Now that we’ve been on the road for a bit, I thought it would be fun to compile a visual map of everywhere we’ve slept in our converted van. This is both for us to look back on over time and for anyone else who might be looking for boondocking or camping recommendations.

Here are the dog-friendly overnight spots we’ve found!

🗺 Map of all overnight stays

This article originally started out as a typed list… but as time went on, that became ludicrously unsustainable. Thanks to Google Maps, I’ve pinned all our overnight spots on one map! (The only locations not included are family and friends’ private properties.)

View interactive map

I’ve been updating this on a roughly monthly basis with a slight lag for the sake of internet privacy. I’m always happy to answer questions if you’re looking for more details on a particular stay.

Read more

Experiences that were hard to imagine before we moved in—things like sleeping on the side of a city street or opening our bedroom doors to a view of an honest-to-god glacier or rationing water usage and cabinet space—are normal after doing them so many times. This is life. This is home. This is the longest Sean, Scout, and I have stayed anywhere together.

And it is also, hard as Past Me might have found it to believe, the most comfortable we’ve felt anywhere together.

Even after our break this past summer when we leased a short-term studio to compare road life more directly with apartment life1, it wasn’t difficult to jump back into traveling full time. There was no learning curve this go around. It felt like coming home.

Because it was coming home.

Hermes is home to the degree that I get a little peeved when people refer to him as a camper, actually. They’re not doing anything wrong—I myself use the combo word “campervan” to describe our rig pretty often because it’s a recognizable term—but I do resist my van’s reduction to something in which you camp. In my mind, a camper is temporary. A camper is where you take a break from the rest of your life. A camper is roughing it.

But this has not been temporary, and it’s not a break from anything else somehow more real, and I don’t feel like I’m roughing it2. I feel like I’m living my dog-damned dream. And the longer I live it? The less strange it becomes.

My daily routines on the road have lost that surreal quality and instead become, you know, just my daily routines.

I do still know, somewhere deep down, that a ton of the things I’ve accepted as “part of regular life” are in fact extremely odd to most people. Once in a while I get a reminder of that, chatting with someone new, and I suddenly realize all over again how bizarre this whole thing has been. How absurd my life looks from the outside. How no, actually, it is not a common experience to lift the toilet out of your bathroom before showering or let the temperature of your living space fluctuate 30 degrees before you intervene or take a nap in a grocery store parking lot.

I feel out of touch. I don’t know what “normal life” even is anymore, let alone what it should be. But honestly, I love that ambiguity.

I’m reminded that 1) we are adaptable creatures who can habituate to a wide range of experiences, 2) we all get “stuck” in our own perspectives sometimes, even if we don’t mean to, and 3) it’s worth questioning our assumptions of what is and isn’t normal at regular intervals—because mine is not yours, and yours is not mine, and that’s okay.

It’s actually pretty wonderful.

Related posts

And my flash essay, “Diary of an adventurous homebody”, published by The Amazine earlier this autumn!

Everything we own is wet from being rained on or simply because the van has hovered around 80-90 percent humidity for two weeks.

The moisture from one particularly intense storm shorted our second alternator controller, meaning our batteries no longer charge when we drive (in turn meaning we are dependent on shore power at campgrounds every few days... which was sort of the opposite of what we were going for when we designed a self-contained rig). Apparently the parts we need to fix the issue arrived via general delivery yesterday, but when we got to the post office this morning the staff said they have zero record of that. We still don’t have heat or hot water and our water pump is mildly on the fritz.

So, there are several side quests we need to figure out soon. (Referring to mishaps as “side quest opportunities” has been excellent for my mental health, highly recommend.)

But we continue on our main quest, too: Make the most out of this nomadic experience together.

Scout wakes up, every morning, prancing and tippy-tapping and insisting we start the day with some sort of game. Thanks to the end of daylight saving, the sun again rises before 7 am and makes it possible for the three of us to head outside first thing. We’ve gotten to marvel at too many mushrooms and banana slugs and rocky bluffs to count. If we listen closely, we can hear sea lions bark over the crashing waves. I’m typing this from the side of the street, which I know never sounds too glamorous, except look at the misty magical view through the open side door. That glorious beam of sunlight on the far-off water!!

My entire adulthood—from falling in love with Sean to adopting Scout to building this unusual (and unusually fulfilling) life where we park our house in different places basically every day—keeps plopping me in the middle ground, sweeping me up in our world’s duality. It’s calm and chaotic. I’m content and overwhelmed. I’m on top of the world, I’m in over my head, I’m wondering what the hell we’re doing, I’m thinking there’s no better way to live.

Aren’t the multitudes the point?!

Other notes and news

📌 Travel

• We’ve officially been to 49 out of 50 US states—together, the three of us, my little family—in our yellow van. Surreal.

@paws.andreflect

Haley Young | Dog Nerd, Writer on Instagram: "Scout has officia…

Sean and I signed a lease for a studio in Portland, Maine!

We’ll arrive at our new apartment on the first of May. For three months we’ll live within walking distance of our favorite kombucha brewery (find me writing there multiple times a week) and take actual baths in a tub all our own (this prospect is hard to fathom after two-plus years in a van) and spend as much time as we can with friends in the area (the biggest draw). I’ve also already put some in-person writing workshops on my calendar—if you’re in the area and want to chat words (or dogs or etc) please hit me up!

It shall be wicked.

And then we’ll move right back into Hermes for more travel, because the idea of actually “settling down”—committing to one place for any sort of long haul—still does not appeal to us at all.

I’m finding this strangely important to emphasize: While I’m over-the-moon about calling Portland home for a few months, we are not tired of being nomads. (Read: Pry Hermes from my cold, dead hands.)

This summer’s decision just came down to logistics. At first we talked about merely making a lengthy van visit to the Portland area again, maybe two or three times as long as we were there in the fall of 2023 and spring of 2024. But if we’re going to spend weeks on end in one city—hoping to live more like locals and enjoy proximity to one of my best friends (who does not have private property we can park on)—eventually someone will notice the yellow van hanging about. And that might rightly make them uncomfortable.1

So for anything beyond a couple week off-and-on stay, the best approach is longer term lodging. Our solution? A furnished studio with a designated parking space. It’s about five times larger than our van’s square footage, making it a downright palace—I feel so lucky we were able to find such an ideal option.

It will be, as previously said, wicked.

It will also be weird. Since settling into our van 800-some days ago, we’ve slept less than 30 nights—not even 4 percent of our time—outside our rig. Do I even remember what it’s like to live in a “normal” residence?

And it will be weirdly wonderful. Already I dream of walking to a dual cafe/bookstore not far from our apartment, and jogging along the promenade, and always having a level floor big enough to do my core physical therapy exercises. I close my eyes and imagine dinners with Liz and Austin, and park trips with their son Henry, and the joy that is being able to move closer to people you love (even if just for a season).

Sean and I keep joking, and half-joking, and having entirely serious conversations about the ways we’ve changed since becoming full-time nomads. Like pursuers of any lifestyle, no two van dwellers are exactly the same—we make different choices, have different values, and enjoy different experiences!—but many of these shifts feel pretty damn cliché.

As my best friend said this past fall: “You are definitely in your hippie era, Haley.”

First let’s talk semantics (as always)

I’m not sure what adjective is right for the title of these reflections. I like feral because of my dog-world associations—a feral animal is one who’s “gone wild” after previously being captive or domesticated—but it does seem a tad extreme given that we’re still very much part of society. (I also worry feral has a sort of wild and free vibe that makes me think of van lifers who never leash, clean up after, or otherwise rein in their pets. Please do not associate me with that. I beg you.)

I considered crunchy, but that called to mind images of tradwifes and anti-vaxxers. Granola was another option I still rather like. So was nontraditional, which I’d say fits us pretty well, but then I overthink what tradition really means. Maybe nature loving? Environmentally conscious? Those are true too, but not the whole picture.

Anyway. I stuck with feral. I hope you get the gist of what I mean!

