In April 2021, I sat with a boy I loved in a Sprinter van we’d built out ourselves, on a side street in Loreto, Mexico, outside a taco stand we grew to love. We were waiting for our laundry, and because we had cell service in town, I prompted him to look for jobs in Alaska, because he was feeling like he needed to work again, and we’d been trying to make it to Alaska since we met. After a long two minutes looking for jobs, he showed me a listing looking for “an outgoing couple to run a hostel in Fairbanks.” I sent the owner an email, and we heard back almost immediately that he wanted to schedule a phone interview. We called in from Baja the next day, and of course, got the job.
A few days later, we turned our wheels north, heading from Todos Santos, Mexico, to Fairbanks, Alaska on a road trip that took us only a month to complete. The trip was expedited by a faulty catalytic converter that we had to replace in San Diego, and the fact that Canada gave us only 3 full days to drive through their country due to the pandemic.
Craters of the Moon National Monument, ID on our way to the Canadian Border
Once we hit Alaska, we started our seasonal job in Fairbanks, a hostel job that actually paid, and gave us 2 days off a week so we could explore. I’ve been on the road over 2 years at this point, so committing to 5 months of stagnancy was already hard enough. Those 2 days a week were what kept me motivated to actually do this job, to sit with myself in one place for a second, and learn what lessons stagnancy had to teach me—what lessons Alaska herself had to teach me. I knew, as soon as we’d turned north, that when I left Alaska, I’d be in a new stage in my life, I just didn’t know what that would look like.
On June 1, we were on our way to Denali State Park, to hike a trail I was really excited to do now that I’d fully recovered from my infamous 2020 knee injury. I’ve been on my intuitive path for a while, so of course, I knew something was wrong with the van before our transmission went out. I’d just opened my mouth to tell Jared that we needed to take the van to the mechanic when we got back to Fairbanks when we lost all power, and ended up stranded on the side of the Parks Highway for 5 hours before a tow truck came to take us back to Fairbanks.
Making the most of staying put at the Georgeson Botanical Gardens in Fairbanks
What we were originally told was a $400 battery replacement and repair, quickly turned into an $8000 transmission rebuild, just a month and a half after we’d already spent $3000 on the Catalytic Converter replacement. The money hurt, but not as much as the time. Due to mechanics being few and far between in Alaska, it took about a month to get our van back, which sent my nomadic self into a depressive episode that made me wish I’d just stayed home and not bothered taking this job in the first place. As we discussed our options during that month, Jared expressed that he didn’t want to be responsible for a van anymore. This meant I was left with two options: buy his half of the van from him, or sell the van.
After an evening of trying to decide which option would be best, I eventually landed on selling the van as the best financial decision that would potentially allow me to make the space to direct my business toward making me financially free, rather than always having to work for other people. It broke my heart when we eventually got the van back, and I drove it back to our hostel, knowing that my time with our little home was limited, but still wanting to experience all that I could with it. It was around this time that Jared decided he was going to be staying in Alaska, working seasonally in the winter, so it truly did make the best financial sense for me to be solo again, in a smaller rig.
Not too long after, during a trip to one of our favorite parts of Alaska, Jared announced that he didn’t see us as compatible with each other in the long term. This didn’t mean he didn’t love me, and I didn’t disagree with him. But breaking up was never what I wanted from our relationship. I truly thought we were in it for the long run, but plans change, and so what I thought would be a long distance relationship starting in the fall, quickly turned into me preparing myself to explore the world all alone again.
This is what brings us to where we are today, with me on the road, now about 2,000 miles away from Fairbanks, traveling alone in the rig we built together. I am on my way back to California, where I will be selling the van, in exchange for a new one, so that I can keep traveling by myself. My world has completely changed, which is why I’m going to be taking this project, Halle’s Wandering Soul, in a different direction, angling toward talking about healing through travel, so that other people, especially women, can see that it’s possible to find oneself, through getting a little lost.
-HWS