Van Life: A day in the life
Living the van life for 6 months has awakened my soul. I will do my best to share my experience with you. I’ve had the opportunity to traverse a large part of North America, gain some new perspectives and I’m very thankful for this. The best way for me to describe van life is for you to get out there and live it. That is easier said than done, but if you’re here reading this then you must be a little curious. I hope there is something you can find here and take away from me sharing my experience. Either it being familiar or unfamiliar to you. Feel free to skip to sections that interest you but kudos if you read to the end. My journey will be different from yours. I’m here to share my experiences for what it is worth. I’ve had the opportunity to see and be apart of some things I didn’t think I would have the chance to see. It’s been very eye-opening and life-changing, to say the least.
Van Stats
Snowbird In Training
Growing up in Minnesota I have become accustomed to extreme cold and long winters. Majority of the year I would spend cuddled up inside longing for warmer weather. Summer would arrive as a liberating release that only lasted 3–4 months of the year. It’s beautiful entrance followed by its abrupt retreat. A yearly seasonal pulse that helped shaped my creative imagination. Witnessing the beauty in the transition from life to death and the balance of nature. Rhythm through repetition each year would pass by. I accepted it as my environment and it became a comfortable way of life. I identified more with the colder seasons like Fall & Winter because I felt the most creative during these seasons. In the last couple of years, there was a shift in me towards the enjoyment of warmer weather all year around. I didn’t know it yet but I became a snowbird in training. Chasing the sun during the winters and migrating back north for the summer.
Leaving The Nest
I left Minneapolis to Chicago on Jan 24, 2019, during a winter snowstorm. With temperatures in the single digits and negatives. A long slow drive plowing through thick snow and wind almost pushing me off the road. It was a tough time to be heading south, and the road was rough but I was finally ready. The shiny golden sun rays and sandy beaches were almost in sight. Over the next 3 days, I traveled south heading through Indiana, Kentucky, Tennessee, Atlanta and arrived in northern Florida. Spending nights at hotel rooms until it was warm enough to sleep in the van. Even though I was prepared at this point I still haven’t slept one night in the van yet. I needed to take a leap of faith. My first night was at a Motel 6 parking lot. I awoke in the morning with my first successful night and I was distilled with confidence. Even though I didn’t have any experience of where is safe and best practices yet I thought, “I can do this!” I was figuring this all out as I go. Taking that little risk and winning those little wins. They started to compound on each other and I started to gain momentum. I started to believe I can make this a way of life. I was challenging my current habits, routines and current conventions of daily life. Breaking down my barriers. Pretty quickly your instincts awaken and you light up. You start to become more aware and present. Releasing yourself into travel mode. You are forced to be adaptable, resourceful, and aware of your surroundings. It’s that travel high we all crave. Tapping back into a bit of our basic primal instincts. Familiarity is in constant flux and you make more on the fly decisions. Living one day at a time. It’s very gratifying not knowing where you are exactly going to sleep, but trusting you’ll find one. You start to trust a gut feeling more and use it to guide your direction sometimes. I was shifting out of autopilot and starting to drive with intention.
“Breaking free from familiarity woke me up.”
After a while traveling you start to see the familiar in the unfamiliar and become more comfortable not knowing what’s next. Your home starts to become wherever you are. Every day became lit from here on out.
Day In The Life
A large part of my traveling so far has been city camping. City camping is basically finding public resources you can rely on to live. Public places to park/sleep, shower, bathroom, laundry, food, wifi, and hangout. Basically, all the things you could typically have in a home, but now wherever you are is home. Navigating public resources. My day in the life explanation will focus on this type of day. In general, there are many public resources you can use to sustain a healthy minimal lifestyle without a typical home. These resources help support travel and those irreplaceable moments while on the road.
Waking Up
Most mornings I would wake up reorienting where I parked. Not completely sure where I am. I usually have the sun blocking curtains up on all the windows so it is pretty dark and you can’t tell what type or time of day it is. Sitting up out of bed and peeling back the curtain to see.
“It feels like the day is a present waiting to be opened.”
I open up all the curtains and let the light in. I then begin getting dressed based on the type of day. I have a minimal amount of clothing to to keep organization easy. I keep all my clothes stored underneath my bed. I have a bin for pants, shirts & shorts, towels, socks & underwear. I keep my jackets or hoodie hanging on the wall behind my driver’s seat. I try to keep only one of everything I know I will use often. If I am not using it, then it shouldn’t be in the van. I try to keep the things I use most accessible within the van so I don’t need to get out and make my presence known.