Signs of our growing ferality

• As the subtitle notes: Sean makes his own granola. He is kind of obsessed with it—I’m not sure you’d believe how many massive containers of oats he can go through in a relatively short period of time.

• We spend the bulk of our days outside (or at minimum with fresh air coming through the van’s open doors).

• As a result, we’ve grown comfortable in a wider range of climates. Sometimes we wake up on a cold morning with the van’s indoor temperature in the low 50s… and just say cool! We’re so cozy with our blankets and wool socks and Scout snuggles! Other times Sean casually dons a sweatshirt when it’s 80.

• Speaking of Scout: She will lounge outside in almost any weather now, including actual rain. (When I first adopted her, she hated setting a single foot in a puddle.)

• We pretty much only use soap on our hands. (We do wash our hands multiple times a day, I promise!) No face wash or shampoo.

• We also go longer than ever between freshwater rinses, especially when on public land or near the beach.

• Last month, before meeting a friend for dinner, I took a “lotion shower” (liberally applying lotion with lavender essential oil) and felt perfectly presentable afterward… despite the fact that I hadn’t “cleaned” myself besides ocean swims in over a week.

• Scout hasn’t had a proper full bath since December 2022.

• Dirt has never bothered me less. I’m still picky about food safety and human-made messes, but I don’t mind the sort of grime that actually comes from nature.

• My last professional haircut was in December 2023. (I did allow my sister—who is under no circumstances a hair stylist—to trim it last fall using a YouTube video as her guide.)

• I have a crocheted shirt. It is possibly my favorite.

• We’re slowly becoming almost as obsessed with plants as I’ve long been with animals. (In part we have Zoë Schlanger’s The Light Eaters to thank for this.)

• We can spend almost an hour on a half-mile nature trail, pointing out interesting leaves and spiders and bird calls.

• We’ve started stargazing in earnest, using binoculars and star maps to find not just constellations but also tiny specks of light we’d never paid attention before.

• We watch every sunrise and sunset we can (and are so fortunate this lifestyle provides ample viewing opportunities).

• After dark, we try to use as little artificial light as possible. It’s easier in a teeny space.

• We’re more materially minimalist than ever. If an object doesn’t serve multiple purposes or drastically improve our quality of life? No room for it!

• I’ve never taken greater joy in simple “maintenance tasks” like cooking, cleaning, stretching, etc.

• We eat less meat and opt for dairy alternatives when possible. Hannah Ritchie’s Not The End of The World helped prioritize decisions like this. (Our favorite meat alternative is Meati, especially the chicken cutlets.)

• We share everything—like, to a weird degree. I’ve gotten so used to it I didn’t even realize others find it strange until Sean’s dad called him out for getting “us” a glass of orange juice instead of pouring me my own cup on a recent visit. Serving dinner in one bowl with one utensil makes dishwashing simpler! Passing it between bites is also a sort of intimacy we both love.

• We conserve water like we’re always in a drought (with the exception of actually drinking it—I easily down several liters a day). Our 30 gallon fresh tank lasts more than a week on average.

• I have a burgeoning collection of interesting rocks, pebbles, and shells.

• While only in areas where it’s allowed, Scout does spend a huge amount of time off leash.

• Sean plays the guitar more regularly. He also bought a harmonica. This morning we sang “Blowing in the Wind” by Bob Dylan together… which almost felt like a bit much. 😂

• My favorite special treat is strong kombucha. (We usually only buy it on sale, so it’s retained “special treat” status!)

• My fashion sense, which was never particularly developed to begin with, has completely collapsed. I wear whatever makes me feel comfortable and confident! Sometimes this means two inarguably clashing patterns at the same time. 🤷🏼‍♀️

Catherine Raven, a solitary biologist in the mountains of Montana, wrote about befriending a wild red canid in her memoir aptly titled Fox and I.1

The most magical moment in the book occurs one night when Fox brings his kits—baby foxes! I nearly squeal with delight imagining a rough version of the scene—to Raven’s cabin. While he settles for a nap, she watches his progeny tumble around and atop each other, close enough to touch. They are illuminated by the moon and awash in fresh air.

Afterward she talks about assigning value to these events. Raven gives up so much—close human connection, quick access to resources, career opportunities—to live the way she does. Are the sacrifices worth it? What would she trade for another night of fox kits?

Nearly everything, she answers.

Me too, I think. Of course it’s presumptuous to compare my life directly to Catherine Raven’s—she is infinitely more badass than I am—but the last two years primed me to understand her calculus. We’ve given up dozens of previous staples to travel full time in a converted van. On occasion it is exhausting. But when you ask if the sacrifices are worthwhile? I do not hesitate: Yes, yes, a thousand times yes.

I have never witnessed a fox-kit moon, but I have fallen asleep to wolf howls outside Yellowstone National Park. I have heard bats echolocating—rare, these clicks audible to human ears—just above my head in Utah’s desert. I have gasped at Florida tree snails, Liguus fasciatus, shining in their narrow Everglades range.

I see the Milky Way so often I almost forget how precious the sight has become in our artificially lit human world. Lately I take pride in knowing, without having to think, the current phase of the moon simply because I’ve spent so many recent nights outside. This morning I stayed in bed for half an hour counting bird songs through our open back doors. Yesterday Sean and I ambled a boardwalk trail more slowly than my past self could have imagined, gasping at the smallest air plants you’ve ever seen and strangler figs’ wild acrobatics and white lichen decorating tree trunks in a pattern reminiscent of my hometown’s dairy cows.

I do not always know where I am going to sleep, if we can park without disturbance, when I will next find a fully stocked grocery store. It is scary to get sick on an island in another country thousands of miles from the place you once called home and only hope the local pharmacy can help. We constantly befriend the world around us—try to, anyway, balancing our own curiosity with the removed reverence fellow creatures deserve—but always through the ache of missing our human friends, longing for the ability to call them up last minute and ask if they want to meet for a beer.

I hurt, sometimes: physically, emotionally, deep in my chest.

But my sense of wonder grows. Lights up with the fireflies, sprints with the deer, dives on the ospreys’ outstretched wings. It is a salve for the sacrifices’ sting—and I would trade even more for moments like this.

Passages I highlighted in Fox and I

• Page 22: You don’t need much imagination to see that society has bulldozed a gorge between humans and wild, unboxed animals, and it’s far too wide and deep for anyone who isn’t foolhardy to risk the crossing. As for making yourself unpopular, you might as well show up to a university lecture wearing Christopher Robin shorts and white bobby socks as be accused of anthropomorphism. Only Winne-the-Pooh would associate with you.

• Page 34: I wasn’t trying to emulate normal people, but I did like knowing what they were up to.

• Page 233: In the twenty-first century, everyone wants everything to be natural—with a few exceptions: medicine, transportation, energy, communication, televisions, wrinkles, cell phones, bad eyes, weak hearts, worn knees, small boobs, old hips, indoor temperature. The more we humans pamper ourselves with manmade toys and tools, dressing in polypropylene, Gore-Tex, and nylon fleece and availing ourselves of dentures, braces, statins, vaccines, diet pills, hearing aids, and pacemakers for everyone over the age of seventy-five, the more we demand that unboxed animals stay natural. Like a seesaw with humans on one side of the fulcrum and wildlife on the other, we sink further from a natural life and force wildlife closer to it. Our pursuit of the natural life is as vigorous as it is vicarious.

• Page 245: Those of us who have barnacled ourselves to inhospitable places may be trying to avoid people not because we do not like people, but because we love the things that people destroyed. Wild things. Horizons. Trolls.

• Page 265: Looking back, I would say that when a person thinks they are wrong for doing something that feels right, well, then, the definition of wrong needs to shift.

• Page 293: lack of imagination is not a career choice, it’s a personality crisis.

Sean and I are 27. You could say we live a bit like we’re retired—we travel full time, we’re (usually) in charge of our own schedules, and you’re just as likely to find us hiking on a Tuesday morning as sitting through a lengthy work call.

