Latest / Fit for Hiking / Ep. 49 Van Life: Pros, Cons + My Honest Experience
Transcript
- Hi, my name is Brady and I'm a longtime fitness professional and Midwest girl turned mountain living hiking addict. And combining my knowledge of fitness and passion for hiking, I've helped hundreds of women get lean and strong for the trails. Think of this as your one stop shop for both education and inspiration on all things female wellness, trail talk and adventure. Hiking, female metabolism, motherhood, nutrition, travel and fitness are all topics you'll hear discussed here. If you are outdoorsy and active, looking to level up your health, unlock your potential, and become inspired to live your most vibrant life, you're in the right place. You're listening to the fit for hiking podcast. Hello everybody. Welcome back to another episode of the fit for hiking podcast. I am back to recording at home in Colorado after a six week trip to Guatemala, so it feels good to be back. Kind of like just getting back into our normal routines. While I feel like while we're there, we have a pretty good routine. Like we've spent so much time there at this point, and we know kind of how to get right into the groove of things when we get there. There's just something about being home like in your space, getting back to your routines with friends. And it's spring in Colorado, which is just like a breath of fresh air when you finally start to have those 70 degree days. I got out for a hike yesterday with my daughter and it was just. So lovely. And it gave me this glimmer of hope that we are like, almost done with winter. You guys, we're almost there. Um, so I'm just in a good mood overall. Getting excited for all the summer adventures. Um, but I wanted to talk about a topic today that I haven't covered on this podcast before, and that is Van Life. Um, this is such a trendy, popular thing right now in the outdoor space. And for those who maybe haven't followed along with my Instagram page long before the podcast, um, my husband and I actually used to live in a van full time for a short amount of time right before we got pregnant with our daughter. Um, and after that, we decided to keep the van. We've done some renting out. We renovated it so that we would have room for a third seat for our daughter. And we've done some, like pretty long trips with her in the past few years, even though we're not living in it full time anymore. So we've had our van for about three and a half years now. It's a converted Mercedes sprinter. Um, a little bit of a backstory on how we got into it was it was I think it was 2020. So this is like right when, you know, crap is hitting the fan with Covid, everything is changing, everything is shifting. And I think as a whole, anybody who is like very adventure focused traveler was really feeling the stir craziness of of this situation and really aching to get back out into the world. And so Shane and I were just dating at the time, and we really started just dreaming about what it would be like to actually get a sprinter van and live in it full time to hit the road and not have, you know, the obligation to come back, um, every single Sunday night, because at the time we were big time weekend warrior Adventures. We were both. Working in Denver. And then like pretty much every weekend, it feels like we were hitting the road, packing up, going somewhere different, adventuring for the weekend, getting back super late on Sunday, rinse, repeat. And we just started thinking about like, so much is shifting right now. What would it be like if we were to move towards actually creating a plan to live in a van? And it was kind of just a pipe dream at the time. And then I remember one night we just sat down and we actually wrote out, like, what would it take to get us there? Like, are we serious about this? If so, what steps do we need to take? And I'm going to go through kind of like what that process was like for us, as well as the pros and cons of van life and my honest experience, even though it wasn't a super long stint. You know, some people live in a van full time for years, and we definitely did not do that. And I'll kind of share why and what that experience looked like for us. But I do feel like I've had definitely enough experience in the van to be able to speak to what it was like for us, and just some potential things that you might want to think about. If this is something that you are considering because it's a very romanticized, um, type of existence, right? Like this nomadic lifestyle, just pure freedom, life on the road, not having a home base, um, working from anywhere. And while some of that is very true and wonderful, there's also a lot that I don't think gets. Featured in like Instagram posts, real YouTube things like that of just kind of the reality of it and what it looks like day in and day out. Um, so I wanted to share with you all what that experience looked like for us. So 2021, we ended up in our van, um, after a long road. Basically, we ended up getting a van that was already mostly converted. However, we needed to convert it so that we could work from the van because at the time it just had a bed that was like fixed in the back, taking up pretty much half of the van and then a kitchen. So we wanted to get a toilet in there. We knew we weren't going to have room for a full on bathroom, so we never had a shower or