The Truth About Living In A Van Full Time (Good + Bad!)
As of September 2026, we have been living in a van full time for a year. We sold our 20 acre farm in rural Michigan, most of our earthly belongings and hit the road.
We built out our van ourselves to suit our particular needs which include an indoor bike storage tray, a large kitchen and sizable refrigerator/freezer and a minimalist bathroom setup.
In the first year we explored national parks, public lands, cities, museums, beaches, mountains and as Eric biked across the US and I drove the van in June, we learned more about ourselves than we could have imagined.
If you are thinking of trying out vanlife, this post offers a completely unfiltered look at what this lifestyle really takes. We are giving you the honest truth about the good, the bad, and the beautiful realities of our first full year of vanlife.
Living In A Van Full Time
Living in a van full time with another person is a serious decision and shouldn’t be made lightly. We spent five weeks living out of a rental car with a tent on a few trips both international and domestic where we tested our compact living sea legs so to speak. After realizing we didn’t have any urge to kill each other after this experiment, we moved forward with the insanely big jump to vanlife. You may want to consider renting a van for a month or wading in a little slower, but if you have read or heard about anything we have done, you know we can’t help but to go all in.
We have been together for over 15 years and we are really good at communicating and make a great team. To truly test a relationship to see if you are ready for vanlife, I challenge you to tackle a remodel project. Our “resume” includes converting a three quarter length 1981 school bus into a beach cruiser, remodeling our entire 1917 farmhouse and building out our van together. I am pleased to announce we are still “happy to be here” even after all those projects and a full year on the road.
Of course plenty of challenges arose in real time while learning how to vanlife full time, but solving problems and embracing the art of the pivot has become one of my favorite things about this chapter.
9 Best Things About Full Time Vanlife
I’ll start with some of the “best of the best” things about vanlife and why it is presently a perfect fit for us. While you have probably thought of some these, others here will likely surprise you!
#1: Downsizing Has Its Perks
I never would have imagined how much I would come to absolutely love not having so much stuff. We went from a 20 acre farm complete with two outbuildings and a greenhouse to 72 sq. ft. which houses the two of us, our two bicycles, all our clothes, camping and bikepacking gear, over 40 gallons of fresh water and a week’s worth of groceries!
We opted to forgo a storage unit and just left a couple of boxes with family in the barn or attic that contain a few sentimental items like photos, and our vast Stephen King collection of course. Having a tiny space to manage means we can clean the whole “house” in 10 minutes. We don’t have to worry about lawn care, multiple vehicles or equipment that could break down, utilities, the list goes on and on. Overall there just isn’t all the stuff, all the noise, and it feels so good!
#2: All Your Favorite Things In One Spot
Point one blends into point two perfectly. Literally everything you have to care for or that cares for you is within arms reach.
Say the weather changed suddenly and you need a warm jacket or a blanket, it’s right there with you and it’s your favorite one because there isn’t room for non favorites in a van this small. Perhaps you find yourself in a tourist town where a bottle of water is $7, lucky you, fresh water on tap in the van-with ice. Stuck in a traffic jam or there is no rest stop for miles, bathroom any time!
That being said, organization is key to ensure things stay neat and our van storage guide is the perfect place to pick up some tips on how to make life easy so that the small living space of a van doesn’t start to feel like a prison.
#3: Open Schedule = More Experiences
When we traveled for only 4 weeks a year, we were locked into a tight schedule which meant if weather didn’t work out, we may miss out on a scheduled activity. Although we work on a lower budget, we do still occasionally do a paid activity like snorkeling a shipwreck in Biscayne National Park or attending a concert at the historic Ryman Auditorium in Nashville Tennessee. If weather or any other issue causes a change in that activity, we have the flexibility to wait it out. We don’t have to be back to catch our flight the next day!
In our first year, we experienced a once in a decade super bloom in Death Valley NP, hiked to the “top of Texas” in Guadalupe NP, witnessed the Brazilian free tail bats exit Carlsbad Caverns in a miraculous evening flight of a million tiny bodies swirling skyward. We saw the Milky Way from the top of a mountain in Big Bend NP, Eric cycled the Great Divide Mountain Bike Route from the Mexican border of New Mexico to Banff, Canada while I drove the van, we have gazed slack jawed at countless sunrise and sunsets and marveled at humpback whales in the Bay of Fundy, Nova Scotia. These incredible experiences barely scratch the surface of all we encountered in our first year and we are so grateful to have had the flexibility to make all these things happen with no end date in sight.
