Twenty-five years, in years.
Dreamland has changed hands twice and weathered a pandemic. And the Southern Utah desert is still as good as it was 25 years ago.
Founded
David and Marilyn found Dreamland with one truck and a permit.
+ storyDavid and Marilyn ran Dreamland for a decade and made it a genuine business, not a weekend side gig — a working guide service that Kanab knew by name. The phone line they set up in 2001 is the same one that still rings today.
Will takes over
Will James takes over and pushes it past its family-business roots.
+ storyThe DeVoghts had built a solid family operation; Will took it much further — more trucks, a real roster of guides, and country they'd never run, like the deep-sand drive out to the White Wave. He'd surveyed these back roads for the BLM, so he knew them better than the maps did.
Paul & Sunny
Paul Gagner & Sunny Stroeer buy Dreamland — ten days before COVID hit.
+ storyWe booked a Dreamland trip as guests first, just to see what we were buying. We signed the papers on March 6, 2020. Ten days later COVID shut the whole country down, and we spent our first season as owners waiting it out. We held on.
Twenty years
A 120-person party, a live band, and a Mayor's Choice parade float.
+ storyComing out of the COVID year we went big for the 20th: 120 people and a band playing its first-ever set. For the Fourth of July we built a float with dinosaurs dancing in the waves and rode it through the Kanab parade — it took home the Mayor's Choice Award.
Twenty-five
4,800+ five-star reviews later, the biggest fuss yet.
+ storyThree owners and twenty-five years on, we're still running people into the same canyons. To mark it we're counting down 25 of the trips and spots that got us here — a new one released between now and November.