Our 2025 Subaru Forester Helped Us Win a Long Overdue Award
Subaru’s Ownership Badge Program helped us finally net our participation trophy.
Growing up as a let’s say less than athletic kid in the late 1980s and into the early ’90s, I never won anything. In those days, there were no participation awards, and nobody was giving out trophies for collecting Marvel cards or mastering video games. If you were a kid like me, you most likely stood there unacknowledged while the more sportingly inclined kids reaped their rewards. Pardon my French (a subject I also didn’t excel at), but I think that’s le bullshit.
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As a perpetually unawarded person, I think everyone deserves a medal or badge that acknowledges how awesome they are. Luckily, Subaru agrees with me. In the early 2000s, in recognition of their customers’ loyalty, interests, and active lifestyles, Subaru started offering “Badges of Ownership.” With our yearlong review 2025 Subaru Forester Sport sitting out on my driveway, I came to a startling revelation: I can finally win something. The best part? They have badges for tons of activities, so I don’t need to shoot a home run or kick a touchdown to earn one.
What Is a Subaru Badge of Ownership?
Subaru Badges of Ownership are small, interlocking plastic emblems that let owners brag about how many Subarus they’ve owned and the hobbies, activities, and passions they enjoy. Think Boy Scout merit badges … but for your car.
How Does It Work?
First off, you have to own a Subaru. I realize that seems obvious, but it’s worth stating. The program—free to owners (other than, you know, buying a Subaru)—uses your Vehicle Identification Number (VIN). With your VIN in hand, you visit the Badge of Ownership website at—you guessed it—badgeofownership.com.
At the bottom of the homepage, there’s a Build Your Badge button. Click it, and you’ll be prompted to first select your loyalty number, then choose your lifestyle icons, and finally order your badge.
Each badge begins with a loyalty number, which shows how many Subarus you’ve owned. It ranges from one to 10, with an 11th option of 10+, for the most diehard Subaru owners.
Once you’ve picked your loyalty number, you move on to the lifestyle badge section. There are 33 lifestyle icons to choose from, which you can view as a photo in the gallery. In short, they cover everything from highly active pursuits like marathon running to more relaxed activities like birdwatching and recycling.
Here’s the rub—you only get to pick five, so choose wisely.
The final step is where your VIN comes into play—it’s required to complete the order.
Cool, And?
It would have been easy to choose badges for our Forester based on activities I already enjoy, but I decided to let the badges guide me through a day of enjoyable activities—my own personal challenge of becoming a “badge of ownership” ace in a day.
The Day
My day started with a visit to badgeofownership.com to build my badge. Our long-term 2025 Forester Sport is the first Subaru I’ve called "my" own, so I chose the 1st Car medallion.
As I mentioned in a previous update, my dogs basically run my life, so I ordered the Animals badge—because any activity will inevitably include them. Next up was the Road Trip badge. I love exploring, and there’s no better way than hitting the open road.
Badges three and four? Love Parks and Photography. California has some truly stunning national parks, and few things make me happier than beautiful landscapes—and photographing them. Sure, there’s usually a car in the shot, too, but hey, that’s what I do best.
The fifth and final badge: Stargazing.
I grew up in the rural Pacific Northwest. On the rare occasion it wasn’t cloudy, I could sit for hours staring into the inky darkness, picking out constellations, and scanning for satellites. Living in light-polluted Los Angeles now, it’s rare to see more than a handful of stars in the bright night sky.
That’s why I set my sights on Joshua Tree National Park, about 130 miles east of home in Long Beach, California. It’s rugged, relatively remote, and dark. So dark, in fact, that it’s been designated an International Dark Sky Park by the DarkSky International.
In addition to its stellar stargazing, Joshua Tree is also epically beautiful, offering plenty of opportunities for photography.
Now, counting a 300-mile round trip as a “road trip” is a little suspect. Normally, I’d hit multiple states for a proper road trip, but for this experiment, I’ll allow it.
How Did the Badge-Engineered Weekend Go?
Unsurprisingly, fun was had. The Forester Sport is a good road-trip vehicle, though the road noise—while improved for 2025—is still noticeable after a few hours. I find the seats to be comfortable on longer trips, and there is great visibility for sightseeing thanks to the Forester’s distinctive large greenhouse.
I also really enjoy the Forester’s all-wheel-drive system and healthy ground clearance, which gave me the confidence to ditch the tourist-packed main roads and explore Joshua Tree’s lesser traveled dirt roads. The Forester handled washboard dirt roads without issue, and the most difficult part of the day was keeping my inner Colin McRae in check—I wasn’t going for the Rally/RallyCross badge, after all.
And yes—we saw stars! For about 15 glorious minutes before a layer of high clouds moved in and blocked the view. After that, the only stars I could see were in the Subaru’s emblem. But hey, that just means I’ll need to plan another trip. Oh well.
So in the end, did I climb a mountain, run a triathlon, or win a race? No. But I did take a road trip, hung out with my dogs, shot some photos, stared at the sky, and visited a national park—all while finally earning a reward for my efforts.
— Additional photography by Jessica Lynn Walker
For More On Our Long-Term 2025 Subaru Forester Sport:
Like many of my coworkers, my love for cars was cemented at a young age, thanks in part to Hot Wheels, car magazines, and every car poster I could afford when the book fair set up shop in my elementary school library. While most kids went straight for Where’s Waldo? and Goosebumps, I was torn between the poster of the Lamborghini Countach and the ’32 Ford hot rod with airbrushed flames on the cowling. In high school, I worked at Bergstrom's Antique Autos, a historic garage in Port Townsend, Washington. Surrounded by nearly a century of automotive history, I immersed myself in cleaning, sorting, and selling car parts and memorabilia. I also spent countless hours flipping through vintage car magazines and can comfortably say that I've looked through every Motor Trend, Car & Driver, Hot Rod, and Sports Car Graphic up until the early 1980s. Around the same time, I picked up photography—naturally, with cars as my main subject. Despite my high school photography teacher's advice to branch out, I stuck to my passion and attended every car show I could find. This led me to the Brooks Institute of Photography in Santa Barbara, California, where I earned a bachelor’s degree with a focus on automotive photography. I began my career at Motor Trend as a photography intern. After freelancing for a few years, I joined the Motor Trend team full-time in late 2010. My passion for cars and photography continues to fuel my work, and I hope it shines through in every shot.
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