Welcome to Passion Highway!
We are Jim & Lisa. We have been happily married since July 1994. We love to travel, meet new people and explore. Our passion for travel has taken us around the world. We have been in Tutankhamun's tomb in Egypt, we have safaried in Africa and we have rolled cigars with the locals in Cuba. We been in many wonderful places, yet we have neglected to spend time exploring our own North American back yard. We thought it was time to start seeing this beautiful continent and share our journey with family, friends and you.
Were you always interested in camping?
Jim was a Boy Scout and in the Civil Air Patrol (Air Force Auxiliary) when he was growing up. He camped regularly in the Scouts and he went deep into remote areas conducting Search and Rescue (SARs) missions looking for lost people and downed aircraft when he was in CAP. He spent long hours in the woods learning survival skills and helping rescue people from some precarious situations.
Lisa was a bookworm in school. She spent most of her childhood studying. In college she was pursuing a Ph.D in Nuclear Physics.
Lisa has always loved the outdoors. She traveled for school and had college roommates that were geologist. They spent weeks out in the wilderness looking for ancient civilizations and unique rock formations.
How did you get into Glamping?
We are both aircraft pilots for hobby, not profession. We met at an airport and our life together has always had an Aviation component. One of the first things we did as a newly married couple was attend the EAA AirVenture Airshow in Oshkosh, Wisconsin. We flew up to the field and camped under a wing of a Piper Aztec (twin-engine airplane). We really enjoyed the outdoors and spending time with friends under the starlight, but we didn't like tent camping. We have attended AirVenture every year since that time, but we have always found other accommodations.
A few years back a local Oshkosh RV dealership started displaying some of their high-end rigs at the EAA AirVenture show. We walked through some and got hooked on the idea of traveling the country in a camper. Pilots love adventure and so do RV'ers. The travel-camping lifestyle seemed to be a good fit for us. AirVenture is where idea of Glamping started. From that point forward we began researching the lifestyle, rigs and subscribing to every RV'ing YouTube channel we could find.
Why a Grand Design 397TH?
When we started looking for campers we were thinking about the spectacular ones we saw in Oshkosh. They were Class A's and Super C's. It didn't take long to realize that it would be very difficult to find an motorhome that could haul two Harley Davidson Motorcycles! The two motorcycle requirement put us into pulling a trailer that could also hold a small car. And, of course, we would have to scrape up a pile of cash. It is hard for us to justify investing half-million+ to purchase a camper+trailer+car++. They not only depreciate, they are very expensive to maintain. The ROI simply isn't there.
As we researched campers more we came to realize that the only practical option for us was a Fifth Wheel Toy Hauler. They have the room, carrying capacity and the comforts of home. From that point forward it was an easy road to get to Grand Design. Their reputation is impeccable.
The Momentum 399TH & the 397TH were the two we were considering. The floor plan of the 397TH is what made that one the right choice for us. We liked the stackable washer/dryer, being able to walk around the RV King bed, and accessing the fridge when the slides are in.
How did Passion Highway get started?
Jim is a tech entrepreneur and has started over a dozen businesses (Jim's LinkedIN profile). Creating a brand & business is second-nature to him. The idea of building an adventure lifestyle social media presence was a great way for us to shift our focus to the next phase of our lives. Jim put his tech hat on and started building Passion Highway from scratch. Everything you see within the Passion Highway ecosystem has been personally built by Jim.
Jim is also one of those people that is driven to be an expert in whatever he does. Simply understanding something isn't good enough for him. He gets pinpoint focused on learning everything he can about a topic. He digs in so deep that he naturally becomes a go-to subject matter expert (SME) that experts call when they need help or advice. Jim loves teach others, so the idea of sharing his knowledge on the web was a perfect fit.
The idea of PassionHighway started in 2018 when we started researching campers. We registered the PassionHighway.com domain a few weeks before we took delivery of our Grand Design Momentum in October 2019.
Latest Update on Passion Highway
As our web presence has grown, the need to formalize into an operating business was desperately needed. We needed a legal entity that we could consolidate all of our assets into that is not tied solely to Jim or Lisa. We would like to see this and all of the sites we create live on well beyond our traveling lifetime. We incorporated Passion Highway, Inc. in August 2020 in combination with launching our Marine, Mobile and Of-Grid eCommerce website GRIDJunction.com. We are very excited for this next chapter of our travel lifestyle adventure.
Our mission is to create content that we believe will be useful anyone that loves adventure. We are constantly evolving and working hard to find our tribe. Please let us know if you want more info on something. We will do our best to comply with all reasonable requests. Our long-term vision for this site is to grow into a global community of like-minded people that can hang out, learn and have fun together.
Let the adventure begin!
Jim & Lisa
