Why I Live in a Van

I’ve been living in the van full time for a month now, and the truth is, living in a van down by the river (or in the desert, or woods, or mountains, or city) is the best life ever. But I get it: you might not. And that’s okay, but really, full time travel is something that a lot of people are pursuing these days. I live in a 1997 Dodge Ram 3500 conversion van. It has a full sized bed, refrigerator, running water, solar power electricity, and an emergency toilet, and it’s everything I need to be happy. It’s not all fun and games, but it gives our lives variety. It allows me to have the freedom my soul wants while still being a Responsible Adult. And it’s allowed me to find myself, at least a little bit. So this is my why. Why travel. Why an alternative lifestyle. Why vanlife.

Camping on Joshua Tree South BLM

What is an alternative lifestyle?

We’ve all heard of the 9-5. We’ve all heard of the college, get married, buy a house, have kids, work for 30 years, retire loop that people tend to get stuck in. An alternative lifestyle is the rejection of that. It’s the idea that we are in charge of our own lives, not society. You can really do whatever you want. The thing is, whatever your excuse is, spin it around. If you think, “yeah but… I have to work.” Why can’t you do that from the road? Why can’t you start your own business? “Yeah but… I’m supposed to be buying a house.” Why is that? Who is saying that a house is your next step? There are no written rules for life, so it’s important to understand that we can take charge of our own paths, and do the thing that makes our souls feel full.

Of course, if a 9-5 feels right to you, then amazing! Do that! But for many of the people in my community, there’s boredom in a 9-5, there’s creative blocks, there’s a feeling of being trapped. So listen to that feeling and know that there’s another life out there.

Camping at Anza Borrego Desert State Park

But you can’t just be on vacation all the time…

Whoa whoa whoa… I have to stop you there. This is not a vacation. First I want to talk about something that my guide, Mike, brought up on the first day of my GIVE trip: what is the difference between a vacation and an adventure?

To me, a vacation is an escape from something, usually from a job or school. A vacation has the purpose of being a relaxing break before you return to real life.

An adventure is what this life feels like to me, but it’s more than that: this is my real life. Travel is my lifestyle. I still deal with real life, sometimes more than I would if I was living in an apartment, because in a moving house, things tend to break. I have to fill up my water tanks and dump the grey water when it’s full. I go grocery shopping and cook breakfast, lunch, and dinner every night. And more importantly, I work. I spend about 50% of my time in a place working so that I can afford to be where I am. This is simply life to me—it’s just that my backyard changes.

Loving life in Joshua Tree National Park. Photo by my friend Jared @jaredinthevan.

Why a van?

Now a lot of people romanticize backpacking, which is also long term travel, but yet don’t understand vanlife. Why is that? Honestly, there is a stigma, but when I have friends living in Mercedes Sprinters, it’s hard to understand why that stigma still stands. Honestly, I chose a van because I wanted to travel, but didn’t want rent to pay on top of my plane tickets. I wanted to be going full time, and having a van allows you to have everything you could possibly need with you all the time, no matter where you are.

I chose a van because when I sleep next to a national park I wake up to the sunrise peeking through my windows. I chose a van because ending my day surrounded by somewhere new but under a sky full of the same stars feels more stable and right to me than going home to the same place every night. I chose a van because it could park anywhere. I chose a van because the road feels like home to me, and even more so when I carry my home with me like a snail does. I chose a van because structure doesn’t pair well with me. And that’s okay. There’s a life for everyone where they’re happy.

Me and the van at the RTR 2020. Photo by my friends @lindseyanddannyvanlife

What about friends and relationships?

This is a tricky one. When we’re constantly moving, we don’t find ourselves surrounded by the same people all the time, but at the same time, the people we need to be around will find us when we need them the most. I have an amazing van fam who I caravanned with for about a month, and the thing is, people come and go, and moments do too—it’s just a matter of listening to where your soul wants to be and who it wants to be with.

Me and Emma in Sedona. Emma is one of the van fam and you can find her @emma.goes. Photo by our friend Brien @theotherground.

So… in conclusion…

Basically, vanlife for me is finding my freedom. I felt very stifled in school, and like I never really had the opportunity to make friends who truly understood how I felt about certain things, and through full time travel, through the road, I’ve been able to find both of those things. While people are fleeting, I’ve found my community, and while all roads do come to an end, I’ve found my freedom through the movement. I’ve figured myself out, and what I need, and I think that was something that needed to happen for me to progress as a person. Vanlife isn’t just about the van, it’s about the life and what you choose to do with it.

