After residing on the highway for 3 years, we’ve discovered quite a bit. We’ve discovered a lot about this life-style, ourselves, our relationship, and residing on the highway. We get requested questions like, “What’s your favourite or least favourite half about vanlife?” It’s not all the time fast or straightforward to reply this. People who find themselves on this nomadic life-style are in search of knowledge so they are going to have fewer complaints of their very own (hopefully) and keep away from remorse. No less than that was true for us once we have been in our analysis part. We hated these “What I Hate About Vanlife” YouTube movies however we watched them anyway as a result of we didn’t need that to be how we felt.

Now, after 3 years of residing on the highway, we are able to empathize with most of the complaints we heard about this life-style. However, we additionally roll our eyes at a few of the criticisms we see or hear as a result of they are often simply remedied with correct planning (learn extra about that in our earlier weblog). You need to resolve what’s essential to you and your individual life and resolve what’s greatest to incorporate in your house. Create an area that’s particular to your wants and if it seems that it’s not, make some adjustments. Discover precedence in your happiness and put it above all else. We’d prefer to share with you a few of the professionals and cons of residing full-time in a van whereas touring. And if you happen to roll your eyes at a few of them—that’s okay! 

PROS

Journey

We benefit from the freedom that this life-style can provide. We will select to remain someplace for as little or so long as we’d like. If there’s one thing we wish to drive in direction of—we are able to do this. If there’s one thing we wish to drive away from—we are able to do this too. We’re additionally not tied to a strict route. As a substitute, we’ve a normal sense of which state we wish to head to relying on the time of 12 months after which it’s “select your individual journey” from level A to level B. We get to see new landscapes in areas we’ve by no means been earlier than. It by no means will get outdated and it’s all the time thrilling. I’m continually looking “points of interest” in my Google Maps to see what we must always cease and see alongside our route.  We not have the dreaded work commute – backwards and forwards, losing cash and fuel on the identical outdated highway. We spend more cash once we journey lengthy distances however then save on fuel once we keep put in a single space.

Climate

We strive our greatest to coordinate the locations we journey to with the climate. For instance, we select to be in areas like California or Arizona for winter so we are able to skip the snow. We are sometimes in Colorado or Oregon for summer time and do our greatest to keep away from the acute humidity. Each different 12 months we’ve headed to the east coast for Fall to go to with household throughout splendid temperatures and leaf-peeping.

Household

We’ve household unfold out throughout the U.S. in California, Texas, Tennessee, and New York. If we nonetheless labored common 9-5 jobs with solely two weeks of trip, it will be nearly not possible to go to any of our household. We’re in a position to go to all of them and make our rotations extra simply due to our life-style and selection of labor.

As we journey round we’re continually assembly new mates who’re additionally touring. We meet new folks as we see them parked locations—there’s a mutual understanding of “if the door is open, come say hey”! We additionally meet up with web mates we’ve been speaking to on Instagram. We’ll publish in our bio the place we at the moment are after which the place we plan on going subsequent. That is helpful for not solely assembly up with mates however for locating work. We assist others with their van builds and are in a position to attain extra folks as we maintain touring round. There are a lot of methods to fulfill others or keep linked with present mates throughout the neighborhood. We use an app known as Sekr which tells you who’s inside a certain quantity of miles. We additionally reap the benefits of the iPhone “Discover My Location” service and share it with different mates who’ve an iPhone. This manner we are able to meet up once more as we go about our travels. Certainly one of our favourite issues about assembly mates on the highway is getting to fulfill up once more with them in a unique state and reconnect like no time has handed in any respect. 

Affordability

The stress of paying payments is quite a bit much less whereas residing this life-style. In fact, there’ll all the time be payments of some type. We’ve a van fee and that’s our “hire” however it’s a lot lower than we’d pay wherever else. We don’t have a utility invoice for energy since we use photo voltaic panels and drive to cost our home batteries. We do have a fairly low cost fuel invoice and that’s our propane refill. Taking a hire fee out of the equation makes an enormous distinction in how a lot that you must work and the way a lot cash that you must make every month. This takes quite a lot of stress away from us and creates extra happiness total. We’re in a position to flip the common 5 days of labor and a pair of days of play to five days of play and a pair of days of labor every week. 

High quality Time

Rising our happiness individually and collectively as a pair was made attainable once we converted to vanlife. Not solely are we working much less and have discovered extra time for the issues we get pleasure from, however we spend much more time collectively. We used to solely see one another and our pets for a handful of hours within the evenings and on the weekends. More often than not we wouldn’t see our pets on the weekends both if we selected to go someplace to do one thing. Now, we take our pets together with us all over the place we go and we make it work. We get to navigate our lives collectively aspect by aspect throughout every day and we get to work collectively to make a residing. 

CONS

Friendships

The downfall of all the time being on the transfer is holding onto regular friendships and constructing extra reminiscences collectively. We really feel like we do fairly good with spending high quality time as we are able to get it with our mates, however we all know if we lived in a single spot we might have extra of that. On the flip aspect, our good friend circle is fairly large because it reaches throughout the states and we might get to see folks we wouldn’t in any other case see. It’s a toss-up. 

