The Truth about "Van-Life"

When I began preparing for our trip I started to follow a lot of different van-life bloggers and instagrammers. Their feeds were beautifully curated with incredible scenic photos and awesome articles about how van-life had molded them as people and allowed them to experience the world in a new and boundless way. My excitement that I would be following along a similar path in just a couple months somewhat blinded me to the possibility that this change could be difficult because of how easy and amazing they all made it out to be. It seemed they were all "living the dream” and respectively I was expecting to be living as limitless as it seemed they were. Fast-forward about three weeks into my trip and I can tell you its not all butterflies and rainbows out here. Don’t get me wrong, it has unreal benefits and most of the times they outweigh the negatives. But don’t be fooled by all the picturesque landscapes and seemingly carefree attitudes because we are not always living the dream. A lot of the time we are just two people living in a small space trying our best to make it work all while visiting some of the most spectacular sights Australia has to offer. Due to the lack of content online I decided to write this piece in order to share with you the realities of our life on the road. Hopefully you’ll take away that, although this has been an incredible adventure, we’re still human and life has obstacles whichever way you’re living it. Hopefully these anecdotes make you feel less alone, whether living in a van or not.

Understanding how and when to be alone isn’t easy

Justin and I started seeing each other in May of 2017. We worked together behind the same bar and spent a whole hell of a lot of time together. Justin and I have never lived together, not really anyways. Naively I believed that because we had worked together, as well as practically lived together at his place in Toronto, we would have no trouble living together in the van. Thinking back I can only laugh at myself for believing it would be no different than seeing each other 4-5 times a week for a couple hours outside of work. In reality I just wasn’t anticipating van-life to be as challenging as I now know it really could be. Its not just living side by side with your partner, but also living in a confined space where you don’t have a lot of the normal comforts of your routine/ schedule or really any time to be alone. As much as Justin and I love each other’s company, there is something to be said for spending an hour or two alone. Unfortunately it’s a lot easier said than done when you’re travelling together and you have one mode of transportation that also happens to be your home. We have found this to be our biggest issue. We love each other but, without any downtime we tend to get a little exhausted and this doesn’t really help keep the romance alive. My advice is to give each other a little time to re-energize. Find a cool open space and exist on opposite sides for a couple hours or if you’re in a city, take a day to do your own thing and meet up refreshed in the evening. I say in a city because there, there is other ways to get around besides relying on the van. It’s extremely important for us to have our own lives that exist outside of the van and our relationship. Van-life is not my whole life and sometimes I need to be reminded of that. So remember to take care of yourself even when you think you might be selfish to take those extra 10 minutes. Trust me, whoever you’re traveling with will be happy you did.

cheesers :) Mount Kosciuszko National Park, NSW/ 📷 @justybumpstead

Make a loose plan for the day and stick to it

Justin and I are pretty much down for anything, so you think it would be perfectly easy for us to plan out what to do for the day. This would be true if it weren’t for my indecisiveness and his stubbornness that keeps us from making a lot of easy decisions. What we have both learned from our time on the road is that it is important to be clear about what you want and then to allow for compromise. It makes the situation way more complicated when you try and make the other person happy by being vague about what you want to do. You want to make each other happy, which is obvious, but you don’t always have to want the exact same thing. So in those situations it is way better to be vocal about what you want than just saying “whatever” or “ I don’t care” because lets be real, we all care. Just be firm and then be open to discuss the other options and I’m sure you’ll come to a compromise that works for both of you! This honestly goes from any situation to picking where you want to go, to what album you want to listen to, to what you want to do for dinner. Living in the van already makes for an atmosphere that can get tense pretty quickly, so it’s best to just make sure you try to be as decisive as possible. Or if you really don’t care, then go along with the decisions of the other person and be respectful of what they want. It’s really all about communication. Okay now I sound like a couples councillor, someone please stop me.

Questioning everything is normal and inevitable

Lake Ginninderra, ACT/ 📷 @justybumpstead

Van-life is overwhelming, challenging, nerve-racking and frustrating all at the same time. Even if you’re the most experienced camper and your relationship is as strong as can be, it is inevitable that this lifestyle will make you question the choices you’re making. This might sound somewhat shocking considering not many people are able to admit they’re wrong, but I am not always 100% certain I’ve made the right choices. Sometimes I learn that I most certainly have not made the right decision, but that doesn’t mean that I don’t gain valuable lessons from those experiences. It’s the things we question the most that are the most important for us to go through and I’ve found that these are the ones that shape us most as people. Do I know that living in this van is the best possible thing for me? No, but I do know that I’ve only been in Australia for less than two months and I’ve already learned so much about myself and seen so much of this beautiful country. I have also fought with my boyfriend, eaten my weight in meat pies and Maccas and have said goodbye to any modesty in my relationship, or my life for that matter. These are all things that make me question, “What the hell am I doing here?” but then we come across something like this and all those worries go out the window.

It takes time to get into any routine and we’re still figuring it out. I know I will continue to have worries and stresses and questions about my life and the sacrifices I’ve made to be here. But I also believe that this incredible experience is helping me to gain some perspective on my life and the world around me. If I were content with everything around me and never questioned anything I’d probably stay in the same place for the rest of my life and what fun is that? The important thing is that this experience is allowing me to grow and its also giving me the freedom explore myself and my happiness and find what is truly significant in this crazy world.