinets, plenty of power to plug in our phones and laptops for work, and dependable heat and air conditioning.
Interior of Mandy and Stephane’s Outpost 6.5
Stephane: Luxury travel trailers made by the likes of Bowlus, Pebble or Airstream offered everything on our list. The problem was that we also needed something boondock-ready and overland-friendly. Our camper had to be capable enough to handle itself in snow and to pick its way over four-wheel drive terrain to windsurfing and rock climbing destinations.
We also realized we wanted something small enough to handle a quick trip to a local grocery store or fitness center, and that could fit comfortably in a normal parking spot.
Outpost 6.5 on Chevy Silverado 2500
The dream of towing a luxury travel trailer ran counter to all that. The more we researched, the more we realized that a conventional travel platform wouldn’t work for us.
So then you discovered truck campers?
Stephane: Not yet. We shifted our search to Sprinter vans, which seemed to fit the bill. Until they didn’t. Sprinter vans are very popular among windsurfers and skiers, because they can slip into an ordinary parking spot and have room for some gear and living quarters. We were impressed with the ones we looked at. Visions of our Instagram-worthy #vanlife floated before our eyes.
Alas, the best Sprinter platforms come with a $200,000-plus asking price. And have you ever noticed that when you visit your friends who live out of a Sprinter, they never invite you inside for dinner? The plain truth is that converted vans are narrow and just not roomy enough. And if you’re not living in a van full-time and year-round, they’re awkward as daily drivers.
So trailers and vans were out, leading you to truck campers.
Stephane: Exactly. We realized that we could buy a world-class four-wheel drive pickup truck to handle the rugged roads from Baja to the Canadian Rockies, store our sports gear behind the truck in a lightweight cargo trailer, and let the camper handle the rest.
Mandy and Stephane’s setup with their gear hauler in tow.
A truck camper would make for comfy living during the weeks-long and months-long stretches when we were on the road. During the times we felt like settling into a hotel or a rental home, we could detach the camper and use the pickup as our daily driver.
Mandy: I like that we can separate the truck camper. We can plant it and run around with the truck.
Stephane: With all that in mind, we set our budget and started looking at truck campers that offered a bit of luxury and would perform well in all four seasons. We wanted a hard-sided camper with great insulation because we felt that would handle cold winters the best.
Which pointed you to the Outpost 6.5?
Stephane: It was probably inevitable that we’d go with the Outpost 6.5. Taylor Ripp and Kurt Pattison spent years making custom Sprinter vans before they took all their experience and focused on developing a truck camper.
Mandy: A big advantage of the Outpost 6.5 is its four-season readiness. It’s built with composite panels made in the United States that have an insulation R-value exceeding 8. That means we can take the Outpost up to ski country, fire up the Espar diesel heater, and get along just fine. We can park in San Francisco on a chilly summer night and sleep comfortably with no heater running at all. Or on a muggy, windless night in Baja, we can close our windows, start our 12-volt AC unit, and sleep almost as comfortably as you would at home.
The Outpost has a 48-volt electrical system. Did that factor into your decision, and how has that system performed so far?
Stephane: We were specifically drawn to Outpost’s solar-centric power system. Virtually all truck campers rely on propane for cooking and refrigeration, even though burning propane produces carbon dioxide and water vapor.
The Outpost’s lights, air conditioning, refrigerator, and induction cooktop are powered with electricity from a 5kW EcoFlow power center. We recharge the battery with solar panels on the roof of the camper, an auxiliary solar array we carry with us, the alternator on our truck, and/or shore power when it’s available.
Outpost Campers Ecoflow Screen. Photo by Outpost Campers.
Earlier, you said you wanted a ‘perfectly comfortable bathroom’. Technically, the Outpost 6.5 doesn’t have a bathroom.
Stephane: We accepted (and, with experience, have largely come to appreciate) that the Outpost doesn’t try to do all things for everybody. We ordered our Outpost with a cassette commode and a nifty outdoor shower. You can get an interior shower enclosure, but we realized the cassette and outdoor shower were all we really needed when in windsurfing or climbing destinations. When I’m in ski country mode, I plan to make use of local health clubs and spas for hot showers.
We all adapt to what our campers offer, or don’t offer.
Mandy: Exactly. Our camper has no television set, no slide-outs, and no awning. The Outpost didn’t have a hot water heater until recently. Outpost recently started offering a tankless heater that fits under the sink as an add-on.
The air conditioning unit can make sleeping pretty comfortable on a sticky-hot night. However, if it’s 90-plus degrees outside, it can’t keep the camper cool enough for me to work comfortably. When the heat waves wash over our summer place on Sherman Island, California, we drive an hour to Crissy Field, where the marine layer reduces afternoon temps to the mid-70s.
“For now, we are creating community. We move seasonally through our small world, as do many of our friends. Traveling in our truck camper is expanding our friendships, community, and world.”
After a full season of living on and off the road, has truck camping changed your outlook?
Stephane: Yes. There’s a palpable feeling of thrill and freedom that comes every time we set out on an outing. Could we live in our Outpost year-round? I would say no, but my assumptions about what I’m ready for seem to change monthly now.
I’m pretty sure I never want to return to traditional living in Scottsdale, Arizona, full-time. If Mandy and I decide we want to be on the road full-time, long-term, I can see us doing five nights a week in the Outpost and two nights a week in nice hotels.
