Cees and madison from ourvie

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

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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:

Thanks for Listening!

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2 Responses

  • […] Madison from Ourvie.com.  Last year, I brought Cees and Madison on the show to talk about their 59 national park journey.  They wrapped up the majority of the trip before they stopped to have their little baby […]

  • […] You can read more about that story here.  […]

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