From Hotel Rooms to Basecamp on Wheels: The Cox Family Story

It was supposed to be a climbing trip in Greece.

Then, the morning they were due to fly out, a strike shut the airports down, and Frank and Nathalie Cox found themselves scrambling for a plan B with a two-year-old in tow. They switched their flights and headed for Zion National Park instead. 

They’d packed for one kind of trip and ended up on another. The days were everything Zion promised, but the nights were another story. With a toddler asleep by 7pm, the hotel room went dark, leaving Frank and Nathalie sitting quietly next to a TV they had no interest in, while one of the most spectacular places in North America carried on without them outside. “It just took so much away from our trip,” Nathalie says. “I was like, this cannot be our holidays for the next 10 years.”

She’d lived in a van for a year before she met Frank, climbing her way across the States and spending three months in Mexico. She knew exactly what a night like this could look like instead: their daughter, Keira tucked into her own bed, while the two of them pulled their camp chairs up to a fire, cracked a couple of beers, and watched the stars come out.

“We need to get a van,” she told Frank. “I don’t want Keira growing up in a hotel room with a TV. That’s not what I want to do in our time off. I want to be outside.” 

It took a while to get Frank on board, as Nathalie tells it, though these days he’s the one who misses the van the moment they get home. He came around in 2018, when the Coxes bought their first van. It carried them right through COVID, but by 2025, the family had outgrown it. It was time to say goodbye to their old van and, as Frank puts it, “good morning to Asgard,” their new Yama Van.

Meet the Coxes

Frank is Dad. Nathalie is Mom, or Maman. And Keira, now 11, is by her own description “the heart of the family.” No one’s arguing.

The Coxes live in Calgary, which makes the Rockies their backyard. Between the three of them, they ski, climb, bike, fish, hike, paddleboard, and raft, and while their adventures have taken them across the country and beyond, the mountains are home base. For Nathalie, who moved west from Quebec, being here is a choice. “It’s my new home,” she says. “It’s where we made our family.”

Frank and Nathalie met climbing, back when life felt easy and simple. Then came demanding careers, and parenthood, and everything that comes with both. The mountains are where they get that version of themselves back. “It brings out the best in us,” Nathalie says. “When we go to the Rockies, it’s where we find ourselves again as a family, and as people, too.”

Keira notices it too. At home, between work and school, it’s easy for everyone to get wrapped up in their own thing. In the mountains, the music comes back on, and so does the conversation. “We talk a lot and communicate,” she says. “And we learn stuff about, oh, this week maybe somebody had a bad day, but we never knew about it because we just didn’t feel like talking.”

Frank sums it up simply: “As a family, we’re different in the van.”

What Their First Van Taught Them

The Coxes’ first van was an older pop-top camper van. Keira slept up top, and Frank and Nathalie slept below. It carried them on trips to Quebec and around Vancouver Island, and it got them through COVID, a stretch Nathalie remembers fondly. “We had the world to ourselves, in the van, exploring. It was a very special time.”

It was a good starter van. But the more the Coxes asked of it, the more it struggled to keep up. 

Built for highways and campgrounds, it didn’t love the gravel roads and remote spots the family started chasing. Screws rattled loose from the cabinets, and on low-clearance roads, one parent drove while the other hopped out to check they’d make it. “We probably pushed our old van to its limits,” Keira says. 

The pop-top had its own quirks. Packing up Keira’s bed and wrestling the canvas back down took 20 to 25 minutes, usually while their truck-camper friends sat waiting to roll out. And as Keira grew, the top bunk got less cozy. In winter, she’d bury herself in blankets or sleep on the floor, sliding down into the step by the door. One night, she flat out refused, so Frank took the floor instead. (“Sometimes, you’ve just got to do it as a dad,” he says). 

With limited storage inside, the bikes rode on a rack out the back, collecting road grime and keeping the family parked within sight of the cafe window. Leaving them behind for a full-day hike felt like a gamble. Once, they even pulled the wheels off and stacked all three bikes inside the living space, leaving rubber marks everywhere. The power needed babysitting too. On one Vancouver Island trip, the van sat in the shade with no sun to top up the battery during a two-day canoe trip, and Nathalie came back to a week’s worth of spoiled food. 

By the time the Coxes started shopping for a new van, the list of non-negotiables had pretty much written itself.