We’re incredibly happy with our Outpost, and it’s doing almost everything we need it to.
How are you able to run a creative agency from the road? Don’t you need to be on site with clients sometimes—for photography, videos, events, etc?
Stephane: We have Starlink satellite internet and good phones. We also have the habit of hiring people smarter than us. We have marvelous people in LA, San Francisco, Barcelona, New York, and Cincinnati, and have reached the point where we are the owners and managers. Once in a while, we have to jump on a plane to see someone. However, most of the content, including video and infographics, can be arranged and discussed over video.
Mandy: We do a lot of video meetings.
Is Starlink that good?
Stephane: There have been no dead zones with Starlink so far. The internet service gets better the further from the cities you get, so we’ve had bomb-proof internet throughout Baja. I’m pretty blown away by it.
Speaking of remote areas of Baja, where are you two now?
Stephane: We are on the Sea of Cortez side of Baja, just south of LaPaz, in a famous small coastal town called La Ventana. It translates to “the window” in Spanish, referring to the opening between Isla Cerralvo and Punta Arena. This creates a “window” view to the Sea of Cortez. It’s windy here and a popular windsurfing destination. We have been renting a house here since October 24th and are here until March 1st. It’s a funny little fishing town. There’s one paved road in the entire town, so it’s very dusty and bumpy. There are good restaurants, food trucks, and Bungalo-type restaurants. It feels like America in the 1950s.
Mandy: No matter where you are in La Ventana, there is a gorgeous view of the Sea of Cortez. La Ventana is set up for people to be here and work remotely. The town has Wi-Fi if we ever run into an issue with Starlink, and water is brought in by trucks.
There is a community of people of all ages who are spending the entire season in a campground here in Baja.
Do you have enough room in the camper for your work?
Stephane: Our camper is one of the smallest campers out there, and it’s surprisingly roomy. I do a lot of video calls in our Outpost camper. I set the camera up so that when I’m sitting at the Lagun table, the cabinetry is my background. The Lagun table rotates around so that even if we’re both in the camper, I can still take a call.
You mentioned your pets. Are they traveling with you?
Mandy: They are! The dogs are small. I call them velcro dogs because they like to be next to Stephane wherever he is. The closer the better. Our cat is a hairless miniature cat we named Bambino.
Where are some of your favorite places to go windsurfing and skiing?
Mandy: La Ventana is a Mecca for windsports. There are wind surfers here in every direction and we love the community. It’s filled with healthy, exciting people, all of whom must have determined and unique personalities since windsports are so strange and difficult to learn.
I’m a wing foiler, and Steph is a windsurf foiler. He’s learning at an exceptional rate. They’re different sports, but we can do them together. What other sports can channel our love of adrenaline with sunshine and wind?
Photo by Markus Marschall.
Stephane: We love to rock climb in Colorado, Utah, and British Columbia.
There are so many mountains to discover. In the winter, I’m going to use my Ikon Pass that gives me access to all kinds of ski resorts. I’ll start in Scottsdale, Arizona, and make my way to resorts throughout Utah, Idaho, and Montana to Revelstoke, British Columbia. More ski hills are starting to accommodate truck campers and RVs. Crystal Mountain in Washington, for example, is a good one. Along my route, I’ll save money staying in ski lots parked right next to the lifts instead of condos, while maintaining ski-in ski-out access. I’m really excited to see what the truck camper opens up for me in the ski world.
Do you think you’d be able to reach all of these spots had you chosen a van or a trailer?
Stephane: No. A good example is Airport Cove, a world-class windsurfing location in Arizona. You have to drive a four-mile rough terrain dirt road that would destroy an RV or trailer to access it.
Once you’re there, it’s a fabulous windsurfing spot, and a good place to be. We see a lot of truck campers there. We love that we can access these remote places and still have a place to comfortably make a meal and dry off. I’m glad Mandy got us going on the truck camper route.
For someone standing exactly where you were two years ago—empty nesters, overwhelmed, uncertain, dreaming—what would you tell them?
Stephane: Just do it. We let go of all the trappings of suburban life and a traditional house.
Mandy: You won’t miss the stuff you own.
Stephane: We feel lighter and free. The anxieties we had were unwarranted. We feel like ourselves now. We just decided to give it a try. We took a six-month to two-year view, and it has felt impressively natural. We found fellow travelers who have reassured us, and TCM has been a great resource. This mindset is written into the DNA of your articles.
Stephane and Mandy Fitch
Mandy: We had these passions and activities and wanted to do more. When our daughter was in high school, we’d take adventurous trips during her holiday breaks. Once our daughter launched, we launched ourselves. We gave ourselves an opportunity to do that, and we fully committed.
Think about what you want to do. The road is awesome.
When you imagine your future now—home vs travel life—does it look fundamentally different than it did five years ago?
Mandy: Steph likes to say, “I hope we never go back to our house in Scottsdale”. I love my house, it’s beautiful. Maybe someday, when we are tired, we will go back to the house.
For now, we are creating community. We move seasonally through our small world, as do many of our friends. We see the same people at the Hood River each year. We also have friends in Maui. Traveling in our truck camper is expanding our friendships, community, and world.
The Fitch’s Rig:
Truck: Chevy Silverado 2500
Camper: Outpost 6.5