Bathroom
I kept my build simple without a standard sink and bathroom as I didn’t see the need for them. I can use public resources or just water anywhere outside. I also keep a 7-gallon water jug inside the van. I fill it up regularly with distilled water from a local grocery store. After I am dressed I search for a public restroom to use the bathroom for the morning routine. There I can brush my teeth, wash my face, and use the toilet without using my own water. I found that I can time my bathroom usage for the morning and right before bed. This limits the possibility of me having a night bathroom emergency. Which I have only had once in 6 months. I do have a portable toilet which I only use when camping. I also have a simple method for an emergency pee. A sealable metal tin with a sealable bottle in it. This has worked pretty efficiently with no smell. You can dump it outside or in a bathroom and wash it out too. You would be surprised how many available public restrooms there are. Gas stations, coffee shops, grocery stores, restaurants, beaches, lakes and basically anywhere that is an establishment.
Shower
I decided to get an Anytime Fitness for a reliable place to shower. I got my membership when I was in Florida for $35 a month at the time. I chose Anytime Fitness because they have the most facilities nationally and are open 24/7. My current travel lifestyle is not designed to be completely off-grid so I did not make a portable shower. I decided to utilize public resources more and it is worth it to me to pay for this resource. It also gets me in the gym and I can work out before I take a shower. A lot of Anytime Fitness places have free wifi and coffee as well. During my travels, I would be keen to where the Anytime Fitness locations where so I knew how far I needed to go for a shower. I would typically take a shower every 3 days unless I went running or worked out. There are public beach showers as an option as well or you can take a little dip in the ocean. In a pinch I could do a wet wipe bath to prolong the days I don’t need a shower. Keeping good hygiene while traveling I do not find difficult to do.
Work
One of the key things to making life on the road work is having a way to maintain it financially. You need to find a way to make a living while traveling to sustain it. With a bit of planning, you can get your monthly budget very low. Living the van life does lower your cost of living. The less you have to maintain, the less work you need to do. Cutting out monthly rent or a mortgage bill substantially reduces the amount of work you need to do. You can cut other costs as well to work less. Working remotely as a digital nomad has been my main source of income while traveling. I work as a Sr. Front-End Web Developer and I set myself up with a part-time remote gig. I work remote from coffee shops, anywhere with wifi or my Verizon unlimited data MIFI jetpack. All my meetings are done through group video chats and calls.
“Wherever I go, there’s my office.”
I think time is the most precious gift we have to experience or share. Unfortunately, I think we spend most of our time working our lives away instead of living it. In America, we work 5 or more days a week and typically have 1 or 2 days a week to do the things we want or explore who we are outside of work.
“Work less, live more.”
I was capable to cut my work week in half so I can spend more time living instead of working. I know this may not work for everyone based on their needs, but I truly think we all should work less and live more. I worked three days a week. I then have the rest of the week to travel.
I would like to clarify the difference between the term travel and the term vacation. Living in a van is not an extended vacation, it is a way of life that offers the opportunity for you to travel more often.
- Vacation: “An extended period of leisure and recreation, especially one spent away from home.”
- Travel: “A journey especially to a distant or unfamiliar place.”
A vacation often focuses on leisure away from home and traveling focuses on the journey to an unfamiliar place. Both can be gateways to help you live in a more awake state of mind. I’m speaking about the travel high we get when we are on vacation or traveling. Tapping into a state of constant, total amazement and awe of our surroundings. To be more present in the moment and open to our environment. What if we could live in that state all the time or more often? Traveling is one method to reach it easily but the real destination I think we seek when we travel is finding this state of being within ourselves. To be able to live in this state without traveling to a particular place to achieve it.
“Arrive without traveling. Be where you are.”
I think we can adjust our work/life balance to find a happy medium. I’m not going to let capitalism and the American dream rob me of living a more full and present life. I don’t need to accept what society and the generation before me has conditioned me to be. I think we can forge what life means to us. I’m not saying we can fully escape society because that is unrealistic. I am apart of society and I need to contribute back to its growth. I am challenging you to revisit what is enough and how you want to participate in this game of life.
What is enough?
How do you want to spend your time?
Travel
After I have completed my work for the week I can focus my energy into being as present as I can with my day and self. Seeking new destinations, experiences, people, and friends. I really enjoy the coastal ocean beaches and exercise. Physical exertion either it be running or cycling. Pushing myself until I am tired, rehydrate and rest. Simple pleasures of life that contribute to my overall mental health and happiness. I am an also an artist/illustrator/caricaturist, but traveling has given me a new appreciation for amateur photography. While traveling I am in constant awe of all the beauty everywhere and can’t help but capture it. Traveling and capturing photos became more of a creative outlet for me than illustrating at the time.