#vanlife can seem like we’re always on vacation. In ways, we are: often in a new place, never tied to a single office or even a stationary apartment building, rarely restricted to living the life we want on evenings and weekends.

We’re also sort of never on vacation. We don’t work 9-5 each business day, but we do log billable hours (writing, designing, pitching new freelance pieces, reviewing engineering diagrams, leading presentations, coordinating vendors, etc) pretty much every day. Spreading our tasks throughout the week frees up some of those Tuesday mornings for hiking and Thursday afternoons for swimming but also means I might wake up on Sunday with a multi-step to-do list and no room to push things around. Once a confused vendor asked Sean if he worked second or third shift because they kept receiving his emails time stamped around midnight. (After this he started scheduling messages for the next morning.) It’s not uncommon for us to have a “vacation” day followed by a “work very hard” evening.

It’s a privilege to structure our careers like this. We have done little to earn it: The low-budgetness of our lifestyle means it’s sustainable to work only part time; Sean got lucky with his employer like I did with my clients (not to mention our family foundations before that); and in a sense all we’ve accomplished is staying on top of obligations so we’re able to keep clocking in and out as we please.

I have adjusted to—fully embraced—this lack of clear distinction between “work” and “personal” time. Commuting to a windowless building five days a week seems incomprehensible… but so does treating Saturday and Sunday like an inherent break.

Then there is the other work we do day in and day out. Our van’s systems require regular upkeep to function: We must keep tabs on the toilet jug and gray tank, monitor our electricity usage, and be prepared to fix problems (blown fuses, plugged water pumps) ourselves on a whim. Our travel demands more real-time decision making: We need to navigate parking restrictions, respect different cultural norms in the places we stop, and save up energy for the inevitable nights we feel displaced. Because the line between “how we make income” and “how we enjoy spending our creative/intellectual time anyway” is thin (another thing I hope to never take for granted) it’s often these van chores that make adventures feel least like a vacation. Physical security in my home is not a given. We’re always moving. Always tracking. Always checking.

I love living in a van. We are so lucky to be able to live in a van. I don’t mean the above realities as complaints but simply as trade offs, the way every lifestyle has tradeoffs.

But breaking out of those patterns—on occasion feeling like we can have our cake and eat it too—is thrilling. That’s what made this last week so special.

Almost a year ago we booked four nights at Bahia Honda State Park in the Florida Keys, in a campsite directly overlooking the ocean. I planned ahead so I wouldn’t have to check a single email or submit a single assignments from campground check in to check out.

And it was glorious.

I read (so much!) and wrote (with no pressure) and floated in turquoise water. I made a key lime pie (really a no-bake cheesecake) and kept my phone on airplane mode but took lots of pictures. We stocked our fridge with special things—way more fresh fruit and kombucha than usual—and lingered over breakfast as the sun’s heat grew each morning. We had an electric hookup and water spigot just feet from the van. Sean wasn’t able to push off a few meetings, but aside from those brief interruptions our time blurred into full leisure: I asked him, after a sunrise run, what day is was and was delighted to realize I truly didn’t know the answer.

Even though our fridge door handle broke the night before we arrived (it is now rigged with a piece of unsightly twine) and an off-leash dog charged into our campsite right after we checked in (belonging to the campground host, actually; they redeemed themselves with a sincere apology) and our water pump’s pressure gauge malfunctioned the first evening (Sean spent hours diagnosing the problem) it was one of the loveliest vacations I’ve had. The best of both worlds—van life flexibility and stationary-life security—with just enough reminders that a situation doesn’t have to be seamless to be relaxing. The ability to wind down even amidst chaos is one of the greatest things living on the road has taught me, and while it’s easier in perfectly arranged environments—listening to the waves and watching the constellations trace the sky through the open bed doors at night—external calm isn’t actually required for me to find that sense within myself.

So I guess if I had to pick, I’d agree: I am sort of always on vacation.

I’m trying to keep that mindset, anyway.

January 26th. Two years, exactly, since we backed down our Florida driveway for the last time. We sat on brand-new swivel cab chairs. We left our house in a realtor’s hands. We felt giddy (perhaps Scout a little confused).

The past 732 days feel like a dream. Maybe I have been watching someone else—someone better—live my life for me? Each experience was bright and real and mine, but now they’re fuzzy around the edges and I’m not sure how I’d begin to describe them to a stranger. Like waking up in the morning, slow and content, then trying to explain the details of your subconscious exploits to someone else.

How different am I from when we began? Would I be this different if I hadn’t moved into a bright yellow van and driven an absurd distance in a relatively short amount of time?

Some changes feel like a direct consequence of living on the road. I shower less and hardly ever use soap except on my hands. (My skin and hair microbiomes have adjusted—the flexibility is so freeing.) I can tolerate a much larger range of temperatures. I’m less bothered by dirt and grime (at least the kind that comes from actually being outside). I get antsy when we stay in one place for too long. I relish a deep comfy couch and a long hot shower with an intensity Past Me, who never wanted for those things, couldn’t conceive.

Other changes are harder to assign a cause. I take writing more seriously, trying to feel proud of my work even when it seems “silly” (as strictly pet-related things sometimes can with so much else going on in our world). I read even more—and give greater thought to what I consume, planning my holds weeks and months in advance. (I now have three library cards!) I pick and choose my battles more discerningly (though this might not say much given that the bar for “more” was very, very low). I marvel at nature all the time. I feel closer to some friends and further from others.

“Van life” has been built of trade offs. I think all lifestyles are. This one just highlights them—then shifts your baseline, juxtaposing new normals with old extremes to make you wonder which is actually which. Sometimes I miss coming home from a long day of work and kicking my feet up and being able to truly stay in, to not leave my own property, to not drive or park or look up city bylines about RVs on the street. Sometimes I tire, exhaust myself, running through far-fetched “what ifs” about our sleeping arrangements and physical assets. On occasion I resent the struggle to build a deeper in-person community, slowly, over time, on my own terms (read: not strangers coming up to our van). But none of those feelings overshadow my love for this life’s spontaneity. How many hundreds of sunrises have I watched, over how many dozens of landscapes, all from the comfort of my own bed? How many stressful situations have we bypassed with sensitive Scout by having constant access to a temperature controlled environment? How much perspective have I gained?

Sometimes we can’t imagine taking a different path simply because we know any guesses we make will be wrong—we don’t actually know our future selves, even our past selves, as intimately as we like to think. There’s some of that going on here. I simply can’t construct an accurate mental image of what my life would look like if I hadn’t moved into a van.

But I also can’t imagine it in the sense of “I wouldn’t have it any other way”—I don’t want to imagine it.

We have no desire to stop living nomadically. I’m sure it’ll happen, but for now Sean and Scout and I want to keep chasing adventures and experiences and wonder and awe, and it feels right to make those pursuits on the road. Even when we do stop, on that faraway future day, I want to hold onto what my bright yellow van has taught me: practicalities like conserving resources (water, electricity, storage space) and eschewing materialism, loftier ideals like pushing past my comfort zone and not burning the future to stay warm (thanks to John Green for the latter metaphor), and above all, love love love love.

