East. The direction of our travel. Wheat is in our rear-view, lakes and forests are our new driving companions. Leaving Winnipeg you are hit with a sudden change of scenery. As we drive the now winding Highway 1 we are excitedly fixated on our surroundings. On the lookout for moose and deer we sit as if waiting for Santa on Christmas Eve. Winding through the lake-scattered east coast of Ontario, Samara and I had some time to glance at a map. Having heard the drive to Kenora was breathtaking, that was our destination. But as we gained on the small town, we were faced with another decision: keep heading east, or head south towards the Canada US border. Having explored East to Toronto, our minds once again raced as we dreamed about exploring the unknown land mass to our south.
Leaving Calgary, it becomes very clear that you are in the prairies. Playing “I spy” becomes challenging as the only thing yellow is the wheat and the only thing blue is the sky. The alphabet game becomes impossible as there are no signs on the road. I was bored. My once blissful love affair with these beautiful big farms became more like an over played song on the radio.
Anyone who knows me, knows to not be around me when I get bored because I quickly make some vane attempts to amuse myself through making up songs (note: I have absolutely no creative song writing abilities) and playing with my dogs (even they know to just play dead and accept it now).
Driving on the highway, we saw a sign that said something about a border crossing. Myles decided he wanted to try driving through the states for a bit of change in scenery. Without clearly any real thought, I jumped on board dreaming of crossing this invisible line into the states and being in the middle of some lush unexplored rain forest. The border crossing was surprisingly pleasant despite having three dogs in the car and in a matter of minutes, we were in the land of cheap gas and greasy burgers. About five minutes driving in the states and I had a hard jolt of reality, apparently this invisible line didn’t hide the tropical haven that I had dreamed of, in reality it looked exactly the same with long wheat fields, only this side had more oil drills and less Tim Horton’s.
In preparation for the lack of Steeped Teas our southern neighbour carries, Myles and I had recently begun acclimatizing to McDonalds double-double only to have an almost nightmare-ish realization that when ordering in the states and saying you’d like “one large double-double” they don’t know what you mean and the worst part of all, when you receive your large coffee, it isn’t nearly as good as what you have become accustomed too.
Life driving through the Prairies without good coffee, I don’t know how Americans do it! I suppose the prairies wouldn’t be so bad, but driving through it at the high speed of 80 km/hr turned what would be an eight hour experience, into a twelve hour experience. Crossing back into Canada at the North Dakota – Saskatchewan border crossing was, again, a very fast experience, making the border guards giggle at our attempt to escape the Prairies. Before long we were in Manitoba and all the wheat was replaced with sun flowers.
Everywhere you looked, there were hectares of Sunflowers in the most beautiful dance of color. Looking up at the darkening sky, Myles and I quickly pulled over and sat in the complete darkness of the fields to watch a storm roll in. We were in Manitoba for four days and every single day we were there the weather was the same. Beautifully warm, dry mornings that was followed by a giant storm every afternoon. Sheets of warm, nickel sized rain poured down while beautiful strikes of electricity lit up the sky and loud growling thunder shook our van.
I was in love with the moodiness of this province. Myles would get so mad at me for sitting outside of our van in hot puddles of water watching the night sky light up. It wasn’t the periodic lightning like I was used to – it was a constant and steady light show that left me completely speechless. The town of Winnipeg was a blissful surprise as I had no idea what to expect with this little city. Granted that after the prairies, I would have been happy with anything that had “unclaimed land” but what I found was even better. Every single residential street, both downtown and in the suburbs is lined with trees, and all the people were unusually friendly.
The downside to the city is it has the worst streets you have ever driven on, and it is home to the most bugs you will ever in your life see. Since leaving for this adventure a month and a half ago I have been stung by six bees (on a hike Myles accidentally stepped in a bee hive), four wasps (they’re just assholes) and probably eight million mosquitoes. After stopping in for a wonderful time spent with some of Myles family, we are ready to leave Manitoba and drive east in search of some much needed lake time.
Everyone knows that common American Dream of driving to an airport, looking at the screen that says all the different flights going out and blindly choosing one. Movies have been made about
running into the unknown with no responsibilities and disappearing. However, I believe that only a very few amount of people could actually get to the boarding time, let alone actually purchasing the ticket without panicking.
“I have no luggage, no plans, no hotel, what is my boss going to say – and my husband, I haven’t done any research, I don’t even speak the language.”