GYM—One factor we actually miss about being stationary is having a health club membership the place we noticed quite a lot of our mates. A variety of nomads are members of Planet Health as a result of it’s low cost, it’s widespread throughout the states they usually can reap the benefits of their scorching showers. For us, we don’t need a common health club membership. We wish a membership to a climbing health club. There aren’t any giant chains of climbing gyms that you could be a member of and discover throughout the states as you journey. With climbing, it’s essential to have consistency to maintain energy and to see any progress. We miss our routine not just for staying sturdy however climbing each night with the identical mates and the camaraderie. Climbing is extra enjoyable with different folks (it’s why we love bouldering) and it’s much more enjoyable with folks you recognize. 

Work

This life-style is much less tense compared to our lives earlier than with common jobs working for another person full time. Then again, I nonetheless discover myself a bit pressured between jobs. I worry we received’t discover one other shopper that aligns nicely with the placement we’re in or wish to be. I get nervous we received’t discover one other individual or in a position to afford our companies. It has all the time in some way labored itself out with minimal effort on our half to share the place we’re or the place we’re going. We’ve additionally been very fortunate with the shoppers who’ve discovered us. They’ve all grow to be mates and have been a blast to hang around with whereas working with them. Discovering work on the highway or discovering distant work, is a large matter for nomads. That is one thing essential to have discovered earlier than shifting into your van full-time to journey. Another choice is to reside in your van whereas parked on the town and nonetheless work an everyday job. You’ll lower your expenses on fuel by not commuting and also you’ll save by not having a hire fee. We did this for six months and have been in a position to save cash to make use of in direction of residing on the highway for over a 12 months.

Mail

You’ll have a little bit of a wrestle determining the place to ship your mail. There are specific stuff you’ll want a everlasting handle for similar to automotive insurance coverage, medical insurance, banking, driver’s license, and so on. We’ve our everlasting mailing handle set as much as be despatched to a member of the family’s home. Then we ask them to ship us images of issues that look essential. If we want the merchandise, we ask our relations to ahead it to us wherever we’re. This forwarding handle has been a good friend we’re visiting, a unique member of the family, a brief mailbox, or a neighborhood publish workplace. These choices have labored for any items which are despatched to us as nicely. For ordering packages from Amazon or different companies we’ve used a mixture of these choices or different choices similar to Amazon locker or UPS retailer. This takes some determining beforehand and double checking the handle is right and never routinely going to be despatched to your everlasting handle by default.

One useful factor to know is that if the shipper is sending you mail USPS from the publish workplace, they’ll handle it to you with an handle of “normal supply” with the zip code to whichever location is near you. They may maintain the mail for you for a sure period of time and permit choose up throughout particular days and time frames. They won’t notify you of a package deal being delivered so you’ll have to verify or have a monitoring quantity to search out out for your self. We’ve achieved this at UPS shops as nicely, however known as forward to that location to substantiate we might ship one thing there for choose up. 

Mechanic

One of many greatest fears whereas residing on the highway is having your car break down. Discovering a reliable mechanic when you journey will be extraordinarily difficult. Sometimes, you don’t search for this service till you desperately want it. You received’t be seeing the identical individual and constructing that relationship. You won’t be capable to get in straight away or really feel comfy explaining simply that you just reside in your rig and can’t be with out it for an prolonged period of time. It might be smart to make a behavior of researching locations and saving them as you journey to reference again to if wanted. You’re in a position so as to add these into the app we talked about earlier, Sekr, refer again to them as wanted, or see ones that others have added. 

Requirements

Discovering wanted requirements is all the time a little bit of a problem, however will hopefully get simpler over time by way of crowdsourcing and the usage of nomad apps. Since we reside full-time in our van and have a restricted quantity of area and assets, many issues have to be replenished very often. As an illustration, we have to discover issues similar to a big dumpster for our waste. Most are locked otherwise you really feel such as you’re breaking the legislation by placing something into one. We have to discover a spigot shut sufficient to park close to to refill our water tank with a hose. This has been the trickiest factor but. By some means we’ve all the time discovered a means. The longer you’re on the highway, the extra courageous you get to pirate a spigot or just ask to make use of one. You possibly can ask locations similar to fuel stations or oil change outlets if you should use their spigot to refill your water jug. Oftentimes, they are saying sure. If we haven’t discovered a spigot particularly, we’ve used a jug or bathe bag in a purchasing cart and made a number of journeys out and in of a grocery retailer for a paid water refill station. One other factor we’re looking out for every now and then is a propane fill station. We don’t have a BBQ exchange-size tank. We’ve an under-mount tank that we have to have manually refilled by a technician. We will normally discover this at a selected retailer that sells it, similar to a fuel station, U-Haul, or Tractor Provide. 

Remaining Ideas

These are the professionals and cons that come to thoughts in our final three years residing in a van full time. For others, there could also be kind of relying on their construct and life-style. Though tense at instances, none of those cons are deal breakers. We love the way in which we reside and each effort is well worth the reward.  We’ve created a house inside a van that’s all our personal. We’ve integrated all our favourite issues and held onto hobbies we get pleasure from. Residing this life has allowed us to journey the U.S. full-time. We’ve even created a enterprise that enables us to make an revenue whereas having the liberty to maneuver round as a lot or as little as we really feel like at any given second. We hope we helped you with some perception and issues to consider when planning your individual construct and contemplating residing this life-style full-time. Prioritize your happiness and create an area that’s all your individual, or permit it to create it for you alongside the way in which. 

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