A summary (mostly) by the numbers

732 days

• 96 percent of nights sleeping in the van

  • 23.7 percent parking lots

  • 20.6 percent public land

  • 19.1 percent street parking

  • 18.4 percent campgrounds

  • 11.9 percent on friends or family’s property

  • 6.3 percent Harvest Hosts

  • 14 percent with electric or water hookup

  • Average length of stay: 1.3 nights

• 4 percent of nights outside the van

  • 24 nights staying inside friend’s or family’s homes

  • 5 nights in hotels

• ~$6,000 on lodging

  • $3,100 on campgrounds

  • $2,000 on Harvest Hosts

  • $650 on hotels

  • $230 on parking lots

60,000 miles

46 US states and 9 Canadian provinces/territories

1. Every US state except Hawaii, California, Nevada, Oregon

2. 8/10 provinces: British Columbia, Alberta, New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, Newfoundland, Prince Edward Island, Quebec, and Ontario

3. 1/3 territories: Yukon

23 national parks

1. Acadia, Arches, Bryce Canyon, Canyonlands, Capitol Reef, Denali, Everglades, Gateway Arch, Glacier, Grand Canyon, Grand Teton, Great Smoky Mountains, Hot Springs, Indiana Dunes, Kenai Fjords, Mount Rainier, New River Gorge, Olympic, Petrified Forest, Shenandoah, Theodore Roosevelt, Yellowstone, and Zion

209 books read

• 2025 so far: 4 fiction, 7 non

• 2024: 56 fiction, 42 non

• 2023: 81 fiction, 19 non

• 7 out loud with Sean

• 8 audiobooks

• The rest on Kindle or hard copy

Countless shenanigans

• Three tow trucks (all in the first three months… we rocked that learning curve once we were on it 😉😂)

• Two trips to Colorado for our conversion company to fix electrical issues

• One lithium ion battery explosion

• Hundreds of miles hiking and running

• Several weeks with loved ones

• So many creature sightings!

• One naked swim under a remote waterfall

• Nine new tattoos

A third of Scout’s life with us

Two years in our van also marks the point where Scout’s life with us is nearly perfectly divided into thirds. For two years after I adopted her, we lived in three apartments (two in Wisconsin and one in Florida). For the following two years, we lived in a Sherwood neighborhood house. For the last two, it’s been Hermes the van. Who knows what our cattle dog’s life was like before us—your guess is as good as mine—but since she walked out of that shelter on the other end of my leash, she’s been equal parts apartment dog and house dog and van dog. I am now an even more fervent believer that it’s less about where you live with your pet and more about what you’re willing to do with them.

Last spring I was doom scrolling Instagram when I came upon an Outside Online column. Someone asked Sundog’s Almanac of Ethical Answers if we could ban remote workers in fancy vans from campgrounds. The resounding question was “why are van lifers so insufferable?”

I spent just as long thumbing through the social media comment section as reading the actual article. (Okay, I’ll admit it: longer.) So many thoughts surfaced that I rambled through four single-spaced pages about my own experiences living in a van, the importance of public respect, reductionist claims touted behind keyboards, dwindling access to nature as the environment—and our society—changes…

Here’s my attempt to make those paragraphs coherent.

The most valid critiques of full-time van lifers

Several of the Outside piece’s criticisms against van dwellers were things I’ve thought myself. Sundog suggests the “answer [to why we’re so annoyed] lies in a sprawling Venn diagram of wealth, demographics, access to technology, privilege, and self-congratulation, at whose very center sits the digital nomad.”

Privilege

Living in a van because you want to—the way my partner and I want to—is a privilege that’s often built on other privileges. “The stereotypical digital nomad is white, hetero, college-educated, and child-free. … vanlifers generally do not represent racial or economic diversity,” says Sundog. He’s right. That’s why accounts like Diversify Vanlife are so necessary (though not sufficient) in this space.

In my early childhood, my parents laughed at Matt Foley’s Saturday Night Live sketch about “living in a van down by the river”. (I recall my church’s youth group leaders playing it for us students, too, and not with a message of support.) My mom sent me a meme asking how the arrangement went from comedy bit to life goal shortly after Sean and I told her we’d put down a deposit on a custom conversion in 2021. One of my small answers is that people have always had different dreams; maybe the retro, worn-down bus was the ultimate goal for my forebears. But of course the shift is mostly explained by growing technology.

Full-time van life used to be associated with a sort of free-living sacrifice. You had to take up seasonal work to make ends meet or fund a few months of adventure at a time. Rigs were smaller on average. There were no smartphones, let alone apps like iOverlander and AllStays that tell you where to park, where not to park, where to fill up with water, and anything else you need to know.

In contrast, the life my partner, dog, and I live on the road is cushy. We mounted an internet satellite on our roof that allows Sean to take work calls and me to submit writing assignments from the most remote locations. We have a 30-gallon freshwater reserve. Our interior heating system pulls directly from our gas tank. We make money at home (I haven’t set foot in a traditional office space since pre-pandemic 2020) and had enough money to finance the van in the first place. These are not small things.

Most of the variables enabling us to live comfortably have little to do with earned success. Both our families are upper-middle class. Thanks to them and scholarships (which we largely accessed because of affluent high schools), we have minimal student loan debt. Sean is an engineer—it was easier for him to pursue this career after years in his hometown’s robotics club. I’m a writer—while I love to complain about too-small central Wisconsin, it’s full of people who cheered for me when I was young enough to believe them without question.

I’ll push back on anyone who calls us “freeloaders”. But privileged? Yes. Beneficiaries of a system that has made everything, including the decision to live comfortably in our car, easier for us and harder for others? Absolutely.

Self-aggrandizing

Acknowledging our privilege should be the bare minimum for those of us enjoying freedom and flexibility on the road. Sundog says it’s “unfair to assume that every couple inhabiting an upscale sportstruck is also writing a self-congratulatory blog about it, but it sure seems that way.” Self-congratulatory is the kicker here. This behavior ignores the role of circumstances beyond our control. When van lifers act like anyone could create the same incredible (overhyped on Instagram, make no mistake, but incredible nonetheless) experiences if they just tried hard enough—if they just were good enough—they are indeed insufferable.

I have no respect for people who imply everyone else is failing, believe their lifestyle is the only “right” way, and insist the reason they’re working remotely in Baja is because they are, as individuals, oh-so-great. I never want to be one of them.

Ruining environments for others

Finally, van lifers sometimes do ruin natural spaces for other people. “When [van lifers] overstay or crowd public lands, it gives the sense that the commons are being hogged by an elite swath. … With huge water tanks and solar panels on their vehicles, they can stay as long as they damn well please, absolutely dominating the rivers, beaches, crags, and hot springs; winter, spring, summer, and fall,” writes Sundog.

When we put a deposit down on our custom conversion slot, I started following adventure social media accounts. I was not thrilled with what I saw. Responsible dog ownership is my personal passion, and van lifers intent on living “wild and free” are some of the worst offenders for letting their pets run amok and failing to pick up waste. These sentiments were strengthened after after we hit the road ourselves and encountered trashed campsites, out-of-control dogs, and impossible crowds firsthand.

Caring for shared environments is particularly important when we consider the fact that, again, my partner and I want to be living in this van. Our house is our car on purpose. Not everyone in need of a safe boondocking spot has that luxury. When van lifers crowd areas where people without housing sleep—and force police to assert that no one is allowed to park there overnight—it’s a horrible example of privileged idiots without regard for people outside their own economic class or personal position.

“Save some for the rest of us,” implores someone who doesn’t live in a van. I’m with them.

Adding nuance to other claims

Other critiques in the Outside piece don’t stand up to scrutiny.

Remote workers are not all tech bros

Sundog asks “Is it safe to say that work performed from a camper van does not spread justice, peace, and equity as much as it aids in consolidating wealth and power for billionaires? … We suspect that those van dwellers are Bezos’ henchmen and Zuckerberg’s handmaidens who seem to have exploited a loophole in the social fabric.”

I think there’s some humor in the author’s words here—and he’s talking more about outside perceptions of van life workers than the actual reality. Still, the implication is clear: Digital nomads are often “tech bros”.

Are they tech bros more often than people who live in Brooklyn apartments, though? Than residents in my old suburb of Madison, Wisconsin? I’m not sure we have enough information to tell. Most people I know—travelers and neighborhood fixtures alike—support billionaires more than community-sustaining work in today’s capitalistic system. Plus there are the glaring exceptions, one under my own roof: Sean works for a climate change startup. Every day his job is to reduce needless emissions from oil drilling sites and landfills.

Are sanitary workers, nurses, factory employees, and dozens of other essential positions living in vans? Not as much as marketers and consultants and analysts. We’re remiss not to recognize this when talking about nomadism as an option for the modern masses. But remote work is more accessible than ever across professions. Some teachers and tutors can work from home. Some writers can. Some nonprofit leaders can.

