MORRISON — Lynn Crafts and Dan Dougherty love to explore new places, but there’s just one hitch — and that’s all they need.

The Morrison couple spends a lot of time on the road, hitching up their home on wheels and exploring the country in their 16-foot Scamp travel trailer that they’ve dubbed “Caboose,” and then sharing their journeys online, in travelogues they call “Caboose Adventures,” on Facebook, Instagram and YouTube.

They share highlights of their trips, glimpses of the scenery they’ve seen, and information about their stops along with way, from the campsites they pull into to the sights they see along the way.

State parks, wineries, distilleries and places with unique natural history are among their favorite adventures, and sometimes they have no problem taking the long way to get to them. Traveling with a small trailer allows the couple to navigate along smaller roads that aren’t suitable for large trailers and RVs, leading them to hidden gems tucked away in towns and along country roads.

Most recently, they explored sites including White Pines State Forest Park in Mt. Morris, Rock Cut State Park in Rockford, and Anderson Japanese Gardens, also in Rockford.

“We’ve found we’re a good fit for a couple of kinds of places,” Crafts said. “One is state parks, and we prefer state parks over a lot of the national parks because it’s less crowded, and we go to get away from people — saying that in the nicest way — preferring nature over people. We don’t need to plan too far in advance to go out, we can go at the last minute when we have a nice window of weather.”

The couple’s Scamp adventures began in 2020 when they lived in Las Vegas. They had enjoyed traditional camping with tents for years, but when they laid eyes on the Scamp for the first time during a trip to Utah, they decided to make the step up from tent to travel trailer.

“We were tent campers for a long time, and we were camping one time and saw a lady with a tiny trailer that was pulled by her Subaru,” Crafts said. “We found out that you don’t actually have to have a big truck to have some of the luxuries that are an upgrade from tent camping.”

Scamps aren’t found at RV dealers; they’re made and sold exclusively by Eveland’s Inc. in Backus, Minnesota, and the wait time to get one can be up to 18 months, Crafts said. Theirs is a 16-foot model offers 13 feet of interior space, 7 feet wide and 8 feet tall, and features a kitchenette with microwave, sink, two-burner stove, dinette space, restroom and a sleeping area in the back.

The first two-and-a-half years they owned a Scamp, the couple traveled throughout the southwestern United States, taking in historic sites and natural wonders, such as the ghost town of Bodie, California, LaMoille Canyon in Nevada’s Ruby Mountains, and Kershaw Ryan State Park north of Las Vegas, a place they discovered only after detouring from another destination, and one they immediately fell in love with — so much so that they decided to start filming their adventures on the road.

“It was just amazing, we probably went there five or six times before we moved this way,” Dougherty said. “The scenery was just awesome. We were already taking photos and videos of our travels, but just weren’t putting them together. We talked a little bit and started putting them on a YouTube channel.”

Dougherty studied media arts at Columbia College in Chicago, and uses his expertise in filming to capture video of the voyages.

Crafts, who’s retired, is originally from San Diego, and Dougherty, who is semi-retired, was raised in the Chicago suburbs. They moved to Morrison two years ago to be closer to Dan’s family, but they didn’t leave their Scamp adventures behind; they now have new territory to explore and enjoy, learning about their new home’s history and heritage. On a trip to Bishop Hill in Henry County, a town rich in Swedish history, they visited on a day when there was a Civil War reenactment taking place.

The couple are also members of the Harvest Hosts traveling club, where members can travel to and camp at various places such as wineries, golf courses, farms and small businesses at no cost, outside of the club’s membership fee. Exploring local cuisine and spirits is another one of their interests, with recent trips to Lena Brewing Company in Lena and Hawk’s Mill Winery in Browntown, Wisconsin. They said they weren’t really wine drinkers until exploring the wineries, but have come to enjoy sweet reds, as well as a house blend from Hawk’s Mill.

Traveling during the winter months wasn’t much of an issue when the couple lived in the southwestern part of the country, but Midwest weather is a different story. The caboose hibernates during the winter months as they put their travel plans on pause — but not their planning. The Scamp’s winter nap gives them time to plan their next adventures when the weather starts to get nicer.

“Northwest Illinois has a lot to offer,” Dougherty said. “There are a lot of cool places. There’s a bunch of state parks that we haven’t gotten to yet, but they’re on the list.”

The Midwest isn’t new to Dougherty, but it is to Crafts, and she’s enjoyed seeing the countryside, with its farms, wooded areas, rolling hills and stretches of prairie land. She said it’s given her a new way of life to learn about, far from the big cities.

“When you’re in a city and it’s busy and it’s noisy, and life is chaotic when you’re go-go-going all of the time, to finding a place that is the opposite of that, it’s heaven for us,” Crafts said.

Find Caboose Adventures on Facebook, YouTube and Instagram (@cabooseadventures) to see the adventures that Lynn Crafts and Dan Dougherty have made with their Scamp trailer “Caboose.”