I believe this common fantasy is more like a not very well thought out fairy tale for most. However, I can confidently say that it is close to what #vanlife is like, for us anyway. It could be because we are still new to vanlife, having only been at it for just over a month now, or it could be that this is how most people feel about it. But I hardly ever know what town I will sleep in that night when I wake up in the morning. It may be our disorganization and excited (and arguably not very well thought out) planning but there has been more than a handful of times where I will be up getting lost in the mountains somewhere and will look at Myles and say “what city are we in right now again?” One amazing evening talking to some new friends over a fire we received advice to head towards the Rockies. That is all it took for Myles and I to jump on a late night ferry off the island and speed (ha!) to go see this beautiful unknown land. Clearly we are not the most patient of people as the Rockies have been standing for quite some time and will remain for much longer. We just wanted to go, and for us that’s enough of a motivation as any.
I’m sure we will have to eventually become more organized. We will have to stop zig-zagging our way across for this trip, but for now we are testing the boundaries of freedom this lifestyle offers. And so far we haven’t found many boundaries. We are now eating right, having learned that this is the most important thing because in an area as tight as ours. There’s little room for the hangry green monsters that sometimes come out. With only food, gas and dog food as expenses Myles and I feel free to do whatever we want. This lifestyle does not have bells and whistles. You have to for one be pretty comfortable with yourself as changing in public will become a common occurrence. Brushing your teeth at the beach is a thing; going into McDonald’s to refill your water bottles when you’re driving through cities will become a norm.
Pro tip: Myles and I bought gym passes to a anytime fitness – a gym that’s open anytime of day and located all over North America. This means we can use their showers, refill our water, go to the bathroom, steal some WiFi etc all along the way without having to pay each time.
But if you can handle all that prepare for an unbelievable amount of freedom. I truly didn’t know this level of freedom existed. The way I think has changed, the options I have in life seemed to have opened up tremendously, our relationship with each other and with ourselves has gotten so much stronger – and we are less than two month in!
Myles and I consider ourselves pretty worldly, for our age at least. We have both explored different corners of the world, but we both agree that Vancouver island is unlike anywhere either of us has ever been. Perhaps it’s the expensive ferry ride to get here or the incredible charm of Victoria that makes people not want to explore further, but we have found ourselves in the clearest of waters and the most incredible of beaches without a single other soul in sight – and we are traveling in August, what should be peak season.
On our drive from Nanaimo to Tofino I tactfully convinced Myles to pull over at a rest stop along the way so we could nap. What I didn’t expect was Myles to come running back to me before my head could even hit the pillow and tell me to follow him. What he found literally steps away from the rest stop was a little lagoon filled with the clearest water either of us had ever seen. Fully equipped with a rope swing and lots of rocks for cliff jumping, the only thing that was missing was the hundreds of other people that would have been sitting there as well. Maybe we just come from a big city but I couldn’t help but feel like Vancouver Island was this absolutely gorgeous unexplored tropical island with lush rainforest and some of the most beautiful sights that was yet to be discovered by anyone else. If you don’t believe me, take a look at some of the places we’ve found, all without another soul in sight:
Spoke Potholes, Sooke, BC
Holland park trail, Duncan, BC
CY Hampson park, Saanich, BC
Taylor river, Port Alberni, BC
East Sooke, BC The funny thing about it is, we have been told by most of the locals that the northern part of the island is much more remote than the southern and central parts that we have already explored, as wild as that seems. Who knows what’s yet to be explored, one thing we do know is always have a camera close by!
Myles and my relationship is far from a fairytale. We put two big personalities into one relationship and when you add three independent mutts, life can get a little chaotic. Now putting that chaos into 80 sq ft… Kinda crazy. The way we looked at it was that it would be the best or worst thing we’ve ever done. What we’ve found is that we still argue, but now it’s about amazing things like what city or mountain to explore. Our most current battle being Myles wants to go explore caves while I want to go scuba diving.
One of these arguments was about coming to Vancouver Island. I didn’t want to come, thinking it would be much like Vancouver, and the idea of a cold and wet climate really didn’t appeal to me. But what we’ve found is that it is nothing like Vancouver, the best difference being that dogs are more widely accepted along here. The roads are more forgiving so Gurt even enjoys it more.
