In a Rented RV, Roaming Western Roads Andy Isaacson for The New York Times Driving through California's remote northeast. I HAVE spent the night in a Walmart parking lot. I have driven through a national park with a trail of cars in my rearview mirror. I have learned how to dispose of my waste through a plastic hose, and I have filled my gas tank more times in one week than I thought was possible. But this is to be expected when you're driving a small studio apartment, or, as I began to call it, my "rig." One man in a rural California border town even called it cute. He said it reminded him of a Doritos delivery truck. The rig was a 19-foot-long, gleaming white, class-C motor home - an RV that I rented from Cruise America, the country's largest recreational vehicle rental company; 800-RV-4RENT was prominently emblazoned across the exterior, as were colorful images of America's national parks and natural patrimony. It was a proverbial flag patch sewn on a backpack, and as someone who makes an effort to downplay the fact that I'm a tourist when I travel, this granted no disguise. And just as well: I had never driven an RV before, and for this I could say I had never experienced my own country as millions do every summer, and have for more than a century. When I booked the RV online a couple of months earlier, I found myself signing up for not so much a mode of transportation as a set of desirable feelings. "With a Cruise America RV," the Web site said, "you can roam wherever your spirit takes you, throughout the US and Canada. And with a full kitchen in your RV, you can skip out on endless drive-through menus and enjoy more satisfying meals and snacks. Roam, spirit, satisfying meals: these are not the sort of words used to tout a rental car or an airplane seat. An RV road trip promised the distinction of freedom and flexibility, comfort and convenience: a travel experience unencumbered by the need for reservations. I enlisted my friends Tyson and Angelina, and we mapped a vague plan: Oakland, Calif., to Oregon and back, in eight days. We'd go where we wanted to go, when we wanted to go. We'd tour less-visited national parks and rural towns and sleep wherever it suited us. RVers constitute a certain tribe on the road, and I learned that thousands were converging in central Oregon for what was billed as the Greatest RV Rally in the World. On a July afternoon, after receiving instructions in the Cruise America parking lot on how to check the RV's water levels and empty the waste tank, we headed off on Interstate 80. Packing for an RV road trip is like preparing for a weekend at a cozy cabin. The luxury of space and the semblance of domestic life inspired me to carry things like candles and paprika, soft cotton sheets and extra pillows. I took sharp knives, folding chairs and musical instruments and put avocados and lemons in a bowl on the kitchenette counter. We hung up our coats in the closet, with hangers. As I drove the rig, Tyson and Angelina put away groceries. A compact RV drives like a van, but its bulky size soon altered my personality behind the wheel. I paid close attention to the yellow speed advisory signs for a change, and I rarely switched lanes, feeling unusually content to cruise in a patient, linear fashion. Abrupt turns would cause the drawers and cabinets to fly open, anyway, prompting a scramble for rolling onions. From a higher perch the landscape appeared wider, more available. Once we joined Interstate 5 in California's Central Valley I began to feel a closer kinship with the truckers on the road, especially that first evening, after we pulled into a Walmart. OF all the things Walmart is best known for (low prices, litigation, the demise of mom-and-pop stores), an overnight stopping place for RVers is not among them. But drive any evening into a Walmart lot along a busy highway, and you'll probably find parked motor homes. RVers often spend weeks on the road: that road is long, and there are many Walmarts along the way. As the company sees it, RVs arrive with their own bathrooms, and their drivers are well positioned to shop: everybody's happy. Searching online from my phone I learned there were three Walmarts staggered along 30 miles of Interstate 5 in Northern California. ANDY ISAACSON contributes to The Times as a writer and photographer. His most recent cover article for Travel was on shamanism and culture in the Ecuadorean Amazon.