anything like that. But we did have a dry flush toilet that we purchased and added to the van. And then we also converted the bed space to turn into a table and benches during the day, and then it would convert to our bed at night. So that worked really well with our lifestyle because we both moved to a work from home situation and we needed a workspace within the van. Um, so 2021, we got married, we hit the road in the van, and our first few months being married, we were living in the van full time up until we found out that we were pregnant with juniper. So that was kind of our story with the van. And like I said, since then we've gone on some long, up to six week trips with her, which has been so cool. But I wanted to share what our experience was. So a couple of pros of van life, and a lot of these are not going to come as a surprise. Um, a lot of them are going to be exactly what you would think, like the freedom, being able to be very nomadic, not being tied down to one place, um, monthly cost of living is going to be cheaper than your average mortgage in most places. Definitely. Here in Colorado that's the case. Even rent, um, in a lot of situations. And obviously this is going to depend on like the type of loan that you get for the van, what your monthly payment looks like, plus insurance. I will tell you, it is a lot more expensive than I think a lot of people think. Um, as far as what the monthly payment will look like when you get a converted van, it's not super cheap. Um, so you do still have a big monthly cost there, but it's still going to be cheaper than most formats of living, whether it's renting a townhome apartment or a mortgage. Um, and you have the option to ditch your car payment, which we did during that time. So we both sold our vehicles. So all that we had for the two of us was a joint van payment. We didn't have any other cost of living, which was awesome other than storage unit, which we'll talk about a little bit later. So you can ditch your your car payment too. Um, which definitely helps with some monthly savings. Flexibility and where you want to live. You can explore new places and see where you might want to potentially land long term. So if you are kind of like, not really sure where you want to end up, this is a great opportunity to go to some different cities or towns or areas and see what you like, spend a month there and see if you can actually see yourself living there longterm. 1s Um, another pro is that life is never boring. Like, we look back at that six month stint that we were in the van full time and we're like, Holy cow, it feels like we lived 2 to 3 years of our life in that time frame, because every day was so different from the last. And every day we were having these new, awesome experiences. It was so rich. It was so full, um, that it felt like we lived so much more life than just six months of time. Like it actually blows my mind. Whereas like a normal day, like now, it can feel like we kind of live the same day on repeat, like doing the same thing, same environment in the evenings, make dinner or watch TV like sit on the couch. It's just so different when you're in the van, you're not going to have that same sense of routine, which can be difficult, but also refreshing in some ways. And I will say a lot of the pros like also have equal cons. It's interesting how there's this balance of like the things that are so beautiful about van life also kind of make it difficult. So we'll get into the difficult parts soon. Um, another pro is that you spend so much more of your time outside hiking, doing things, just being in nature, even just sitting in chairs outside watching the sunset. Simply because sitting on a couch at home is not an option, and it's not super comfortable to sit in like a typically pretty dirty van. You don't want to get your dirty body into your bed and just sit there in the evenings, right? Like you're going to take advantage of the environment that you're in. So you're naturally going to spend more time exploring the environment that you're in outside, on your feet, or just being outside in general, whether you're just sitting there or you're getting active. I miss that part so much about Vanlife, because it's just harder to sit on your bed all day, like you're not going to do it. It's not possible. Um, the next one is the feeling of freedom. It is true that you do have this like feeling of, wow, the sky's the limit. Like we can really go anywhere as long as we can work from there and, you know, works within our schedule. Um, and you're not going to have the hotel cost, the Airbnb costs. You can go spend a month somewhere and then just decide the next day, like, okay, now we're going to drive to Washington and go spend a month there. And and that is like a very special thing that is very much a van life type of feeling. Um, the next pro is that you really do appreciate the little things more. Like once we moved back into a house after being in the van, we really appreciated just the ease of like making coffee in a coffee pot, being able to shower whenever we wanted to. Um, having the space, like not having to hand dry everything or hand-wash everything with our dishes, not having to go to a laundry mat like you have to work a lot harder when you're living in the van, because you don't have all these easily accessible appliances and all of these things that just