My issue here is that Sundog’s premise applies to a huge swath of the workforce—not just full-time van lifers.

Fancy rigs ≠ automatically equal immense wealth

Sundog also suggests “$100,000 Sprinters show immense wealth.” The word immense gets tricky. (Wealth, too, honestly—semantics are always such a blast.)

I agree that fancy vans boast immense wealth if you purchase them on top of other things, like a stationary house, as an extra toy. Some people do that. But most full-time van lifers don’t maintain permanent addresses while they live on the road, meaning their van payments could be their only sizeable expense. Speaking anecdotally, our converted van (while not actually a Sprinter, it’s comparable) cost $110,000 for everything. That’s significantly cheaper than our old house in Florida, and we sold that home to cover this one. Someone could get a van like ours for less than a fourth of what friends from Wisconsin to Rhode Island have paid for their own properties. What looks fancy in one context becomes not fancy at all compared to a stationary residence: A nomad living in a $100,000 van has a home one-fifth the median house price.

Of course living in a luxury van—even if it does cost less than a modern house—is still, well, luxury. While I’m not sure it’s fair to say a $100,000 van shows immense wealth (that rig could be the single big purchase someone’s funneled all their savings into) it does show wealth. In the United States, a record half of renters spend more than 30% of their income on housing. (Zillow data puts median rent at about $2,000; Apartments.com says average rent is about $1,550; Rent.com notes median asking is $1,600. Numbers vary greatly between states, regions, and cities.) 77% of households can’t afford the median-priced home of roughly $500,000—and 40.5 million, or 29%, can’t go above $150,000 with current mortgage rates. Housing affordability is bleak for members of my generation and below compared to those who came before. $100,000 is a chunk of change many of us don’t have even with financing options. (Financing options, too, vary greatly. While writing this article I got monthly payment quotes ranging from $800 to $2,500 depending on down payment and provider. That’s on par with or less than the average/median US rent—but a down payment is typically much higher than a security deposit.)

Another layer of comparison difficulty is that a van is a depreciating asset, unlike a home on permanent property. In this sense it’s perhaps more comparable to renting (renters don’t build equity on which they can later capitalize). I’d never expect to be able to sell Hermes for what we paid for him, and we’re fortunate—partly due to our decisions, largely due to privilege—to be in a position where we don’t have to worry about recouping his cost.

And as if we need more complexity: Converted vans are also both cars and houses. We can’t compare them purely to housing options, because—especially for the many Americans who don’t live in walkable locations—living in a stationary home is hard without also owning a car. The average new car price was $47,000 last year; the average used was just shy of $30,000. If we subtract that low end from Sundog’s “$100,000 Sprinter” sentence, we find ourselves looking at a “house” part of the rig priced at $60,000. That’s a privilege to afford. (I can’t repeat this point enough.) It’s also cheap for a home.

I ultimately think there’s a fundamental difference between the conspicuous consumption of someone living in a massive house with a boat and a $100,000 Sprinter versus someone who has a $100,000 van as their only residence. I also find it interesting that van lifers face these criticisms more than homeowners. People who purchase property are often simply congratulated… without the same backlash as those who decide to live in a van that costs less. Doesn’t this beg, at least a little, the question of our society’s comfort with folks bucking traditional norms?

Many van lifers advocate for the environment

As previously asserted, some van lifers are downright shitty. Many others care a lot about the natural resources we enjoy. When you spend day in and day out in remote environments—when public land saves you from another loud night in a Walmart parking lot and enables your high energy dog to stretch her legs—it’s easy to fall in love with them even more. Since the 2024 presidential election, I’ve seen a slew of fellow nomads rally around the Alternate National Park Service and similar organizations to protect the spaces we call home. Every time Sean and I stay on public land, we cart out any trash in sight. In some ways living in a “fancy” van enables us to be better environmental stewards because we have a composting toilet on board (never have to worry about cat holes) and plenty of space to store garbage (whether our own or left-behind by fellow campers).

Do we have any data on what percentage of van lifers, compared to weekend warriors, negatively impact the environment? Not that I could find. I get the qualms with privileged, ignorant full-time travelers. (I feel them deeply myself.) I also think we could levy the same criticisms at most groups in the “adventure” space. And within the digital nomad movement, we find different subcultures and varying values.

The core problem? Access to the outdoors

The real tension in the Outside piece was more people wanting to access a recreation area than there was room for. We’re collectively finding shared spaces crowded… and infrastructure lacking.

Government: Prioritize public lands for more people

One partial solution is to invest further in outdoor environments. “Over the last fifteen years, outdoor recreation visits have steadily increased on public lands, but real funding for outdoor recreation has decreased,” notes a fall 2024 Outdoor Alliance article (emphasis my own).

One example: This October the Forest Service announced it would not hire seasonal workers in 2025. “This decision—and to an even greater extent, the funding environment that led to it—will affect the long-term health and well-being of National Forests, as well as recreation and visitation over the next year,” continues Outdoor Alliance. Contributors Jamie Ervin and Tania Lown-Hecht sum it up: “Adequate funding is crucial for things like staffing, processing permits and reservations, opening trailheads and other access points, trail maintenance, restoration, climate resilience, and more. As outdoor recreation participation increases, land managers need more resources—not less—to sustainably care for our public lands.”

Can the National Park Service, Bureau of Land Management, Forest Service, and related organizations consider efforts to even the playing field between full-time van lifers and occasional campers? I think so. (I’ve long found it unfair that first-come first-serve sites are basically inaccessible to anyone who has to work late in an office on Friday. This fall we snagged a camp at Canyonlands National Park purely because we were able to park at the nearby trailhead an hour before check out, and that was a huge privilege.) We should think about these details! But they’re moot points without greater public land support overall.

A final anecdote about vans in crowded rec spots: We’ve booked the majority of our designated campground visits at the last minute, when other people cancel. Obviously having a home on wheels enables this flexibility in a way most people don’t have. (Another privilege we haven’t ourselves earned.) Our presence doesn’t negatively impact anyone else when we claim a campsite that would otherwise sit empty, though—and over the years we’ve run into dozens of bare sites either because no one claimed them after a cancellation or because the original reserver didn’t cancel in the first place. Are most van lifers doing this to get their “subsidized rent” (as the original Outside reader called it)? I doubt it. I know several who plot their travels months in advance. But it’s another reminder that we can’t simply look at a stranger in a campground and know what it took for them to get there.

Society: Reduce feelings of competition and zero-sum bias

Sometimes resources are limited. Other times they’re not, and we feel like we’re competing with each other when we aren’t. Amanda Montell discusses zero-sum bias in The Age of Magical Overthinking: the idea that if someone else is successful in a way we’d like to be, it must mean we have a smaller chance of achieving what we want. Our current stage of capitalism encourages us to not just keep up with the Joneses but be better than them. It’s exhausting.

Most of the time we don’t have to compete with each other, though. I mean, we do when it comes to reservation.gov time slots and getting to first-come first-serve campgrounds early. (Again: Changes at the government level could help with this.) But in terms of life enjoyment? In terms of actually getting out and enjoying myriad forms of nature? My experiences don’t have to look like yours—and yours don’t have to look like mine.

Community: Basic respect to avoid giving everyone a bad name

I worry a loud minority has given "digital nomads" a bad name. Some of my fellow van lifers suck. (Please join me in singing Olivia Rodrigo: I wanna meet his mom… just to tell her her son sucks!) This community needs to do a better job insisting on minimum acceptable standards—like packing out trash, emptying tanks in appropriate environments, respecting stay limits, etc—to reduce shitty ripple effects.

Other van lifers obsess about not overstaying our welcome. We support the local communities we pass through. We keep top of mind that not everyone who lives in a vehicle is doing it because they want to and we need to protect access to spaces for them. We actively try not to be assholes.