-HWS

The Other Side of the Planet

Finding Home in Ban Sop Chem

“I was never not coming here. This was never not going to happen.” -Eat Pray Love

From the moment I landed in Laos, surrounded by mountains and green, something in my soul felt like it had slipped perfectly into place. Back before I started traveling, I spent a lot of time struggling with the meaning of my life and what I was doing. I didn’t think that what I was currently doing had the power to make the impact I wanted it to. So, I went searching, and I found myself in Laos, a country I’d never heard of before signing up to go.

Both times on the boats, when we were arriving in and leaving Sop Chem, I cried. I expected to upon leaving—I hate goodbyes, I always try to frame them as a “see you later,” and this time around I really hoped it was true because the moment we arrived, no, before we arrived, when we were simply traveling down the Nam Ou River with mountains as tall as Montana’s glaciers casting shadows on the water and our boat and the trees, I suddenly felt a whisper of “oh, this is why.”

View from the restaurant in Sop Chem

Why I came here, why I didn’t feel like what I was working on before had much purpose, why I was put on this planet. I was supposed to do something bigger. I arrived as a volunteer, and I left knowing I needed to come back.

I spent the week with the locals, getting to know them by name and spending more time with them than I would ever spend with my neighbors back in California. We were able to connect without language. I played games with children who just wanted to learn from us, I made emotional connections with the village’s women, I tried their food, and stayed in their homes. I pet their dogs, and ate lunch with views of their river, a river that would always symbolize the act of arriving here.

Working with the children was one of the most fulfilling moments for me. I arrived in Southeast Asia expecting to put most of my energy into permaculture—it was sustainability that brought me out there in the first place. But the truth is, the connections with the people is what made me want to stay. In Laos, I worked with the young boys to teach them English. I picked them because I have a little brother, and I knew most people would want to work with the girls anyway, and the boys deserved that attention and love too. I knew they’d be a handful, but sometimes mischief is fun, and it turns out, my favorite students were the troublemakers.

Some of my students, playing in the river

Of course, I loved all of them, and I’m incredibly proud of the progress they made just in the time I was with them, but the ones whose names I’ll forever remember are Khan and Leek, to the older boys (about 8 or 9) who came to the intermediate class to learn English on their last 3 days of winter break. They were mischievous, but that meant they were smart. They didn’t have to be there—they showed up because they wanted to. They came and went as they pleased, but still enjoyed a good coloring book and sticker at the end of the day. Khan can give a high five that will knock your soul straight out of your body. Leek is soft at heart, I can tell, but he likes showing off—being the center of attention.

At the end of the school day, the boys disappeared, like children of the jungle and the mountains, dispersing into the hiking trails and roads and trees, while the girls stick around to play games. Phun is the girl who always picked me as her partner for games, and later in the week, for dancing. She’s about 7 years old and she was never my student. She just learned my name when her friend Noona asked. I wanted to ask her why she always picked me, but she doesn’t know enough English and I don’t know enough Lao and “why” is a hard question to answer in any language, so I’ll just go with the idea that she either liked my energy or my pants. I hope that one day I can ask her, but the truth is, even when I do eventually find my way back there, the odds are, she probably won’t remember me the way Noona would, who remembers every volunteer from the past three years. They’re best friends, those girls, and I wish I could have given them so much more.

After the Baci Ceremony

I sat, on one of my last days in Sop Chem, hanging in my hammock in the restaurant where we always ate our meals, looking out over the Nam Ou River for one of the last times until next time (whenever that may be). My legs were bug bitten and bruised and my Teva tan was back and my soul felt so at peace there that the thought of leaving and never coming back broke my heart. I’d never wanted to stay somewhere longer than I wanted to stay there. I didn’t feel like I was on the other side of the planet from home. It felt like my soul had always been trying to find this place.

My last morning in Sop Chem also happened to be my birthday. The last night of my year had been spent dancing to an hour long remix of songs from my childhood under the stars, barefoot, in the center of a village in the center of mountains with Baci chords tied around my wrists for good luck. I felt so full, that day, even knowing that the morning meant leaving, and as we did, back on the boats that brought us to our new home in Ban Sop Chem in the first place, it didn’t feel like the people on the shore of the river were saying goodbye, not forever, at least, not for me.

Why It’s More Important Than Ever to #LeaveNoTrace

As we go into 2020, welcome a new decade, and watch the birth of the 62nd National Park in the US (welcome, White Sands!), it’s becoming increasingly apparent how important it is to take care of our wild spaces. Climate change is real, it’s happening, and it’s greatly affecting the places we love and the big one we call home: Earth. This means it’s more crucial than ever that everyone do their part to at least reduce your own personal carbon footprint, because, the truth is, but the old adage goes: if you’re not part of the solution, you’re part of the problem, and in 2020, so much is accessible that you’re honest missing out if you haven’t adopted at least one better for the planet habit. Now, I don’t want to get all sad and depressing on you while we welcome this new year. Instead, I want to talk about why Leave No Trace should be trending, and I don’t just mean on the internet.

