For a long time, all I wanted out of my life was adventure.
The kind of adventure your read about (or these days, watch enviously on social media.) The kind of life where you could pack up and go at any time. Life at home was boring, stilted. There was something wrong with staying where you were.
I reinvented my life for that kind of adventure. Left my job, started a business, niched down, and took a chance. Bought a van and eventually hit the road. And then I had it – a life full of adventure.
It was incredible but it was also hard as hell. There was no predicting the issues that would pop up from day to day, from leaking water hoses and holes in the roof to total engine failure and battery problems. Still, I threw myself into it fully. This was what I had wanted, and I’d be damned if I admitted that it was too hard to handle.
Adventures were had – good ones and ones that are only funny in retrospect. I saw 38 states, logged thousands of miles on the highway, swam in rivers and lakes, and watched the most incredible sunsets I could have imagined.
Still, sometimes it takes getting what you want to realize it’s not for you.
Social media glamorizes van life. I knew it wouldn’t be as it was on the tiny screen, and yet I still got sucked into some of the romanticism. There is not much preparing for what it takes to handle your own waste or wash dishes in freezing cold water. There are people who live on the road for years on end, heartily embracing the quirks, challenges, and limits of vehicle life.
I knew two years would be my limit, and ultimately 18 months was enough of van life. Turns out, I’m more of a homebody than I realized.
True, the van was my home on the road but you tell me: would you rather have a home with or without indoor plumbing? I learned my answer the hard way.
Adventure teaches us about ourselves and the biggest thing I learned was what I had taken for granted before. I knew I was privileged because of my skin color and where/ how I grew up but what I didn’t realize was how much I took technology for granted. I’m not talking about AI or blockchain or smart fridges – I’m talking about a flush toilet. A tap that dispenses hot what on demand. A personal shower. A washer/dryer in my home – all things I had never considered life without. All things I missed terribly on the road.
So you may wonder: why keep the van now? Why not sell, take the cash, and wash your hands of all of it? To be sure, that thought has crossed my mind. But despite how fervently I love my home, I cannot yet bring myself to say goodbye to life on the road. I cannot part with what the van represents to me – unfettered freedom and the ability to go anywhere at any time.
I never considered myself an adventurous person. I am someone who likes to take the routine way home, who chooses the safe dish over something new. But when my sister told me the other day “No one saw the van coming. No one saw New Mexico coming,” I could only tell her, that’s what makes it so fun. So I cannot deny the adventurous part of me that seeks to keep it interesting.
But since settling here, it has become quite obvious to me that my favorite place to be is home and adventure is something to look forward to, not something to live in constantly. I have left New Mexico twice since moving here, once to get all my stuff in New York and last weekend, to go skiing in Colorado. The trips were fun (especially the skiing- see the photos below) but I still found myself wishing I was home, not anywhere else.
I have another big van trip coming up in May but this one has a time limit. And still I know by the time I cross the state lines back to New Mexico, I will be glad to come home once again. As it turns out, I am a homebody at heart. And it’s not boring – it’s wonderful.