make day to day life so much easier. So you do appreciate the little things more. And the final pro is that you really learn to live with less. I feel like you can adopt more of a minimalist lifestyle after being in a van, because you learn that you don't need a massive closet full of clothes and shoes. You don't need all of the furniture, all of the the things that we so come to rely on when we have a much bigger space, all the storage and everything. Um, you are living your life with the bare minimum, like you really have to. So it teaches you to, to get by with less and and to learn that you can do that pretty comfortable. And it's not going to be the end of the world to give up like half of your clothes. Um, okay. So let's get on to the cons. 1s And I know that. Like when I'm saying this stuff, it might sound like I'm not appreciating the opportunity. I definitely do, and I loved my experience so much. I look back on that time so fondly, but I do just want to be honest and transparent with you guys about the difficult parts of Vanlife. That way, if you are thinking about doing it, you're not just seeing the romanticized version, right? Okay. So number one is sometimes I found and my husband found this too, is that it can feel a bit aimless and purposeless at times because you don't have that sense of community. You're not seeing your friends and family unless you're like posting up at their houses long term, right? Like it depends on the style of vanlife you're doing. We were very much like traveling from place to place. We were changing it up all the time. We weren't just posting up at a friend or family's house for months at a time. So for us, there was no sense of like routine, normalcy, normalcy, community, anything like that. So we found that we really do prefer to have a home base and then do like shorter 2 to 6 week trips from there, which obviously that's the best of both worlds. It's not always doable financially. We're actually gearing up to sell our van right now, which is so sad. End of an era. We're definitely going to miss it, but we've been very fortunate in the last few years to be able to do both. This might not be doable in everyone's case, and that's okay. But that was what we found worked better for us because we didn't like being on the road constantly. It seems silly because when you're stuck at home in a routine, it seems like the most fun thing in the world to never have to come back home and just be always on the go. But when you never have that sense of community and just the routine and the day to day and like seeing the same people and, um, just having that home that can feel. Hard, feel lonely, like aimless. And so, um, that was something that I didn't really expect, to be honest. So I wanted to touch on that. Um, the next is van maintenance issues. Oh, my gosh, you guys. I felt like we had an issue with our van every single week. I mean, anytime you are living and driving and like putting a lot of miles on something, things are going to break down. There was a lot of issues at the most inconvenient times. I mean, we literally had a breakdown on our honeymoon. It was crazy. All you could do was like, laugh so you don't cry. Um, but life is just going to be a bit more tiring because you're going to need to stay on top of things like making sure you have Wi-Fi, emptying the greywater tank, dumping the toilets, going to a laundry mat to do your laundry, finding water sources to fill your water tank, finding a shower if you don't have one in your van, doing manual dishes, always planning where you're going to be sleeping, where you're going to be parking, where you're going to be working. Um, and just the cleaning, like keeping the van tidy is hard. It's such a small space, so it gets dirty really quickly. And then if you add kids and dogs to the mix or just one or the other, we've done it with both. At this point, that's just going to add another layer of complexity, right? Like more planning, more thinking things through, um, and keeping the van the right temperature. That was something that like required so much work and so much forethought as far as where we were going to be location wise and all of these things, you don't think about it until you're in the situation, but it really is tough. And it can be mentally draining because you're always having to think about all these things. Um, and, you know, if you have a home, you're going to have plenty of things that you're having to fix up and pay and, um, pay to fix, you know, pay to stay on top of you're still going to have, like, laundry and dishes, but the ease of things, it's going to be a little bit less in the van because you don't have appliances. You're having to factor in the Wi-Fi, the parking, the water tank, not having a shower, dumping your toilet, all of those things. Um, and another thing is, you really do need to be handy. Like you're going to have to fix a lot of stuff at one point or another. And yes, you can outsource it, but it's going to help if you are handy, because otherwise you're just going to be banging your head against the wall pretty constantly. Um, another con is that space is tight and this can just get old after a while. If you're doing solo vanlife, this will be less of a factor for you. But for us, like it was the two of us plus two big dogs when we were living in the van full time, and then when we've done