Note: this post may contain affiliate links

Big Sur, CA

What is Leave No Trace?

The Leave No Trace Principles, or LNT, are guidelines for all people to follow when they’re exploring wild places. They originated in the US, and gained popularity in the public lands (NPS, USDA, and BLM), but could and should be applied to every place on this planet. There are 7 LNT Principles:

1: Plan ahead and prepare

This just goes with the old boy scout saying: always be prepared. This will allow for your own safety as well as the safety and preservation of the land you’re exploring.

2: Travel and camp on durable surfaces

The idea of principal number 2 is to keep you away from areas that could be severely damaged by your footsteps or tent. Of course, this doesn’t always mean you have to stay on trail—and sometimes you simply can’t, but look out to make sure you’re not damaging any of the land you’re walking on.

3. Dispose of waste properly

This one should be a no brainer—throw away your trash! You wouldn’t just leave garbage on the floor in your house, so don’t do it in the woods, desert, beach, or anywhere else either. Better yet: leave it better than you found it—pick up any trash you find on trails or in campsites as well.

If you’re interested in joining an awesome volunteer group with the goal of cleaning our wild spaces, become a Wildkeeper! Applications open on the Keep Nature Wild website this month. (I am not an affiliate of KNW, I just love and support their cause and have worked as a volunteer with them for over a year.)

Me at the Grand Canyon wearing a shirt I got from Keep Nature Wild (you get a huge discount for joining the ambassador/volunteer program too!)

4: Leave what you find

Have you ever heard the saying “take nothing but pictures, leave nothing but footprints?” I think that pretty much sums up principle number 4, and most of them, actually.

5: Minimize campfire impacts

The last thing you want is to start a wildfire. Make sure that your campfire is only in designated areas such as fire rings when you’re camping so that you can prevent any sparks from flying.

6: Respect wildlife

This is a HUGE one. I see so many people approaching animals in National Parks, and it’s not only incredibly dangerous for them, but it also puts the animal in danger. Please keep your distance from all wildlife, and keep dogs and other pets on designated trails to prevent foreign substances (you know, poop) and bugs from affecting local animals.

7: Be considerate of others

Don’t be the person who’s flying a drone in a National Park. While your shot might look cool, you’re ruining the experience for everyone else who came out to be in nature. Make sure that you’re respectful, and try to avoid traveling to busy spots on holiday weekends.

This deer crossed my trail in Voyageurs National Park, Minnesota. I patiently waited for him to return to the woods before I continued hiking.

Why LNT is so important in 2020

Especially with tourism in our natural spaces being at an all time high, it’s more crucial than ever to leave these spaces better than we found them in order to preserve them for more generations to come. That way, California will still have its oceans, Montana will still have its Glaciers, and the Grand Canyon will still be just as beautiful, even years down the line.

Grinnell Glacier, Glacier National Park, MT. If you look closely you can see the waterfall of melting ice on the right hand side.

What other ways can I help respect my wild spaces?

I’m glad you asked! There are so many ways you can help protect nature at home. Aside from practicing LNT when you’re outside, you can definitely reduce your carbon footprint in your everyday life. Here are some of my favorite ideas:

Don’t buy products with plastic if you can avoid them (shop zero waste products here!)

Shop second hand or ethical clothing (check out one of my favorite ethical clothing brands, Wholesome Culture)

Eat plant based as much as possible (January is a great time to make the switch to a vegan lifestyle!)

Support brands that support our planet when you do need to buy new stuff, like Madera Outdoor, Eco Roots, and larger companies like REI.

Responsible tourism: make sure that when you travel, you’re not impacting the communities you’re visiting in any way, and maybe even find a way to volunteer.

Unplug, go off the grid, run off solar, do whatever you can in your everyday life that makes sense for YOU!

The planet’s tallest trees in Redwood National and State Parks, CA. Let’s plant more in 2020.

Being kinder to our planet is incredibly crucial when it comes to having a cleaner Earth. And this goes much further than simply picking up your trash (but please don’t stop doing so!). It has to do with simply being respectful of our natural places, and doing our part to make our own impact as insignificant as it can be. Making sure that we’re being kind to wildlife, other visitors, and the land we walk on is the best way to make sure that we start taking care of this planet the right way, and truly “leave nothing but footprints.”