Vanlife: It’s Far From Boring

Our previous life seems father away than ever. And yet, we are still learning how to live our new one. It has been five months since setting out on the open road and we can honestly say that it hasn’t at all been what we expected. We tried not to have any expectations, but you can’t really get away from them all together, can you? Literally every aspect has changed in our life down to how we brush our teeth and the kind of coffee we drink in the morning. Having what is quite possibly the worlds smallest fridge has even made the way we buy food change. While we are still learning the best ways to do things, we are happy to say that for the most part, we are loving it. Don’t get me wrong, five of us in a van poses a challenge, but we have learned that this challenge is only really present when we are in cities.

Vanlife: A messy, claustrophobic and absolutely wonderful way of life.

We went through a growth period in the beginning where we had to change the way we thought. We would jump from parking lot to parking lot. Being worried about where to sleep or where the bad part of town was always on our mind. I mean how could we not be nervous? It took a while for us to realize that the best thing about this van is we could always leave. With a Jerry can at our ready, all it took was a turn of the key and we were on our way again. Once we realized the undeniable benefits of getting lost down back roads, we realized we could spread out. After all, van life isn’t really about living in the van as much as it is living the dream lifestyle.

We live a turn-key away from anywhere.

Nevertheless, Myles and I thought we would find a happy familiarity with settling into a specific city. Find somewhere we loved and want to stay for a while. While I don’t think we are nearly ready to settle down long term, staying for a couple months wouldn’t be so bad, right? What we have since learned is that we don’t know anything. About anything. How could this be, you ask? We are twenty-something year olds (my 25th birthday is coming up soon that I am not quite ready for) with a decent amount of education and life skills on our hands. But none the less, we have found that we don’t know very much about ourselves and we certainly are the worlds worst predictors of whats to come.

I mean, we are kind of basking in a lifestyle that embraces the unpredictable so we are pretty content in having limited knowledge of whats to come. Staying in one spot and relishing in the semi routine-like familiarity we thought we may enjoy has been surprisingly dissatisfying to us. We haven’t stayed in one place for more than two weeks since we have been gone and often don’t stay longer than a couple of nights. We find that after a couple of nights, we get eager and excited to move on to the next place. Perhaps that’s what comes with the ultimate control we are experiencing. Perhaps we have too much and are like children running wild with it. Regardless, for the time being, we are happy to run.

Where in North America can we find lots of heat, beautiful sunshine and a nice lake in December?

With the horrible realization that California experiences an incredibly cold winter, we decided that this might be a good time to make some money so that we can spend our summers focusing on playing in the water. On a whim, we decided to try our hand at freelance writing. After all we were writing for a few magazines and have had some luck with it in the past. The next day we surprisingly, and very pleasantly, found ourselves with work. Lots of work. Suddenly our beach filled lives were changing yet again. Myles and I seem to have a serious problem with never really easing our way into anything. We decide on something and then just hurdle our bodies at it and see what happens.

So, once again, we are undergoing a massive lifestyle change as we are learning how to keep all of our electronics fully charged, caving to buy an American data plan and configuring our tiny home into an office space as well. We are now ensure we have cell phone reception -at least some of the time – and trying to tread the line between writing and living. Determined to not see this world from one Starbucks to the next, we are placing a huge priority on doing our work in the middle of the forest or at the beach. And I must say there could be worse places to call your office. Always an adjustment, but wouldn’t life be much too boring without it?

“People bike to work to save money on a vehicle. What if you lived in your vehicle to save money on your house?”
-Unknown