How to RV the Oregon Trail

If you’ve been a fan of the hit TV series 1883, you’ve marveled at the adventure, danger, beauty, and amazement encountered by the early pioneers who traveled west on the Oregon Trail in covered wagons. In 2022, though, we can now follow much of that trail in comfort thanks to today’s version of the Covered Wagon – the modern recreational vehicle.

All the way west, starting at St. Louis, are roadside parks, historic markers, small towns, and fabulous scenery that commemorates and celebrates that massive migration. The routes are far removed from the interstates, usually along well-maintained state two-lanes, with lots of places to camp. If you are thinking about making such a trip, all the way to Oregon or only for parts of the trail, the first thing you need to realize is that it’s really not just one trail you’ll be following.

A Brief History of the Oregon Trail

Image: Mike Wendland

Originally, the trails were all formed by animals and then by the various Native American tribes that transformed them into hunting grounds. Then in 1804, Lewis and Clark, using the Missouri River for much of their travels, made their way to the Pacific Ocean and, as their accounts slowly reached the population centers and small farms back east, they showed the way for those first covered wagon pioneers. The Oregon Trail was the route those pioneers followed, a journey that, in some places, almost paralleled the Lewis and Clark expedition.

It’s hard to over-emphasize the importance of these two 19th-century routes. Lewis and Clark discovered the overland route to the Pacific, thus opening up the nation to east-west travel in the days immediately after the Louisiana Purchase. It was a trip that in its day, was as monumental as the American landing on the moon is to ours. The Oregon Trail pioneers came about four decades after Lewis and Clark, mostly traveling in their prairie schooners – so named because their wagons were covered with white canvas that made them resemble a ship at sea.

Others took routes that sprang off the Oregon Trail on paths called the California Trail and the Mormon Trail as they headed to the Gold Rush and Salt lake City. The Pony Express routes also traveled parts of the Oregon Trail. The Oregon Trail, and the various other trails that led from it, constituted the single greatest migration in America – consisting of as many as a half-a-million men, women, and children who traveled by wagon and by foot west for two decades from 1842-1870.

RVing the Oregon Trail

Retracing those routes in an RV today is a stimulating journey. At the end of this article, I’ll give you some suggested book references that will let you plan as detailed and long a trip as you want. But to start your adventure, I’d suggest Courthouse Square in downtown Independence, MO. This was where the biggest wagon trails set forth, most headed eventually to Oregon’s Willamette Valley, some 2,600 miles distant.

For those travelers who made it, it was a trip that took between five and six months. But not everyone made it. In fact, the Oregon Trail is the nation’s longest graveyard. Over a 25-year span, up to 65,000 deaths occurred along the trail’s journey west.

Traveling the Oregon Trail

Image: Mike Wendland

When it really comes to knowing the trail and experiencing it, there are few who can match Morris Carter. Morris Carter is a living, breathing encyclopedia of the Oregon Trail. He has not only built covered wagons that replicate those used by those first pioneers but he’s also traveled the 2,600-mile wagon train trip himself. Twice. The first time was in 1993. The second was in 1999.

So, while others may have read the books and journals of those original pioneers, Carter – who has also read them all – has really done it, in a wagon pulled by horse along the same routes used by those who settled the west. And today, from his home in Casper, Wyoming, through a company called Historic Trails West, he leads modern-day wagon trail excursions on a route that literally parallels the still-visible ruts left by those who traveled the Oregon Trail 150 years ago.

His trips range from four hours to overnight excursions and week-long trips. Those who travel with him for overnight trips sleep in Tee Pees, are provided excellent Wyoming steak dinners, and a campfire where guests are regaled by the knowledge of Carter and his guides on what it was really like to make the trip.

Along the Oregon Trail

Image: Mike Wendland

Jennifer and I tagged along on one of his tours. I hopped in and out of the wagon, taking photos and shooting videos. Carter’s daughter, Oneida, who accompanied her father on the full-length Oregon Trail trip in 1999, expertly handled the two draft horses.

“There are a lot of misconceptions about the Oregon Trail,” Carter told me. “It wasn’t just one wagon most families took. It was two or three. They took everything they had to set up and furnish their new homes in the west. And the trail was usually crowded. The string of wagons often stretched out as far in front and in the back as you could see. The wagons would be sometimes 10 across. They’d average two miles an hour when pulled by oxen, maybe four if by horses.”

As I walked along taking photos, he repeatedly warned me to watch for rattlesnakes. I didn’t see any. Thankfully. “They’re all over out here,” he said. “Fortunately, they’re watching for you, too.” No wonder Jennifer decided to stay in the wagon.

In the original migration, most people walked, Carter said, making it easier on the animals. “Some walked the entire way,” he said. “Many were barefoot.” The biggest danger was accidents. Falls off wagons, under wagons, being tramped or kicked by a horse, snakebites — disease was widespread, especially cholera.

There was a saying the pioneers had about the thousands who died from the virulent intestinal disease: Healthy at breakfast, in the grave by noon. Indeed, as Jennifer and I have visited various spots along the Oregon Trail from Missouri westward, we saw several grave sites of pioneers who died along the trail of the disease.

The Oregon Trail Experience

Image: Mike Wendland

What amazed us as we rode the wagon across the countryside was how hilly it was. The tall prairie grass makes it look flat and smooth from a distance. Up close, it is a bone-jarring bumpy ride that constantly seems to be rising and falling. At camp that night, we joined his other guests for a sumptuous dinner, steaks grilled over a campfire, accompanied by baked potatoes, rolls, green beans, and bacon, all topped off by cherry cobbler baked in a Dutch Oven at the campfire.

Over coffee the next morning, before the guests left their sleeping bags in their Tee-Pees, Carter told me he was looking for help in running his expeditions and thought a work-camping RV couple would be perfect to help drive the wagons, care for the horses, and prepare the meals. He has full hookups on his property.

The trip was one of the most interesting and enjoyable things we’ve ever done in our 10 years of RVing across America. The prairie is beautiful, even when dark clouds bearing lightning and a sudden downpour swept down over the mountains. It has a vastness about it, like the ocean, spreading out wide and full beneath a big sky that bottoms out against a range of low-lying mountains. Antelope bound over the little grass hills, eagles float overhead.

I’d highly recommend the experience though you need to be in halfway decent shape without back or neck problems. Those wagons are pretty bouncy and riding a horse for extended periods of time does require a basic level of physical health.

Wagon Train Tour

Below is a video I did on the wagon train tour.

Additional Information on the Oregon Trail

If that trip seems too strenuous, following one of the many suggested routes listed in the various guidebooks will thrill and inspire you. Some references:

Oregon Trail Road Trip: Historic Sites, Small Towns, and Scenic Landscapes Along the Legendary Westward Route by Katrina Emery The Oregon Trail 4-Book Paperback Box Set Plus Poster Map by Jesse Wiley The Oregon Trail: A New American Journey By Rinker Buck The Oregon Trail: Journey to Willamette Valley by Pressman Oregon Trail Revisited by Gregory Franzwa

Happy Trails!