While traveling I think its important to spend enough time in each area and not move too fast through them. Holding space to enjoy the simple things that come with each new destination. I noticed after I have successfully spent one night in a place I feel more comfortable. The second day I familiarize myself with all the public resources and by then I have established a repeatable familiar pattern that I can rely upon and adventure deeper into the location. With each big city I typically would do a circle in method. Starting with the suburbs and working my way into the city. After a week in that area, I start to feel very comfortable with navigating the territory. At this time I begin to move to a new location. I would sit down at a coffee shop and plan the next big city I am looking to visit. Noting the smaller cities as I pass through them. Equally breathtaking and sometimes unexpectedly more so.
Doing an extended solo van life trip presented me with many moments to myself. Many moments of reflective self-discovery and personal growth. I didn’t feel alone because I am comfortable enjoying myself without the company of others. I do enjoy the company of others, but it is more of an option I can tap into when I feel like it. There are billions of people on the planet also longing for company and I don’t find it difficult to start a conversation with someone new. People are everywhere and you can strike up a conversation at any moment. I can spend less than 10 minutes with someone new and be able to find common ground. I like to focus on the similarities more than the differences and even in those differences, I see the similarities. I feel an overwhelming sense of connection to everything and it gives me strength and peace. We live in a shared global society. We are all in this together.
Sleep
After a day of work and travel, it was not hard to find public overnight parking. There are many options available. I mainly utilized open hotel parking lots as a reliable place for me to park. I also would park near city parks. If I was to do side road parking I would try to do it in front of a business establishment in a non-busy area. I would keep away from residential streets but I sometimes do that as well. I can park along a river, lake or beach when it is available. Sometimes even the Anytime Fitness parking lot worked. Any place that is open 24/7 can work. Surprisingly I did not sleep one night in a Walmart parking lot despite the common stereotype of doing so. When I am ready to sleep I have a destination picked out. When I am ready to go to bed I will just pull up to the spot sometime after 10 pm and park. I’ll chill for a couple of minutes before sliding into the back and shutting the curtain. I take a seat on my bed and feel comfortable/safe in the van. Inside is like a tiny wood-paneled cabin home and on the outside, it looks like a contractor van. It is my little hidden retreat in plain sight. I have not been bothered, had someone knock on my van or break in once. This is the benefit of having a stealth camper van that does not stand out.
Cities
Overall I spent the majority of my time in Key West, New Orleans, Austin, and California. I’ve got to experience some amazing events like attending the III Points Festival in Miami, witnessing Mardi Gras in New Orleans, volunteering at SXSW with a platinum badge in Austin, visiting the historic missionaries of El Paso, hiking the White Sand Desert in New Mexico, driving up the scenic Coastal Highway 1 in California, attending the Chemical Brothers live in San Francisco, hiking the Redwood Forest, seeing the massive mountains across Canada and the many beautiful beach sunsets along the coast.
Van Updates
I could have bought an awning, but it would be another thing that made the van look less stealthy. I also wanted a size that was big enough without breaking the budget. I came up with a design that was cheap to make and looks stealthy. The size of the awning is 10ft length x 8ft wide x 7ft tall. Made with connectable PVC pipe stored in a giant black tube on the ceiling. This took some troubleshooting to get right, but now I have a working awning that looks like a contractor van tube when packed away. Of course, after I completed it I had an epiphany for a much simpler swing style design, but maybe another time.
New Mattress
I went from an old full size 3 inch thick futon mattress to a full size 7.5 inch thick IKEA foam mattress. I wish I would have done this sooner. The difference in the quality of sleep is substantial.
Stained Wall Shelves
I stained and installed some new simple wooden boxes as shelves. These shelves make more things easily accessible to me within the van.
Four Person Bike Rack
I installed a 4 person bike rack that adjusts down when I need to open the back doors.
Van Maintenance
The starter was failing intermittently so I just installed a new starter and now it kicks in every time. Four months ago I installed a new water pump in Pasadena, CA. I change the oil every 3,000 miles along with tire pressure and tread check. Recently did an AC coolant recharge for these endless summer days. When your vehicle is also your home it is important to keep it running properly.
Thanks for reading. I hope sharing my experience has helped give some insight into living the van life on the road. Reach out if you have any questions or want to share stories. See you out there.
(Originally written Jul 24, 2019)
