Adventure Magazine December 2019/January 2020

TRIALS & TRIBULATIONS
OF VANLIFE
There are a lot of options around having a
‘VanLife’, you can rent an RV, or a motorhome,
hire a van or build one from the ground up,
but regardless of where you start there are
challenges to be overcome. It’s not all hanging
in hammocks drinking wine and looking at the
view.
IT CAN BE HARD TO WORK!
Regardless of what you may see on social
media, vanlife is not all about hanging around
your van in gorgeous locations. Living an on the
road lifestyle takes work, and you need to be
almost continually strategizing, making a plan,
thinking ahead.
Anyone who has done any time in a van will
know the joy of everpresent questions:
• When can I fill up with fresh water?
• Where will we sleep tonight?
• Where can we shower next?
• What shall we do with the greywater?
Cooking in a van is like cooking in a
cupboard – it helps if you can cook outside,
but if you can’t, then it is close quarter cooking.
You need to learn to put things away as soon
as you have stopped using them, there is no
piling them up in the corner and putting them
in the dishwasher later. There is an upside to it
that cooking as with most vanlife experiences
is about becoming a more of a minimalist,
keeping things simple and enjoy the quality
rather than the mass.
Unlike a house or an apartment, with a
vanlife you have to keep a close eye on the
water, how often do you need to fill up and
where, greywater what to do with it, black water
if you have it where can you dump it. You need
to keep an eye on fuel, propane/LPG. When
can I do some laundry? It takes a lot more
work than people imagine, but it’s not as bad
as having to do the lawns and paint the house.
These questions are relevant to how long you
are on the road for but anything over two weeks
you need to have answers to the daily question
and a developed awareness.
GET USED TO BEING OUTDOORS.
If you are not an outdoor person then
maybe vanlife is not for you! The key phrase you
hear is that ‘you don’t live in a van, you live out
of a van’. Vanlife, regardless of the vehicle, is
living and enjoying being outside.. No matter
how many amenities you included in your van,
you will still spend a significant amount of time
outside your van.
This is something that attracts a lot of
people to vanlife, and it’s one of our favourite
parts of this lifestyle. But it’s important to
realize that being outside all the time comes
with some unavoidable discomforts. There will
be dirt, mud, sand, and leaves. There will be all
kinds of insects; mosquitoes, flies, and spiders.
You will be cold, or hot, or damp, or sweaty.
Things won't be clean all the time, and you
won't be entirely comfortable all the time. And
the sooner you embrace this reality, the more
you'll enjoy living in a van.
LIKE CROWDHOUSE SAID ‘YOU ALWAYS TAKE
THE WEATHER WITH YOU.'
When you live in a van, you can’t control the
environment like you can in a house, and you
are always at the mercy of the weather. If it's
wet outside it’s going to get wet inside; if it dirty
and dusty outside, then it’s going to get dirty
and dusty inside.
But you can make sure your van is well
insulated; if you have hired a van you can learn
to use the temperature controls, lots of vans
have heating and aircon. But for those older
ones that don't, then you soon get used to
knowing what to wind-up and what to pull down.
But the most significant thing, like everything
with vanlife, you learn to put up with it and
you understand you can’t control everything,
so tonight you may bake a little, but tomorrow
things will be back to normal. When you
deal with the weather and the environment it
connects you to what’s around you – it makes
you understand the seasons. When we are
locked in an office or home, we try to maintain
an equilibrium with vanlife; you learn to accept
and enjoy it.
The other joy of vanlife is if you don’t
like the temperature where you are, you can
just……..move.
Vanlife means different things to different
people, there are difficulties, but it’s turning
those challenges into being part of the value
of the lifestyle which makes it even more
empowering.
50//WHERE ACTIONS SPEAK LOUDER THAN WORDS/#217