When my partner and I hiked to Delicate Arch at sunrise a few months ago, we were greeted by a spread of sharp-elbowed photographs. They were booing anyone who approached the arch. (The official Utah tourism website says it is okay to stand beneath the arch for a photo, so long as you take turns like a respectful adult.) Our fellow hikers weren’t doing anything wrong… but the photographers didn’t want any people at all in their time lapse shots. Their mob mentality tarnished our morning. I also couldn’t let it poison my view of all photographers. We encountered one grumpy group taking over a public spot. They weren’t representatives for everyone who’s ever pointed a camera.

I think the same goes for van lifers. Nomads do terrible things. They also do great things. Apartment dwellers do terrible things. They also do great things. Homeowners to terrible things. They also do great things. Do we all do equally terrible and great things? No—and it’s worth considering how our lifestyles contribute to our impacts. But it’s not as simple as “van lifer must be bad”.

Individual: Accept different lifestyles without bitterness

We’ve arrived at the loftiest idea here. It’s hard to accept that others choose different lifestyles from us. It can be threatening. Many people cling to tradition, and living in a van is not traditional.

My parents are jealous of me and my partner. So are his bosses. So are several of my clients. At best? We acknowledge the layers upon layers of privilege at play in all our life trajectories and accept that we’ve made different choices based on what we each value most. At worst? We bristle because someone’s decisions don’t look like ours.

I’m proud to be a full-time van lifer. I’m proud to drive my bright yellow rig in a way that (hopefully) gives my fellow digital nomads a good name. And you have my word that I’ll be the first to knock them off their self-assigned pedestals when they need it.

First published in August 2023 and last updated in December 2024.

Van life can get pretty messy. Van life with a dog even more so.

Our adventures are absolutely worth some dirt and grime, but I still value a clean (clean-ish at least) space. Here’s what works for us to keep our home on wheels in order!

Related reading: I previously wrote an article about keeping our house clean before we hit the road, if you’re curious about the stationary home side of things. And you can find our favorite cleaning products here.

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I first published this post in July 2023 and last updated it a year later, in July 2024.

We crossed the border between the United States and Canada four times last year and another four this year. We live in a converted Ram Promaster campervan with our Australian cattle dog, so we travel with all of our belongings at any given time. And I can be pretty anxious about the idea of strangers coming into my tiny home!

Here’s how we prepared to go through the border checkpoints—and what each individual border crossing experience was like. (Spoiler alert: Getting between the two countries has been so much easier than I imagined.)

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(Or at least every other day, because sometimes routines get weird. First published in January 2024 and last tweaked in July.)

Here are the small handful of belongings I think we could not thrive without in our converted camper van!

For a more comprehensive list of what we packed for our dog Scout when we hit the road — including things we keep on hand but don’t necessarily rely on day in & day out — check out this article from when we first moved into Hermes.

Dog-specific things

• Travel crate
  Scout rides in her secure kennel whenever we’re driving, the same way Sean and I always wear our seatbelts. More on our crate selection process here!

• Non-slip water bowl
  We recently got this Wilderdog stainless steel bowl. It has a rubber ring on the bottom to prevent it from sliding around, so we don’t have to pick it up every time we’re about to hit the road. Sean and I are both obsessed.

• Airtight food storage
  Both to keep freshness in… and dog-food smells out of the rest of our house. We store Scout’s kibble in its original bag inside a basic, plastic airtight bin.

• Tailgate poop bag dumpster
  Storing Scout’s poop inside my house doesn’t sound great to me. But we don’t always have access to garbage cans, especially if we’re out on public land. This Kurgo dumpster has held up well after we reinforced it with a stronger magnet!

• Slip lead
  Ideal for quick bathroom breaks. Scout’s usually naked inside the van, so a slip lead enables us to quickly leash her up to potty without fumbling for collar clasps.

• Medicine
  Scout’s on a twice-daily anticonvulsant for idiopathic epilepsy, so naturally we need to keep that on hand at all times.

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Cleaning supplies

• Small handheld broom
  Because between the three of us, we track a lot of dirt inside. Our door mat is no match for it.

• Extra towel
  The best tip the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy ever taught me (iykyk)! A “bonus” towel to wipe up everything from muddy paw prints to spilled coffee. We love ours from Nomadix, probably in part because their tagline is “own less do more” (perfect message, clearly).

• Vinegar, water, and lavender mixture
  We store this in an old spray bottle and use it as needed, especially on the surface of our composting toilet. It’s safe to use in a tiny space and smells pretty darn good thanks to the lavender essential oil!

I’ve compiled more of our favorite van cleaning supplies (including the ones we use less often) in this other article.

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Van gear

• Window covers
  Okay, if we’re out on public land where it’s dark and the weather is warm overnight, we won’t put these on. All other times? Our window covers from Van Essentials and Vanmade Gear make deep sleep possible.

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Miscellaneous

• Slip-on shoes
  The equivalent of a slip lead for humans. Anything to make Scout’s bathroom breaks quick and easy!

• Basic human toiletries
  Hopefully goes without saying. (Although as of this spring, I’ve pretty much cut out all shampoo, so my list of supplies here keeps dwindling.)

Things I used to take for granted are no longer a given. Where is home. When will I get a new supply of fresh water. (I’d never even had this thought before hitting the road.) Is our pee jug full. If so, where can we responsibly empty it. Have we overstayed our welcome in this little town.

I’m a bit ashamed of how rarely I thought about my resource consumption in any meaningful way before we moved into our van. Water came out of the faucet. Heat and air conditioning from the thermostat. Laptop, Instant Pot, bluetooth speaker charge from the wall outlets.

Now I constantly run a calculation in the back of my brain, mostly subconscious—but I can call it up in a millisecond—figuring out how much power we can use before our next stint of driving and if there’s enough space in the gray water tank to wash dirty dishes and what the odds are that the next gas station we see with a water spigot will let us fill up.

These equations exhaust me. Once every couple of weeks I flop onto the bed, or curl up in a cab chair, and moan to Sean that I just want to live in a stationary place with a washroom that has unlimited hot water for a shower. Can you even imagine a bath?

But then I look out my kitchen window at an unimaginable view—the Statue of Liberty from Brooklyn street parking, minke whales from a Cape Breton campsite, a perfect sunset from the queue to board Newfoundland’s ferry—and a bath seems very unimportant.

And I remember that other things require less thought than ever.

While we’re kind of always considering where we can dispose of waste and renew our fresh tanks, we basically never worry about different logistics. Driving home between a workout and dinner to change clothes? My closet (and shower) is now in my car. Packing snacks for a long beach visit? My kitchen is also mobile. When exactly Scout last peed and how long we can be away from her? Not a big deal when the farthest we stray is a few miles on foot. Laundromat visits pass quickly when we can work from the parking lot. No cell service on a remote drive is no problem for Starlink. Commutes aren’t daunting because we have our entire house with us. 

We are more free than ever at the same time we are more restricted than ever. Since moving into a bright yellow ProMaster, I have never planned so much… and so little all at once.

First drafted on May 8th near Portland, Maine.

Yesterday was the first time someone called the cops on our van. It unsettled more more than I’d like to admit. I mean, I just wrote about how comfortable I’ve come to feel in various parking lots. Come on!

The officer, to his credit, was not thrilled about having to check on us. He made it clear the visit wasn’t his decision. We were at a public park, during the middle of the day, doing exactly nothing wrong. He smiled a lot, barely glanced at Sean’s driver’s license, told us we were good.

But someone with sway in the town had called in the yellow van at Memorial Park… so it had to be dealt with.

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Written in Nova Scotia, on a boat crossing the ocean, and then in Newfoundland.

TLDR

• If you want to bring your car to the island of Newfoundland, the only option is to take a ferry.

• We checked in just after nine am and were off the ship around seven pm, making for a ten-hour day of travel in total.

• After check in, we sat in a long line of other parked cars and were able to walk around.

• We left Scout in the van during the trip with windows cracked and fan on low. (It was pretty chilly outside, but we wanted to cycle fresh air and provide a bit of familiar background noise.)

• The boat ride itself was about six and a half hours.

• When we came back, she was sleeping in the passenger cab chair and had also bunched blankets into a nest on the bed. Signs of coziness!

