ABOUT BIGFOOT TRAILS BASECAMP
THE LAND
Bigfoot Trails began long before there was a website, a media company, or even a name for it.
In 2023, my parents bought five acres of land next to the five acres my wife's parents had called home since 1990. The original plan was pretty simple: the property would eventually become a family burial ground — a place where generations of our families could remain together even after they were gone.
About six months later, that plan changed.
My wife and I ended up taking over that original five-acre parcel with a different idea. We wanted to build our forever home, put down some roots, and live next to family.
Then we got a phone call.
Nearly twelve additional acres next door were going up for sale, and we were being given the first opportunity to buy them.
The answer was pretty damn easy.
Yes. Absolutely.
That brought the property to just over 20 acres.
In September 2025, we sold our house and moved onto the property full-time in our motorhome. We're living here while we work the land, figure out what we're going to build, and slowly turn this rough piece of Washington timberland into the place we've been imagining.
There is no master plan that gets built overnight.
We're doing it a piece at a time.
Eventually there will be a home for my wife and me, trails through the woods, gardens, gathering spaces, shops and places for the family to spread out without ever being too far apart.
But somewhere along the way, this place became more than a future home.
It became our Basecamp.
It's where the adventures begin.
It's where we come back to.
It's where vehicles get worked on, stories get told, plans get made, and the next adventure usually starts with somebody saying, “Well, let's go see what happens.”
And that's really what Bigfoot Trails is about.
Family. Land. Legacy. And getting out there.
A FAMILY HISTORY OF GETTING OUT THERE
Adventure isn't something we discovered recently.
It's been part of our family for generations.
Our family has four generations of drag racers, going all the way back to 1967. We've also got five generations of motorcycle riders in the family.
But getting out there has never been limited to cars and motorcycles.
My parents were stationed in Germany with the Army, and I was born there. While they were stationed overseas, our family traveled around Europe, seeing different countries, places, and cultures.
I was pretty young, so I obviously didn't appreciate all of it the way I would today. But looking back, that was my first exposure to something that would become a pretty big part of my life:
Going somewhere just to see what's there.
Cars, motorcycles, racing, road trips, working on machines, and heading off to see what was around the next corner weren't things we did because we were trying to create content.
We did them because that's just what our families did.
My dad was racing and riding. His dad was riding. Before long, I was doing the same thing. Then came the next generation, and the next.
The machines have changed. The roads have changed. The adventures have changed.
The part that hasn't changed is the desire to go somewhere and see what happens.
Some of those adventures have involved motorcycles and thousands of miles on the road. Some have involved race cars, drag strips, Jeeps, trucks and projects that probably should have been left alone.
Some have simply involved loading up and going somewhere we've never been.
And somewhere along the way, we realized something:
Those experiences are the stories.
That's what we want Bigfoot Trails to capture.
Not a polished version of adventure.
The real version.
FROM BASECAMP TO INDEPENDENT ADVENTURE MEDIA
For years, Bigfoot Trails was simply a name for a place.
It was our family property, our home, and eventually the place we came back to between trips and adventures.
As the years went by, I started documenting more of those experiences. Some became stories about places we'd been, some about people we'd met, and some were simply things that happened along the way that were worth remembering.
That eventually led to the idea behind Bigfoot Trails Basecamp as an independent adventure media company.
We're not sitting in an office looking for adventures to write about.
We go have the adventures.
Then we come home and tell the stories.
Sometimes those stories are about a place.
Sometimes they're about a road, a vehicle, a piece of gear, a person we met, or something completely unexpected that happened along the way.
Sometimes the adventure is the whole point.
Sometimes the adventure is simply what happened while we were trying to get somewhere else.
That's what makes BTB different.
We're not trying to tell you what adventure is supposed to look like.
We're out there experiencing it ourselves.
And then we're telling you what happened.
MEET THE WRITERS
Bigfoot Trails isn't a newsroom full of writers sitting behind desks looking for stories.
We're the people out there having the experiences.
TOM NEAL
I'm the guy behind Bigfoot Trails Basecamp.
I've spent most of my life around vehicles, motorcycles, racing, travel, and projects that tend to take longer and cost more than originally planned.
After decades of doing all that stuff, I've learned that the best stories usually aren't the ones you planned.
They're the people you meet.
The places you stumble across.
The things that go wrong.
And the moments you never expected.
That's what I want to capture with BTB.
I don't want to write about adventure from the outside.
I want to go experience it, then tell you what happened.
THE FAMILY
BTB isn't just one person's adventure.
My wife and family are part of the stories too.
Whether we're traveling together, racing, working around Basecamp, exploring somewhere new, or dealing with whatever unexpected shit the day throws at us, these experiences are shared.
And that's important to BTB.
Because the best adventures usually aren't about doing something alone.
They're about who you were with when it happened.
THE FUTURE OF BIGFOOT TRAILS
Bigfoot Trails is still a work in progress.
The property is changing. We're building, fixing, clearing, exploring, and figuring things out as we go.
The media side is changing too.
What started as a website has grown into something much bigger in our minds — an independent place to share the adventures, experiences, people, places, vehicles, and stories that come out of this life.
We don't know exactly what Bigfoot Trails will look like ten years from now.
And honestly, that's part of the fun.
We'll keep building the Basecamp.
We'll keep getting out there.
We'll keep collecting stories.
And we'll see where the road takes us.
Adventure isn't a product. It's an experience.
That's been the idea all along.