The golden age of #vanlife has certainly hit hard. Along with a world altering pandemonium in 2020, came a surge in interest in *local* travel and fun. We still wanted to enjoy the summer but had to keep away from crowds and airports, for the most part, so sales of campers and kayaks and jet skis soared!
(We personally built a deck with a hot tub with our stimulus money, best investment ever as Clevelanders!)
All the biggest and best travel vloggers were hopping into the van life ring and showing us how amazing it can be to travel our own backyard (admittedly, the “backyard” of America is massive). #Vanlife was filled with beautiful photography and influencers showing off the aesthetic beauty of living in an 80-square-foot home on wheels. The hashtag #vanlife has over 14 million posts on Instagram alone.
Sean became hooked on travel vlogs while we were stuck at home for three months when our company was temporarily shut down back in 2020. And that fascination hasn’t stopped. To be honest, watching all those influencers and vloggers revealing what it can be like living on the road is what initially inspired us to buy a van.
But are we too late?
While Sean and I were researching our big leap out of the regular middle-class world of 40 (or 50) hour work-weeks and suburban mortgage payments, we watched A LOT of Youtube.
Now, though, when you search for Van Life on Youtube the results are FILLED with “Is Van Life Over?” “Why everyone is quitting van life!” and “Is Van Life Still worth it?”
All the big influencers are quitting van life.
But is it “Over?”
My answer: the “trend” may be over, but van life will never die.
The influencers might be off doing shiny new things, and we’ll still enjoy watching them, but the thing with van life is that, unlike island hopping the Maldives or visiting a 100 countries, or hiking to the Everest Base Camp, van life is accessible. And for me, that was always the most amazing part.
Because you— YES, YOU— could just hop up and decide to leave it all behind, buy a van and wake up to a view of the mountains one day, a view of the beach the next.
Are there down sides? YES. I’m not saying it’s all rainbows out there—but there are rainbows, fleeting and beautiful, and we could have them. We just have to be willing to take the risk, and manage a few rain storms to get there.
So is the trend of #vanlife over? Yeah, maybe. There’s still a ton of people starting up, still a lot of people buying converted vans, but less.
Less people on the hash tag. Less people watching obsessively on social media. And there are a few downsides to that— like if your dream is to make a million dollars starting a YouTube channel via van life, that’s going to be harder than you think—but the core of what van life has always been, remains.
We live in a society afraid of being on the outs. Out of style, out of touch. But honestly… purposefully stepping outside the norm of society is kinda THE POINT of van life to start with. If you’re worried about being part of the IN crowd— yeah, don’t join van life.
If you want to stop caring about perception, and following what society says is right, and live an advanturous life for YOU and no one else— there’s no better “out of style” choice to make.
Van life is about seeing the land you were born on in an entirely different way. Being bold. Boiling life down to its very essence.
Van life is about stepping outside the box.
So for us— we could care less that the trend might be dead or dying. We are not doing this for clout or to make a quick buck.
We are doing this for us.
And yeah, we intend to share our experiences and maybe, at some point, that will financially allow us to continue travelling, but it’s nowhere near our “why”.
If you are considering van life, that’s the question you have to ask.
“Why?”
No one can answer it but you.
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