Thanks a ton for stopping by! It’s been a long while since we’ve posted anything on here so we will have a post coming shortly with some general life updates and such. For now, we figured we’d share what has been taking up so much of our time and conversation lately. We’ve decided that we’re going to convert and live in a van/bus (WE CAN’T DECIDE)! I guess you could call us a new nomadic couple. It’s got a ring to it 🙂
By now, I’m sure anyone reading this has at least seen a few of the popular #vanlife posts going around Instagram, if not followed along with them. The idea of picking everything up, throwing it in a converted cargo van, and hitting the road has picked up quite a bit of attention over the last couple of years. I was first introduced to the idea probably three or four years ago. At that time, I was all about it but didn’t see how a lifestyle like that would really be possible. Fast forward to now, Ellie and I have already built our lives with a focus on keeping our material possessions to a minimum, and not necessarily living like society tells us we should and are looking forward to taking on and adapting to the van life!
We first thought about converting and moving into a van in the early summer of 2020. We were months away from getting married and, of course, fantasizing about how cool it could be! What could possibly be more fun than traveling full-time right?! After tying the knot, life caught up with us a little bit (by life I mean work) and the idea started to slip away. After being married for nearly a year now – boy how it’s flown by – we are starting to realize that we don’t want all aspects of our lives to be dictated by our jobs.
At the moment, our jobs control when we wake up, when we go to sleep, where we live, how much free time we have, how much money we make, and other things. This whole idea of joining the van life movement isn’t just about us being able to travel, but more about the lifestyle affording us the ability to have some freedom in where we go, when we go, how long we stay, how much we work, etc.
We don’t want to live to work. We want to work to LIVE!
You should know that van life isn’t the glamorous, lifelong vacation that Instagram pages often make it out to be. It is a difficult lifestyle to live that takes a lot of work and even more sacrifices. Things like breaking down in random sketchy places, not being able to shower for a week, losing all sunlight and not being able to power your fridge, sleeping in a shorter-than-normal bed and not being able to get comfortable, and camping overnight in a neighborhood and waking up to the cops asking you to leave. Kombilife has a great post on the most difficult aspects of van life!
None of these are things that Ellie and I are looking forward to, but having to deal with those seems to us like a fair trade-off if it gives us the ability to choose where we want to be and when, and allows us to see some pretty cool things and meet some pretty cool people while we’re still young. And be prepared, our budget is tight so we’ll be getting creative in terms of purchasing our vehicle and turning it into our home!
There are a few things that need to happen before we can really be a new nomadic couple. I’ll give a brief list but know that most of these things will have their own dedicated posts at a later time.
- Saving money (Spending less, making more)
- Building income that works on the road
- Buying a rig
- Converting our rig
- Living out our lease (April 2022)
That’s it for now. If any of this sounds like a lifestyle you might be interested in, definitely follow along as we will be sharing many of the different ways that we are preparing to purchase and renovate a home on wheels and some of the actionable steps that you can take to make it happen for yourself! Thanks so much for stopping by! We hope you’ll find this new journey of ours both entertaining and informative. Be on the lookout for our future posts, or subscribe to our mailing list to be notified every time we’ve got something new to talk about!