• She got pretty hyped at our return but seemed to shake off residual stress as soon as we parked for the night and stretched our legs with a game of tug.

• We’ll do the same thing for our return trip (but maybe the overnight voyage instead).

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The first time we slept in a parking lot in our converted van — night three or four total on the road — I was anxious.

It didn’t help that our back window covers hadn’t arrived yet, so we had to awkwardly clip a blanket (somewhat sheer because the thick ones were too heavy) across the right side of our bed. Darkness never fell completely in our new house that night. The ceiling fan barely muffled the nearby city’s sounds. I was convinced we’d get a knock at 2 am telling us to get the hell out. Scout would bark and I’d be stupid with sleep and Sean would have to get the team ready for our next play with exasperated patience like always.

The knock never came. We were allowed to park there overnight, after all, of course we’d looked up the regulations beforehand. I needn’t have been so relieved.

But the next time we slept in a parking lot (this time a Walmart) the anxiety came back. And the next. And the next, next, next for a couple months.

I started making “urban van life nights” as relaxing as possible. I’d light a candle, put on a face mask, save special chocolate just for the occasion. We discovered the Cozy Coffee Shop Jazz in the Background playlist on Spotify (and my taste profile was forever ruined). As soon as we parked, I’d sweep — then scrub — the floor. These things helped. I was creating a fortress of comfort within the bounds of a single parking space. Cracker Barrel or Walmart or right on a side street, my van was always the same.

We might spend more time than the average van lifer sleeping in urban spots. (It’s hard to know. Data on fellow nomads is slim and Instagram highlight reels would have you believe everyone’s always on remote public land.) As of April 11th, day 441 since pulling out of our old house’s driveway for the final time, our nights have been 28% parking lots and 13% on the street.

I don’t often get anxious anymore living on the road. I know what to expect — we’ve crossed the country, shared hundreds of successful sleeps, there aren’t many surprises left. I know what to look for — how to Google the right city regulation documents, which signs mean we probably won’t be bothered, how to make sure we’re kind to locals. I know that if something does go wrong, we’ll figure it out together — surviving a lithium-ion battery explosion has that effect on the psyche. 

And I know that my van is my home.

Those first tentative nights felt like I was borrowing someone else’s life. Pretending to be An Adventurer in clothes a few sizes too big. Now I’ve grown right in. I still love candles and chocolate (I’ve ditched face masks, though). I still sweep and scrub the floor (but not every night). Cozy Coffee Shop Jazz continues in heavy rotation (Spotify Wrapped will never let me forget). But none of those things make Hermes home. None are required to feel comfortable.

And sometimes I think our tight, urban van life nights might actually be the most glamorous of all. Sure, a street lamp view pales in comparison to glaciers out the back window. The highway is no coyote pack howling in the night. Car horns can’t come close to an owl’s song. But there’s beauty in me and my two favorite creatures hunkering down someplace we’ve never been, content to simply be together, everything we need at hand, thrilled with our choices, our opportunities.

It is these nights I think to myself I am so lucky. It is these nights I feel I am finally centered. It is these nights I know I have come quite far.

This winter I bought a gorgeous mug from one of our favorite coffee shops. Love at first sight is real with handmade art — but it took me six or seven visits to finally make the purchase. Space is at a premium in our van. I was never much of an impulse shopper to start with, and any residual urge to acquire new things without thought has been stamped out in life on the road.

The barista laughed at my glee as she packaged the heavy ceramic for me that final morning. I washed my new mug as soon as we got back to the van and heated the kettle immediately.

I’ve drank from it almost every morning since.

My college finance professor was a short, loud man named Mark LaPlante. He was intimidating — students outside the major often took their finance requirement through another university to secure an “easier” teacher — but also thoughtful and fair.

One of LaPlante’s refrains was “maximize your memories per dollar”. He wanted his students to understand our country’s economic system, do well for themselves, maybe adopt a sliver of the passion he had for his field — but he didn’t want us to hoard money. He hoped we’d create meaning in our lives. Feel fulfilled. Be happy. Spend as much as you’re able to, was the underlying message, as long as it’s for something worthwhile.

I doodled the quote on a piece of stock paper and hung it on my bedroom wall, carrying it with me to my parents’ house over the summer and my next off-campus rental in the fall. Maximize your memories per dollar. I felt so wise. This was the secret!

But I didn’t follow LaPlante’s insight very well. I don’t think I understood how to make memories worth holding onto. I failed to realize it’s not about quantity — I should maximize their quality.

This spring, seven years after taking Finance 100 at the Wisconsin School of Business, I read Moonwalking with Einstein by Josh Foer. (Foer is a journalist who won the US Memory Championship in 2006.) One of the author’s friends on the “memory circuit” was a guy named Ed Cooke who said he was trying to fill his life with as many memories as possible. We anchor ourselves in time with specific recollections — X happened before the Florida vacation, after Sophie’s wedding, etc — so the more of them we have, the richer our existences seem when we look back. The longer we feel we’ve lived.

Foer noted the Peter Pan energy to this pursuit. But also, out of all the things we could collect in our modern world (blue ribbons, bank accounts, golf clubs, whatever) memories seem like a pretty great option.

Some of my best purchases obviously fit the “maximize your memories per dollar” framework. Our America the Beautiful pass costs $80 each year and grants unlimited access to the NPS’s parks and historical sites. This tiny piece of plastic enabled us to hike Delicate Arch at sunrise and Avalanche Lake at sunset and Mount Healy in Denali on the longest day of the year.

My Kindle, too, is a clear winner: about $100 for a lightweight way to read almost any book I want, thanks to my library cards and the Libby app, without physical pages crowding our van.

And don’t even get me started on my tattoos. I have seven now, all perfect in their own ways, all representing experiences (my time at an elephant sanctuary in Thailand, escaping my abusive engagement) and seasons (my childhood nickname, our Florida beach days) and love (for Scout, for Sean).

Other buys seem less “memory focused” at first pass but end up equally fulfilling. That handmade mug I finally got in Madison, Wisconsin has been the star of so many slow mornings (and a few fast ones, too) living on the road. I’ve sipped tea from it next to Scout overlooking Shenandoah’s valleys. I’ve filled it with coffee while stuck in standstill traffic, turning a travel delay into a moment of calm joy. I’ve cradled its weight in the passenger seat as the highway sprawls before us.

A hardy Cotopaxi sweatshirt I almost didn’t buy (I dragged Sean back to the store just before closing when I made up my mind) kept me warm as I hiked the Precipice Trail in Acadia National Park. I maneuvered through tears, terrified of this “non technical climbing route”, but I did it. On the summit I stretched out my arms, grinning — and that colorful fleece lights up the center of the memory. When I look at it folded above the cab of our van, I can’t help but recall how brave I’m able to be.

A paperback Calvin and Hobbes collection has been the companion to many sunny afternoons and cloudy campfire nights reading aloud with Sean, Scout curled up nearby.

I could have still sipped a warm drink on a smoky mountain morning without a specific mug. I could have trekked my way to the top of Champlain Mountain, looked over the rocky Maine coast, without a certain sweatshirt. I could laugh with Sean about hundreds of things besides a precocious six year old. These objects did not themselves make the memories — but they sharpened them. They are threads, post-it notes, tangible objects I can hold in my hand and close my eyes and feel I was there. Portkeys, almost, that fly me right back.

Because of that each is worth more than their nominal price.

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There is another even simpler principle at play in my current collection of belongings. It’s not always about attaching some Grand Memory to the things we buy. Sometimes it’s just that these items, independent of what goes on with and around them, bring us joy — a kind of quiet, consistent undercurrent of satisfaction.

I think associative memory is the “Marie Kondo” idea’s foundation. I read Spark Joy, a companion guide to Kondo’s original 2010 book (I admit I haven’t read the first or watched much of the Netflix show) this past January. A few of her claims struck me as outlandish — I don’t consider myself spiritual or ascribe such energy to inanimate objects — but I was captivated by her basic theory of organization.