What Changed With Asgard

With Asguard, their Teton01N, the Coxes finally have a van that keeps up. The gravel roads that used to rattle the old van are fair game now, and so is the Crown land they turned back from twice. “In the past, there was that fear of having to tow a van out of a location,” Frank says. “Now, I don’t have that fear.”

Room for Everyone

Keira's seat-bed now takes less than five minutes to set up, and at 11, having a space that's all hers matters. With her parents tucked into their bed and Keira in hers, it almost feels like they each have their own room. "When you're on the road for three weeks, it makes a difference," Nathalie shares. Blankets and stuffies live in Keira's full time, and Porkchop, her favourite stuffed pig, is always along for the ride.

Mornings got easier, too. Nathalie's usually first up, unless Frank has slipped out to go fishing. She makes her coffee and fires up her little waffle maker while Keira wakes up slowly and lounges with a book in her corner. As Nathalie puts it, it feels like a weekend morning at home, "except the scenery is way better."

Everything In Its Place

Bikes now ride inside the gear garage, out of the weather and out of sight, with a Thule box on the roof for overflow. Frank runs the back end, sliding the bikes into their tray and tucking in his fishing rod, a must on every trip. On their three-week summer trip, they fit three bikes, a raft, a paddleboard, and climbing gear without anything spilling into the living space. “I don’t do well with clutter,” Nathalie says. “I was really surprised how much we got in.”

The kitchen is Nathalie’s domain, and the bigger fridge and freezer mean real food on the road. Easy proteins and pre-cut veggies keep fast food off the menu, and since everything else stays in the van, packing mostly means grabbing a bag of clothes each. And Frank is happy to report there’s still room for “a couple more beers” squeezed into the back of the fridge. We'd be happy about that too.

Peace of Mind, Rain or Shine

Frank’s love for his battery is a running family joke. Between solar and a second alternator that charges the house batteries while they drive, the days of watching the voltage drop are over, and there’s power to spare, waffle maker included. “I look at the power levels, and it’s like, ‘Oh my god, it’s 91%,’” Frank says. He’s so sold on the alternator that before a long drive, he’ll unplug from shore power at home and let the road do the charging. As he puts it, “This is the real deal.”

The heat changed things, too. In the old van, Keira was the one shivering up top. Now, the warmth comes up right under her bed, and winter trips are a lot cozier. “We can feel the van warming up, and it actually warms up pretty fast,” she says. Even rainy days don’t send them home anymore. Nathalie would much rather stay in the van playing cards then head back to the city and start checking work emails. "

The Big Summer Loop

This summer, the Coxes put Asgard to the test with three weeks on the road, looping out from Calgary through Banff, Lake Louise, Golden, and Revelstoke, all the way to Squamish before winding home through Nakusp. It poured for much of it. They biked, hiked, and climbed in Squamish anyway, and it’s still one of Keira’s favourite places. She’s a hiker at heart, with the Tour du Mont Blanc and the West Coast Trail already under her belt. For families looking for a hike closer to home, her pick is Sentinel Pass, out of Lake Louise. 

Three weeks together in a van will test any family. “At the end, we were starting to get on each other’s nerves,” Keira admits. “But it was so fun.” Nathalie would happily stretch the next one to a month, and Frank has a trick for the long hauls: one night partway through somewhere with a bathtub, where everyone gets cleaned up, the van gets restocked, and they head back out reset. These days, the only thing that ends a trip is the calendar. Work for Mom and Dad, school for Keira. Frank admits they’ve tested those limits once or twice. “Can’t beat real-world experience.”

What’s Next for the Coxes

Winter’s coming, which means ski hills, starting with Panorama, and a lot fewer hotel bills. Nathalie is campaigning for some cross-country days. Frank and Keira are firmly team downhill.

Further out, Alaska top’s Frank’s list. Keira has her sights on New Zealand, which would mean shipping Asgard overseas, something no Yama owner has done yet. “I’d like to be the first,” she says.

But when Frank talks about the future, it comes back to Keira. He knows a day will come when she’d rather stay home than pile into the van with her parents. “So we want to make sure that she enjoys the van as much as possible.”

Zion is still on the list, too. When they get back there, bedtime is going to look a lot different.

Is your family’s version of Zion still a hotel room? Book an intro call, and let’s talk about what a van built for this chapter could look like for you.

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