I just wanted to share this story in hopes of encouraging anyone considering their own van living experiment.
I did not build out my van with the intent of living in it. I live in southern California and thought it would be a nice thing to have for week- or weekend-long trips to AZ or up the coast.
Working from home allowed my partner and me to take a longer trip to visit our parents across the country. We decided to take a week to travel there, parking at our family's homes while we could, and then take another week to get back.
To say the experience was life-changing seems cliche, but it 100% changed everything about how I see my life. I'd always subscribed to the idea of simple living, but it took this experience to really see how easy and simple I could make my life and how much happier I was for doing it.
We didn't plan out each day, and I think that was a key element of why I loved it so much. We barely planned anything besides the idea that we wanted to stop at several national parks along the way there and back. Every day we were present in the moment. We decided where we wanted to go, or if we wanted to stay where we were. We were deciding where to adventure.
Here were the biggest things I learned:
- I don't need most of the things I thought I needed. At my happiest I had pared down my possessions to maybe 1/8th of what I had at home.
- How to purchase/carry/use only the essentials, and why everything else doesn't really matter. I learned how to "make do" with what I had. There wasn't space for things you use every once in a while.
- All of the things I'd done to make my life more convenient were just giving me more time to worry about shit that doesn't matter or mindlessly scroll through the internet. The 5 minutes I would save buying a fancy vegetable chopper instead of chopping things myself didn't actually add to my happiness but all the gadgets were cluttering my life and making me anxious.
- Living in a small space made my relationship with my partner better. Everything we did we planned together. We experienced it together. We went to sleep together and got up together. At night, we talked instead of doing our own things or playing on the internet mindlessly. We cooked together and ate together. A small space really puts you in sync.
- When you spend your days mostly in natural light, your circadian rhythm corrects itself. Idk about you but before I left I was up til midnight most nights and struggling to get out of bed around 8am. Many times I would get up and go back to sleep shortly afterwards. After being on the road for a few days, I noticed I was falling asleep at 10pm at the latest and waking up shortly after sunrise. It's stayed that way since I got home (yay!). I have more energy and am just happier in general with this schedule.
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My job doesn't matter. My career doesn't matter. It's just a way to pay the bills so I can buy food and basic life necessities. Before I left I was obsessed with my career advancement and I just realized that no matter how high I climbed it wouldn't make me any happier - but this experience of being free did make me happier. As long as I can keep doing this, I'd be happy, and it didn't require much income.
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Not showering is not the end of the world, and truck stop showers are way nicer than any campground. Also, a lot of rest stops are nicer than some campgrounds! This was a big concern for me before we left because I absolutely love showering - it's my time to decompress. I guess I didn't need to decompress as much.
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My dog would prefer to get her exercise hiking with me than running around by herself. And I'd rather get my exercise hiking with her, so why make myself exercise in ways that don't bring me joy?
My next challenge is to figure out how to do this with less waste. Having less space did make it difficult to not rely on smaller portions of things like food and toiletries, and using paper towels to avoid food waste in our gray tank. Zero waste van life is probably a thing, but I need to do some research.
Anyway, long story short, if you're thinking about living in a van for any amount of time, I STRONGLY recommend that you go for it. And shoot me any questions you have. I'm happy to answer them if I can.
Submitted November 08, 2020 at 04:59PM by themightytod https://ift.tt/32p6QGp
