RVE 0020: How Two College Students Got Sponsored to Travel to all 59 National Parks

This post may contain affiliate links. See our affiliate disclaimer here.

This year Cees and Madison are traveling to all 59 national parks. Last fall they were still in college and working in part-time sales for a real estate company. On episode #20 of the RVE podcast I chat with them about how they were able to get sponsored by major companies and completely fund their quest to 59 national parks.

Cees and Madison’s story begins in a national park. Two years ago Cees proposed to Madison in Yosemite National park. With an upcoming graduation from college, their love of national parks, and the national park centennial celebration– Cees and Madison decided they would try to go to all 59 national parks over the course of a year.

While still in college, Cees started pitching companies on this idea of traveling to every national park. He had no blog, online following, and had never pitched a company on a sponsorship before. “If the company would have just given me a t-shirt I would have been stoked,” Cees told me on the podcast.

However, because Cees and Madison tapped into a huge, national celebration they were able to attract the attention of some major sponsors — such as Chaco Sandals. After reaching out to a number of companies and refining their approach, Cees and Madison snagged several key sponsorships that gave them enough money to hit the road for a year and travel to all 59 national parks.

What we talk about in this episode:

• What Cees and Madison’s family originally thought when they first came up with the idea to travel around the country in an RV
• How to approach companies for sponsorship
• How much it roughly costs to travel to all 59 national parks
• How Madison almost blew up their RV while making chocolate chip cookies

Links and references mentioned:

• Cees and Madison’s website: http://ourvie.com/
• Cees and Madison on Instagram: http://instagram.com/ourvie
• Epic Wipes
• “Help! My Husband Locked Me in the Shower!” (blog about the time I accidentally locked Alyssa in the shower)
• Company in Cali who does awesome airstream renovations

Thanks for Listening!

You’re awesome. It’s because of people like you that I get to sit around in my RV and record podcast episodes with really interesting people. If you’ve been enjoying the show and want to help others find it, I’d love a review from you in iTunes. Each and every review helps more people find the show (seriously, each one counts).

To leave a review, just click here and then go to “ratings and reviews”. It just takes a minute and I read each one 🙂