It starts with getting rid of things we don’t love. And shamelessly holding onto those we do.

One of my favorite parts of our van is the above-sink cabinet. It’s probably the ugliest compartment in Hermes (I suppose the water and electrical cabinets under our bed are the only competition). Here you’ll find our internet modem, a bunch of cords (one snakes through the roof via a rough hole Sean proudly drilled himself, one wraps around the cabinet onto the ceiling for our router), a bin with even more cables and backup electrical supplies (laptop charging bricks, extra batteries, etc) and next to it all, claiming the bulk of the space, the tiniest 700 watt microwave you’ve ever seen.

It wouldn’t exactly be glamorous to lift that cabinet door.

Except that on the front of it we’ve taped several stickers and pieces of art. They’re some of the first things you see when you enter our house. One of them is the label from a bottle of dry cider I loved — I painstakingly warmed the wrapping with a hairdryer so I could peel it whole from the glass and attach it to a stronger piece of paper. One of them is a sticker from a kombucha brewery we visited twice within a week on the gulf coast of Florida. Three of them are silly doodles by Nathan Pyle, the author of the Strange Planet comics and one of my favorite sources of wholesome joy on the internet. Two are illustrations from Artwork by AK, a fellow cattle dog lover. The rest we’ve just picked up along the way.

These bursts of personality provide outsized returns when I look at them. None were particularly expensive. Most don’t tie to incredibly strong episodic memories. But every time I look at that cabinet — at the way we turned a dull, necessary storage compartment into a sight I love — I feel like me. semantic recollections are just as valuable as specific “what” and “where” and “when”.

Living simply in our van doesn’t mean never buying things or avoiding all impulse purchases. It means spending money in ways we find meaningful. And it means spending our time like that, too.

If I want to maximize my memories per dollar, I can’t think only about change already in my wallet. I should consider earnings potential, sure — but above all I have to realize my waking hours are most precious of all.

Fulfillment doesn’t always happen on the go go go. Some of my favorite memories are of languid days reminiscing on the grass as a family, napping in the van with the back bed doors open, floating atop ocean waves while Sean watches from the shore. Others are of sometimes difficult (sometimes tedious) work that nonetheless means something: calling representatives on human rights issues, talking through tears about problems plaguing our fellow creatures, philosophizing with Sean.

Whether agents of episodic mental travel or looser associative joy, my best investments enable me to use my time well.

Some of the best things we’ve bought lately

• Hermes himself!!

• America the Beautiful National Parks passes

• Kindle Paperwhites

• Colorblock Rumpl blanket (this was a gift, so you could argue it wasn’t actually a “purchase”… but the sentiment stands)

• Matching conifer tattoos to memorialize a poem Sean wrote me years ago

• Pastries from two different teahouse hikes in Banff National Park

• Blue heeler shirt from Colectivo Coffee, based in Wisconsin

• Colorblock Cotopaxi fleece

• Rooftop mojitos in New York City

• Ceramic mug from East Fork (a gift from my aunt, same sentiment as our Rumpl)

• Handmade mug from Void & Form, via Johnson Public House

• Inflatable canoe

• Scout’s Chuckit! Air ball that we have nicknamed Squish

• Yellow gooseneck kettle

• A non-resident library card for a larger selection of books

• Various stickers and cards we’ve put on our microwave cabinet

• Brightly colored bucket hat

• Time playing with dolphins in the Florida Keys

• Morning coffee (and patio seating) galore at Cafe Surfinista and River Road on Florida’s space coast

• First two volumes of the Calvin and Hobbes portable compendium

Unless we’re boondocking on remote public land (which is one of my favorite things) I often feel like we, and our van, are being constantly watched.

It could be the bright yellow exterior, of course. It could be our incredibly cute dog. (Just today a toddler saw her through the open bed doors and shouted “what a great kitty! Meow!”) It could be my extreme level of attractiveness, especially now that I wash my hair on average every three weeks. (Okay, probably not that last one.) I think part of it is the fact that converted vans are still a novelty for most people — especially when they realize we live in ours full time — and our situation isn’t hard to figure at a glance.

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We haven’t changed too much in our converted RAM Promaster since we moved in full time last January. (How drastically can you really reorganize such a small space, anyway?)

But I do love our van home even more after I made a few tweaks to our storage system earlier this year. Here they are!

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A high level of what we got up to in January!

(More detailed daily sharing usually happens on our Instagram stories, but I’ve still been less active online than usual. Focusing on other things is nice especially as we step into the New Year and as we allocate more resources to humanitarian crises in our larger, non-dog-centric world.)

TLDR: Top January highlights

• We escaped the worst of midwest winter by heading south to Florida.

• We celebrated one full year of living in Hermes!

Van life: Officially one year on the road!!

I’m convinced that 2023 was a hyperspeed time warp. I suppose part of that is because we were on the move so much — turns out time actually does sprout falcon wings when you’re having fun? And also when you’re a little stressed about your battery safety and where you’ll sleep and if your pee jug is going to overflow before you find an appropriate location to dump it?

On January 26th we celebrated an entire 365 days of living full time in our bright yellow camper van. Hermes is the best place I’ve ever called home, and we aren’t stopping this ongoing adventure any time soon. (Though we are slowing down in the sunshine state for the next couple months. Call me a soft snowbird. See if I care.)

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Some favorite January destinations included:

• Spending a final week in our college town to wrap up this season’s trip to Wisconsin. We cafe crawled, hiked old favorite trails, laughed with friends, and leaned into the nostalgia.

• Getting to see some real snow at our parents’ houses right before we left the midwest!

• Sneaking in a few visits with dog friends in Illinois and Kentucky on our way to warmer weather

• Visiting the Birmingham Civil Rights Institute on Martin Luther King Junior Day and spending some time taking in the city. The institute hosted a free event that so many people came out for, and I was moved seeing everyone all together.

• Reliving our wedding week once more (almost two years later!) at a beautiful campsite in Destin, Florida where I got to say hello to the ocean for the first time in months

• Settling into the Space Coast, where we used to live before hitting the road, for a combination of sentimental memories and new adventures. Unbeknownst to us, our old hometown was actually hosting a van life meetup from the 26th to the 28th. We avoided it — that type of crowded environment sounds like a nightmare for our personalities — but it was fun to drive by and catch a glimpse from afar! I don’t think I saw any other yellow vans, so I still get to feel special 😉

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A full roundup of where we slept:

• 19 nights in parking lots (rest areas, other spots without overnight restrictions) or street parking

• 4 nights on private property visiting family and friends

• 4 nights on public land (national forests in Alabama and Florida)

• 4 nights at campgrounds in Florida (two state park loops)

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Van logistics in January:

• Drove about 1,900 miles in total between Wisconsin and our trip south

• Went through our freshwater tank less than three times (thanks to being able to rinse off at family and friends’ places, swim in the ocean, and simply accept our sweaty humid fate here in Florida)

• Dumped our gray tank 6 times (it wasn’t always completely full when we emptied it)

• Dumped our pee jug 13 times (again, not always completely full, and largely thanks to using friends’ facilities and taking advantage of public park setups)

• Did laundry twice (washed everything for a deep clean before leaving Wisconsin, then mooched off of a friends’ machine on the space coast for a load of clothes)

• Almost replaced our water pump thinking it was broken… turns out it just froze overnight when we were in Indiana and took almost 24 hours to thaw (we’ll be opening the water cabinet on particularly cold nights from here on out to make sure the interior heat can reach it)

What’s new with Scout specifically this past month

We recovered quickly from a surprise situation with my family’s husky

You can read more about this “scuffle” (still not sure what word best sums up what happened) here.

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We celebrated her fifth gotcha day!

January has become a month of anniversaries in our family. The 13th marked five years with Scout. A half decade. It feels surreal.

I feel a bit like I’ve said it all before… so here’s the most important thing. We love this dog so much that I barely remember what things looked like before her and hope we have ages until I have to contend with what things will look like after.

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