it since. We just have one dog now, since Cooper passed a few years ago, and now we have our daughter. And so it's always super cramped and we have the biggest possible sprinter van. So it's like as big as it gets. It's pretty tall. I'm not bumping my head. Shane's not even bumping his head, but it still can feel pretty claustrophobic. So the lack of space to just like, stretch out and like, lay on a couch at night and chill, that does get hard after a while and you start to miss that. 1s Um, okay. The next con is that expenses actually do add up a lot more than you would think when you factor in things like the wi fi setup. And this is after like purchasing the van, purchasing your insurance, any conversions that you do, figuring out like solar, things like that. Um, you're going to have to figure out your Wi-Fi setup. Um, that is something that if you're working remotely like, it's a non-negotiable. So we the first time around, Starlink wasn't available when we first were living in the van. So we have like a router type thing, but it only worked if we were within a certain range of cell towers. Um, so that was something that we had to get. And then eventually we ended up getting Starlink. And we'll talk a little bit more about Wi-Fi in a bit. Um, expensive gas. Our gas was pretty dang expensive because it was a diesel, um, eating out more, just naturally like we were spending more money eating out because we were always in cool mountain towns and we wanted to have the experience. So we'd go check out cool restaurants, coffee shops, breweries. You're probably gonna be working from a lot of coffee shops, so you're going to spend more money there. Um, campsite charges. If you want to just make life easier, getting a campsite like guarantees that you have a place to stay. You get shower access. Sometimes you can do laundry, things like that. So we ended up doing more campsites than we thought. Initially, I thought we would just do dispersed camping. We would always be off the grid, but that just wasn't always realistic because of Wi-Fi and because of like needing to shower and not always wanting to be so up in the air about where we were staying. So campsite charges do add up, van fixes. These really add up. Just all the things that we had to do over the years to the van. Um, we also would get hotels or Airbnbs occasionally because we just wanted to stretch out or get a shower, like a nice shower. Um, so we did do that from time to time to just like, treat ourselves. Um, and that definitely can add up. And then storage unit, if you aren't wanting to sell everything that you own, then you're going to need a storage unit for all of your belongings. Another con is that if you spend time in remote areas, like if you're doing vanlife to get off the grid, then inevitably you're going to struggle with wi fi. And this was this constant struggle for us because we wanted to be out in nature. We didn't want to be in towns and cities all the time, but we couldn't get a signal for our wi fi unless we were near cell towers. So that meant we were spending way more time, like parked on the streets of towns and in like, parking lots than we were necessarily off the grid Monday through Friday because we really needed consistent wi fi for our calls and strong WiFi. 1s Um, okay, so those are the pros and cons. Now I want to talk about how to get started. Like what are those first few steps? If you're serious about this, what should you begin doing. So step one would be to break down the financials. And this is something that like I said before, we sat down and we looked seriously at how are we going to make this work? How much will we need to buy the van initially? Also, what will this look like once we sell the van or, um, sell our cars, get rid of all of our living expenses and just the month to month costs. Um, so asking yourself the questions of will we realistically save money doing this? How much is a sprinter van that's already converted versus one that's not converted? And am I willing to convert it myself? Versus how much is it to pay for somebody to convert it? Um, would you keep a place, you know, would you have like a home base somewhere or would you sell your home slash not have rent anywhere else? Would you sell your vehicles? So those are all the sorts of like conversations or just thought processes, these thought processes that you should have, whether you're doing this with someone else or you're doing it by yourself. 1s The next is you're gonna need remote work if you're not wanting to just stay in one place, right? If you're wanting to be able to use Vanlife for what it is and travel around, you're going to need remote work. Um, we both, like I said, we were working in Denver, so that wasn't a thing for us initially. And so when we sat down to talk about really making this happen, we had to talk about, hey, how are we moving from this situation to both working remote? It took us about eight months to a year from when we first had that conversation to when we were both working, um, remotely. I ended up working for myself. Shane ended up finding an engineering job where he was able to work remotely instead of going into the office every day, but that's going to be really crucial. I mean, Vanlife still costs money. You still need some income. Unless you've been, like, saving up for this. Most people don't have the money to just