Our quirky little family finds itself more at home in the woods than in cities and the Island has proved to be a perfect place for that. We have found that it is easy to feel a million miles away even when you are in a “big” city. It may be luck, but we have found that wherever we go you are only a small hike, or drive, away from finding your own secluded little hideaway.
Everyone we have met has been completely supportive and has understood our motivation without need of explanation. We have even found a place where we can go both scuba diving and cave exploring. Alright Myles, you win this one!
Before we started this trip Myles would rave how Nelson would be a perfect stop for us in this trip. The people, the shoppes and the lifestyle combine into an eclectic atmosphere. After falling mesmerizingly in love with Nelson, we decided to spend our evenings at the nearby Ainsworth hot springs.
A mixture of the hot steamy water with the enchanted swim through caves and our long hot sunny summer days left us wonderfully relaxed and ready to sleep. Unfortunately for us, life had other plans. That night I awoke to a little baby mouse crawling up my curtains inches away from my face. I wish I could say this was the first time I had a startling wake up with unwanted creepy crawlies by my face but I do also have a not so distant memory of awaking to a cockroach on my hair in Vietnam, but that’s a different story.
Fast forward a few hours and Myles and I found ourselves in a 7/11 getting energy drinks and fuel. After a chat with the attendants we were on our way to a 24 hour Waffle House (of course) where we were served by a modern hippie talking to us about his views on life, business and travelling and inviting us to stay on a compound that he and a group of about 80 people live on together.
Another 10 hours (for a typical 6 hour drive in a modern vehicle) and we were back at my parents place washing all of our clothes and planting mouse traps. Too much spray foam and a wonderful week spent in the sun with our loved ones and we were itching to get back on the road. On the bright side, the break and access to tools let us do some much needed projects to make our home even homier.
It took about 15 minutes of us driving to remember how much we loved this lifestyle, with no rushing and endless beach and family time, what’s not to love.
After spending the most incredible day driving around southern BC from Oliver to the small town of Midway, we found ourselves on a beautiful spot in the middle of the woods that due to the lack of people seemed like our private little Haven. We had spent our day driving through the most beautiful mountains I’ve ever witnessed and until now, I had no idea there were so many shades of green.
With the most colourful yellow and green birds singing to us while we made dinner it was so magical that every part of me expected them to start helping me do the dishes. We decided to go to bed rather early (our days really are so hard lately) and the magic ended there.
I couldn’t sleep with the sounds of all the wildlife all around us. A seemingly beautiful way to sleep but I couldn’t shake the fear of something crawling inside our van and chewing our wires. I calmed myself down assuring myself that if there was something here, the three dogs would let me know. After all, they love to think that they’re little hunters.
When the morning came we started our day like every other, reaching for our coffee only to notice that in our cupboard all our plastic bags had holes through them. All our rice, all our granola and oats, all leaking and full of holes. Nightmares, apparently, do come true! We peeled all our food out of our cupboard and Myles began banging on the outside of our van. I look inside and see a fat brown mouse scurry from behind out into our cupboard. I calmly (ha!) slammed the cupboard door and ran away leaving Myles to deal with our furry visitor. We decided that seeing as though he isn’t pitching in for gas, we would evict him and one trip to the hardware store got us the mesh wiring to plus our hole (we think he came in through our outlet plug in).
Unfortunately the only way to get him out of our house was to get mouse traps and try to catch him. Neither of us like killing anything and having to do it this way really upset us. We are now mouse free, and hoping it stays that way.
To our friends and family and all our readers we greatly apologize for the lack of communication from us since our departure. This trip has been a roller coaster. Incredible highs met with unexpected lows. Vanlife, for us, was a way to disconnect; to completely unplug from our everyday lives and focus on our priorities, our little family.
When leaving we had a naïve excitement for what’s to come. A blissful work free, stress free easy lifestyle. We knew there was going to be an adjustment period but we thought mostly of the bright early wake ups and tripping over each other with the lack of space. What we actually found was something greatly unexpected and something that I believe we had to learn along the way.
For us, we began our second attempt at vanlife northbound up the coast of British Colombia where we visited all the major tourist attractions in Squamish, Whistler, and Lillooet (if you haven’t already done so, add the drive from Pemberton to Lillooet to your bucket list – a steep climb up a mountain rewards you with unbelievable views and many places to stop and relax) in an effort to get to our main destination: Kamloops. I wanted to visit some amazing friends of mine to say goodbye before departing into the great unknown. Only what we didn’t realize at the time was that we were already on our trip. Always living for the future is a hard concept to shake. Always having a destination was something drilled into us, it was unexpected and even while on our trip we didn’t realize we were still living by.
