There is a strange moment when you pick up a brand-new cargo van and realize you have just spent $62,000 on an empty metal box.
That moment arrived for us at Gresham Ford in Oregon.
Julie looked at the new Transit with curiosity: What are all these features, and what have we gotten ourselves into?
I felt something a little different. Responsibility. We were there, the van was ours, and I felt like it was on me to understand it, ask the right questions and make sure we had the information we needed to be successful.
Of course, the fastest way to learn about a new vehicle is to point it toward Alaska and drive it nearly 2,900 miles home.
So that is what we did.
A high-roof van that drives like a car
The first big surprise was how little the Transit felt like a big van.
Ours is a 2026 Ford Transit T-350 AWD with a 148-inch wheelbase and high roof. From the outside, nobody would mistake it for a compact vehicle. Behind the wheel, though, it steered and handled much more like a car than we expected.
It had plenty of power, was comfortable for long days and never made us feel as though we were wrestling a tall, oversized box down the highway. You are still responsible for remembering how tall it is, especially around low clearances, but on the open road it was remarkably easy to drive.
Most importantly, it ran superbly for the entire trip.
Well, almost everything ran superbly. More on the Ford emblem later.
Box Canyon, beautiful scenery and a terrible number
One of the most memorable stretches came while driving through Box Canyon. The scenery was so beautiful that we were simply awestruck.
Then we looked down at the fuel display.
20 miles remaining.
That is not the number you want to see on a remote northern highway, no matter how beautiful the surroundings are. A fuel station that looks reasonably close on a map can feel very far away when your range keeps dropping and there are not a lot of backup choices.
We kept driving. The display eventually reached zero.
The Transit did not.
We drove another 13 miles after the gauge said zero before finally reaching a service station. Altogether, we had gone nearly 50 miles while wondering whether the van was about to become a very expensive roadside cabin.
The lesson was obvious: on a northern road trip, do not treat a gas station as optional simply because you still have fuel. Fill up when you can. Distances are long, stations can be spread out, and the next pump may not be as close or as available as you expect.
We learned that lesson without having to walk down the highway carrying a gas can, which is our preferred style of education.
The car that arrived before the roads
One of the best stops of the trip was the George Johnston Museum in Teslin, Yukon.
We knew very little about George Johnston when we arrived. We left fascinated by him.
Johnston was a Tlingit photographer and local store owner who documented life in and around Teslin. The story that really caught our attention involved the first car he brought to the community. According to the museum, he purchased it in Whitehorse and transported it to Teslin by boat. The car did not fit, so the boat had to be altered to carry it.
There was another fairly important problem: Teslin did not have roads.
Johnston cleared trails so he could drive the car during the summer. In winter, Teslin Lake gave him roughly 70 miles of open ice to drive on. He painted the car white and used it while hunting.
Think about that for a moment. Most of us buy a vehicle and complain if the road is rough. George Johnston bought one before there were roads, helped create places to drive it and turned a frozen lake into his winter highway.
That is the kind of unexpected story that makes stopping at a small museum worthwhile. We pulled in during a long drive and discovered a person whose ingenuity, photography and life helped preserve an extraordinary piece of northern history.
The first damage report
By the time we reached Tok, the Transit had handled thousands of miles without a mechanical problem.
Then, while studying the front grille, we noticed that the Ford emblem was broken.
We probably would not have been looking at the grille so closely except that I had already ordered a Raptor-style replacement grille. Apparently the factory emblem decided it was not included in our long-term plans and began its departure early.
We do not know exactly when or how it broke. Compared with what could happen on a 2,900-mile drive north, a damaged emblem is a very small complaint. Still, there is something slightly painful about finding the first blemish on a brand-new vehicle, even when the part may soon be replaced.
The official trip damage total: one broken Ford emblem. We will take it.
Breakfast at Fast Eddy’s
Our final morning on the road began with breakfast at Fast Eddy’s in Tok.
The food was excellent, the portions were generous and the place was busy. Very busy. Our table was covered with the kind of road-trip breakfast that makes lunch optional: eggs, sausage, toast, hash browns, an omelet and plenty of coffee.
The local kids who normally worked there had gone back to school, leaving only two wait staff trying to keep up with a dining room full of hungry travelers. They were swamped, but they kept going and delivered a breakfast memorable enough to become part of this story.
It was a good reminder that travel in Alaska and the North often runs on small businesses and hardworking people dealing with seasonal staffing, long hours and unpredictable crowds. A little patience matters. So does a very good breakfast.
Home, with an empty van and a full list
Julie and I had a wonderful time making the drive together. The scenery was spectacular, the Transit exceeded our expectations, and we came home with a much better understanding of the vehicle that will become our campervan.
We also came home tired and very glad to sleep in our own beds.
For now, the van is still mostly a $62,000 empty box. But it is no longer an unfamiliar one. It has carried us nearly 2,900 miles, survived an alarming fuel calculation and introduced us to one of the most interesting museums we have visited.
Next comes the easy part: deciding exactly how to turn it into a campervan without spending another fortune, making expensive mistakes or driving each other crazy.
What could possibly go wrong?
What we learned on the drive north
- The high-roof Ford Transit handles far more like a car than we expected.
- On remote northern highways, buy fuel when it is available, not when the gauge says you need it.
- Small local museums can hold some of the best stories of a trip.
- Seasonal restaurants may be short-staffed, so bring patience and appreciate the people who showed up.
- If the only casualty after 2,900 miles is a broken emblem, it was a pretty successful first trip.