do it without a job, though. So make sure that you find some sort of remote work. And then the next is to. 1s Really makes sure that VMI makes sense for you because like I said, it's very romanticized and I don't think that it's for everyone. I found that it wasn't for me long term. Like I said, I really enjoy having a home base and doing van trips from there, but I could not be someone who lives straight up in a van for three years. Plus, like, it just it wasn't a good fit for me. So what you really want to do is start looking at things like YouTube videos that talk about the pros and cons, talk to current van lifers about their struggles and their like how they really feel about it. Read forums. Um, and also take a van trip like rent out of an. You can do this through so many platforms now we rented our van out through out.com. Um, get a sprinter van and do a long trip and actually see how you like it in the day to day. And I would recommend like actually doing your work from it too, because it's one thing to like travel and just be carefree on vacation if another. When you're trying to find a shady spot for the day where you have reliable Wi-Fi and vans not overheating and you have everything you need, um, and you know you're getting good airflow, all of those different components that can make it a bit stressful when you're actually required to, like, hop on a call and do your job. So I definitely would recommend putting yourself in the situation as much as possible. Um. 2s And I would say you're more likely to be cut out for vanlife if you love taking long trips, living out of your vehicle for more than a week at a time, you love camping. Frequently. You don't mind kind of living a dirtbag lifestyle where you're like showering and campsite showers and having to find water sources. Um, you can see yourself going without things like dishwasher, microwave, laundry machine, closet, things like that. And if you deal with a lack of routine, well, then I feel like you're going to cope with van life a whole lot better than if you are like a super routine oriented person. 1s Okay, so as far as finding your van, um, we found ours through van life trader.com, and you can find me on so many places like Facebook Marketplace all over. Um, and just finding, like, local listings. But here are some things that you want to ask as far as. Finding the right van for you. So here are some things that I wish that I would have asked a little bit more carefully. So one, does it have an AC unit to cool the van off when the van is off? That is huge. Airflow is a massive component for like comfortability in the van that I did think of. Same with heat. If you plan on being in areas where it gets cold at night, you're going to want a diesel heater that runs when the van is off. So, uh, AC and heater, you really are going to want both, if not multiple sources of both. Um, does it have a bathroom and is a bathroom a deal breaker for you? Like I said, RV N does not have a bathroom. We got a dry flush toilet, which has worked well for us because we didn't want to have to pay for like the plumbing and add the space. It just didn't make sense with our setup in the van. Um, but is that going to be a deal breaker for you? What we did for showers and such was campsites. We got a Planet Fitness membership, so we would go to gyms when we were in towns and shower there. Um, but you have to make sure that you're okay with going potentially a week plus without a shower. Sometimes when you're not near campsites or you're not near a town. 1s Um, next one is, does it have good built in storage space? And how much stuff are you going to be bringing? Are you going to be able to bring the things that you need and store it comfortably? Does the floor plan maximize the space and make sense for your lifestyle? So start looking on YouTube at like different floor plans for vans. See what you like, see what types of setups are ideal for you, and then pursue a van that kind of fits that mold as much as possible. Um, ask how many miles does it have? Does it get power? Does it have solar? How are you charging the van? Um, what kitchen amenities does it have? What's the gas mileage look like? How big is the water tank? Um, can it handle 4x4 roads? Does it get good traction in the snow? Like, if you're going to be going off roading all the time, you know, onto treacherous trail roads, things like that, or you're wanting to take the van out, you know, to go skiing all the time on on mountain passes in the winter, you got to make sure you have the right tires and, and make sure it can handle, like the rough terrain. Um, does it come with window covers to block out light and heat? We ended up spending so much money on good window covers because our van did come with window covers, but they didn't do anything for insulation, so they were like kind of blocking out light, but they weren't really keeping the heat out, which ended up being such a big deal for us. Our van is dark and oh my gosh, it would be like 70 degrees outside. It'd be like 85 in the van. Even with two sources of airflow, it was still so hard to keep the van cool when we would be working from the van. Um, does it have a work slash dining space and is that a deal breaker for you? Like, are you planning to exclusively work from coffee shops? If you have dogs or a dog, then you're probably going to need a workspace