Living on the Road: Van Life Style
Whether you travel by yourself, with a significant other, or with your family, an experience-based, simple lifestyle awaits you with van life. It allows you location freedom while feeling like you're in the comfort of your own home. And from our experience, there are many more pros than cons to living on the road.
We saw life from a whole new perspective. The change in lifestyle was refreshing and opened our eyes to the abundance that exists in the world. While living on the road, we found ourselves re-evaluating and re-affirming our life goals as we went through this lifestyle change. To this day, we feel more grateful for the things we have because of van life and are more confident about the direction we want to go in life.
Pros and Cons of Van Life
Changing your lifestyle, however, is not easy. And we can confidently say that our two years of full-time living on the road were the best two years of our lives and also some of the hardest two years. These are some of the pros and cons we've found from van life and being digital nomads.
Pros:
- Elevated moods due to increased time spent outside
- Healthier bodies due to increased physical activity
- Beautiful views
- Get to experience many different states and cultures
- Location independence
- Unique lifestyle that promotes minimalism (instead of consumerism)
- Increased gratitude for what we have
- No commute to work
- Save a lot of money due to no rent, utilities, etc.
Cons:
- Inefficiency (dishes take longer, etc.)
- Have to drive somewhere to do laundry
- Lack of running, hot water
- Lack of air conditioning
- Hard to keep the van clean (it's a small space and you're coming and going from outside a lot)
- Reliance on strong internet access for work
- Inconsistency (despite some planning, weather, van problems, etc. can change your day instantly)
- No fixed address makes placing orders and receiving mail difficult
States Traveled to While Living on the Road
During our two years of full-time van life, we traveled from coast to coast in the USA, with some of our favorite stops being Utah, Colorado, Wyoming, Arizona, and Maine. During the winter months, we followed the warm weather south, and we visited our native state, Michigan, a few times during our travels. We'll be adding a destinations page to our website soon with more information about places we recommend you visit.
Discover the Best Travel Desinations with Our Digital Map!
Are you looking for new and exciting places to explore? Submit your email address and we'll give you access to our exclusive digital map, which marks all of the locations we've researched over our years of van life. Additionally, we'll give you access to our Verified Good Times map, which marks locations we've been to and would recommend you check out! We are constantly adding locations to these maps.