After spending two nights in Kamloops we had our next destination in mind, to go visit Myles grandmother and family in Vernon. Myles passport was lost so we were forced to spend almost a week of our trip in Vernon. Luckily, we met with both of our families to
visit vineyards and help us pass the time. While we were oh so impatiently waiting for his passport to arrive we had the time to have one of our infamous worldly discussions where hours pass by unknowingly and we discuss every dream and worry we have.
We realized that silently we were both having the same doubts and concerns about our trip thus far. We were rushing through towns in an effort to find our next destination, we were not set up in the van how we wanted to be (completely over packed) and we didn’t actually believe we were on our trip; This meant we were not doing it how we wanted.
We were surprised however how much space we truly had, not once had we tripped over each other. In one afternoon we cleaned out our entire van (cutting what we had currently packed by about half). After (finally) getting Myles’ passport, and doing some much needed maintenance on the van (including a fuel pump and fixing our water pump), we were on our way with new eyes and hearts full of hope.
We set sail Southbound to Osoyoos stopping at local fruit stands and always finding time to jump in the unbelievable lakes, even in a storm. We learned a few things: cleaning was a constant and important task in such small quarters; opening up our blinds helped to make everything feel much bigger and brighter; and most importantly to never forget about the excitement of what we were doing. With having no more places to stop, nowhere to be, we continue with a little experience and a ton of anticipation. How vanlife should be lived.
We promise to write more often now that we have our life in order 🙂
After six long weeks, we finally have her back. Our new soon-to-be home on wheels, back from the repair shop. With only a week left until we leave, we were incredibly eager for her return and our excellent mechanic was just about ready to have two new employees in us. We purchased Gurt for such a great price we decided to put in some extra money to make her as reliable as an 1984 vehicle can be. With a newly rebuilt engine, we are the most excited we’ve been.
Being able to finally start cramming our possessions into every nook and cranny, testing our new solar panel (yeah! we got one, thanks to Samara’s family), this is feeling real.
As you could probably tell we’ve spent the last few weeks taking turns panicking about this trip. Luckily, we never seemed to panic at the same time and always found the voice of reason. We won’t be able to sell all of our stuff, what if we don’t get our van left, do people really do this, holy crap we just sold all our stuff, holy crap WE are really doing this. In the last few days, pieces have been falling into place. Our stuff has been selling, we got our van back, and we have people lined up to show Relish to (our second Westy).
This has been a whirlwind project that is finally coming to fruition. Life was either going to get harder and push us to rethink our plan or reassure us. Thankfully it was the latter. Now there are just small things to do like sell two cars, clean our two-bedroom suite, pack our life into our van and start our journey (can you sense the sarcasm).
We had many fears, many doubts about this trip. Well, we have them still but every single day that passes those fears get smaller and our excitement gets bigger. In about a week we no longer have a home address which only magnifies every feeling. Our “bring” pile seems to get cut in half every day as we realize how little of what we once filled our home with actually matters. Having only gone camping for weeks at a time (at the most) we can only guess at what we will need but it is extremely important to both of us that this doesnt feel like a temporary camping trip but feels like our life.
Living with three dogs and two humans in about 80 sqft leaves us with about 16sqft each. With an ever encroaching fear of claustrophobia we have decided to do quite a few test runs to help get us, and our dogs, acclimatized to our new life. After our first hour our fears completely evaporated, leaving behind only excitement. We are all able to walk around and find places to sit without tripping over each other. Our biggest fears were about how our dogs would handle this trip. We can’t sit them down and explain what’s happening, making them nervous and shaking especially seeing their dog beds being sold. But like any move, they’re being showered with treats, love and reassurance that we are bringing them all with us. They have now become very comfortable in the van and while we see us spending the majority of our time in the mountains and out of the van, it is very comforting to know how adaptable they have been.
Now all that’s left to do is go explore.
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running into the unknown with no responsibilities and disappearing. However, I believe that only a very few amount of people could actually get to the boarding time, let alone actually purchasing the ticket without panicking.
visit vineyards and help us pass the time. While we were oh so impatiently waiting for his passport to arrive we had the time to have one of our infamous worldly discussions where hours pass by unknowingly and we discuss every dream and worry we have.