within your van, and you're going to need good airflow for when the van is off. That was a big reason why airflow was so important for us, because we were having to leave our dogs in there sometimes, so we needed to make sure that they weren't hot. Um, and then what's the wi fi situation? This is such a big one. And before we got Starlink, this was like, our biggest struggle. So how we ended up doing Wi-Fi once we got Starlink, that was a game changer. So if you're thinking about doing, uh vanlife. And you need good, reliable Wi-Fi, I definitely recommend Starlink. It's not totally foolproof. You will find that in certain areas where there's a lot of tree cover, you're going to struggle. So like certain campgrounds, it wouldn't work for us. And we still ended up having to go to town. Um, so that is something that you will struggle with. But you can see on the Starlink map, when you look up kind of the areas where you're going to get better service than others, and you can plan your trips based on that. It's not totally foolproof, but we found that it worked really well for us. For us, we were able to work in areas with zero cell service like national parks and really off the grid areas pretty well. And I would say we had reliable Wi-Fi like 90% of the time. Um, and that was a game changer because we actually got to stay in more remote areas instead of having to drive to a town every single morning to go be near cell towers or work from a coffee shop. So definitely Starlink has been really helpful for us, um, for our van trips since we got it. Um, and you basically just pay upfront to get the equipment and then it's a monthly fee. It's really not that bad, especially if you're someone who's going to be using it as a lifeline to be able to work. Okay. So those are the kind of launching points of getting started. And my honest experience with Vanlife was overwhelmingly positive. I feel like I learned so much about myself. It was such a refreshing time, so vibrant. Some of my favorite memories of my husband were when we were in the van, and we were just gallivanting around and having a blast, checking out new areas, hiking almost every single day. Um, I felt like my priorities were just different. I wasn't so caught up in like, the aesthetic of how does everything look? Do I have a big enough house? Do I have a nice car? Do I have, um, you know, all of these possessions? Am I making a certain amount of money? I was so much more like living in the moment. And I felt very peaceful. That being said, there were huge challenges and days where I just wanted anything but, you know, to not be in the van. Like I just wanted to have a home base, I wanted AC, I wanted the comforts. And I think that's where putting yourself in situations like this is actually really healthy, because you do appreciate the comfort so much more, and it teaches you to be uncomfortable. I think in this society, we're all about the comforts. We're all about, um, making life as easy as possible with like the fewest amount of obstacles. And that's really kush. And that really just leads us to kind of this like floor existence where we're just kind of like. Aimlessly going through life, and we're not really ever challenging ourselves and feeling the reward for that challenge. So I would say that while van life could be very challenging some days, in some weeks, it was also equally rewarding and I loved our experience. So I hope that this is helpful and kind of enlightening. If you're on the fence about if this is something that you want to pursue. Like I said, my number one advice if you are really serious about this would be to rent out a van for an extended amount of time, go through your daily routine, do all of the things like fill up the water, deal with like the solar charging, deal with the grey water tank, empty and empty the toilet, work from the van, do a grocery, haul, all of those things like do your normal routine as much as possible and see, is this something that you're up for? Do you want all of the work that comes with the reward, or do you just want kind of like the IG worthy van life experience? Um, I think it's definitely beneficial to give it a little test run. Um, well, I hope that this has been helpful. If you guys like hearing about topics like this and our experiences with van life, let me know. Um, you can DM us at Fit Underscore for hiking on Instagram. I'd love to hear you guys feedback on the show. As always, if you can rate and review the show or recommend it to friends. Word of mouth is so helpful since we are a newer show. Um, just to get more ears listening and I appreciate each and every one of you so much. I really, really value all the connections that I've gotten to make because of this platform. It's really cool. Um, so thank you so much for listening. I hope that you liked this episode and I will see you all in the next one. Thanks for tuning in to this episode of the fit for hiking podcast. As always, I hope it leaves you feeling inspired and informed on how to take your health and adventure into your own hands. For more content like this, be sure to follow along with my daily posts at Ponytail Underscore. On a trail that's ponytail underscore on a trail. You can also stay up to date on my new episodes being released at Fit Underscore for hiking, and find more free resources at Pony Tail on a trail.com. Happy and healthy trails.