#4: Develop A Whole New Skillset
As previously mentioned, vanlife forces you to problem solve in a different way. You are never in a familiar place, you wake up somewhere new every few days and have to figure out how to “do life” without your comfortable, familiar set of resources. This may sound terrible to some people and honestly it scared the crap out of me at first, but it’s literally one of my favorite things now about vanlife, figuring it out.
When I was running SAG for Eric as he cycled across the country, I was not only problem solving in unfamiliar places, finding places to stay, shop, etc but doing it solo which added another layer to the sense of accomplishment.
It feels like a downright super power to be able to find a place to fill fresh water, use a hair tie to fix something that broke in the van, find a spot to empty the trash, get groceries, hit the gym or do a hike/bike and laundry then end at a free campsite with an incredible view all in the same day.
#5: Freedom To Explore Whatever You Desire
This actually pertains to your interests not geographical location, although we will get to the geography perks. We have elected to take time off from work and just enjoy for a little while, knowing that we can always go back to work after actually living for a spell while our bodies are still able to function (for the most part).
By giving ourselves this gift of time, we have been exploring some interests we previously didn’t have time for when we were tied to a full time job. I have taken a liking to realistic watercolor painting and of course blogging as well as hiking and biking.
Eric has tested his limits with endurance cycling and regularly pushes himself physically both on and off the bike. He has joined group rides and ride across state events and actively helps me with cycling training.
We both have enjoyed doing some backpacking and bikepacking together. We are toying with the idea of a joint bicycle tour and it may just be the ticket for my 40th year goal.
#6: You Can Move If Anything Doesn’t Suit You
This is perhaps the most obvious perk of vanlife but it has to be highlighted. If the weather, the neighbors, the view or noise doesn’t tickle your fancy… you can move somewhere else.
When you live in a traditional home of any size, if it doesn’t have wheels you are relegated to whatever is around you 24/7 and so that ability is a major check in the pro column for vanlife.
Perfect example, we were in southern Arizona in early March when temps began to soar unusually early. We caught wind of a super bloom in Death Valley and it was significantly cooler there so we picked up and drove 9 hours to better weather, saw a once a decade phenomenon we otherwise would have had no chance of experiencing, and enjoyed the heck out of it.
#7: It Opens Your Eyes
Sometimes the world feels scary. We can get caught up watching the news or reading headlines and it all seems so hopeless. When we live in one place, we are subjected to a minute portion of the population and so the “sample group”, if you will, is limited to say the least.
Being in a new place constantly allows us to meet people from all over the country and the world, and learn about how other people live!
We’ve received so many kindness’ from strangers in the last year of full time vanlife. From a freezer full of Vermont black bear to gifted baked goods, friendly requests for a van tour, people stopping along the trail to see if we need anything and offering places to park and stay both in the states and abroad. There are so many amazing humans, and so much to learn and to see on this beautiful little space rock.
#8: Living A Grateful Life
Our catch phrase that has developed over our first year of vanlife is “what a life”. We use it frequently to remind ourselves to be grateful and occasionally, ironically, like when we changed the water filter but forgot to point the faucet back down and water blasted half the kitchen. I should remind you we own very few towels. How lucky we are to have these problems to solve, to live this life in this way at this time in our lives.
Even something as simple as a cup of coffee while watching the sunrise can justify uttering the phrase and it’s an easy, effective way to slow down and truly appreciate the life we are living right now. As one of our Boondockers Welcome hosts who is a death doula mentioned at the very beginning of our journey, you only die once, so you must be sure you LIVE every day. Despite all of its challenges and complications, vanlife really is living simply, following your bliss and truly appreciating every moment.
#9: Find Somewhere You Want To Live
One thing that we are taking full advantage of is the opportunity to scope out potential places to live long term. We don’t know if we will end up staying on the road forever or if somewhere will “speak to us” and we will set down some roots, but this way of life is the perfect chance to check out a ton of places without committing after one “showing”.
We do know that where we were living wasn’t doing it for us anymore and we are definitely not done exploring yet. We haven’t visited a place that has felt quite like home, so we will continue to enjoy the journey and see where life takes us.
#10: Cheaper Lifestyle
The average middle class monthly budget of a home owning couple, no kids not pets, in Michigan where we used to live, is somewhere between $5,000-$7,000 according to the internet (take this with as many grains of salt as needed). Our monthly budget for the last year of full time vanlife was $3,000-$3,500 a month.
We were able to stay within this budget even with the insane increases in gas and grocery prices that we have seen in every single state (and country) along the way.
We do not have to pay for water, electricity, or a mortgage and we carry no debt. Having sold our home and most of our belongings, we were able to buy and build out our van ourselves. We did set up the van to plug into shore power if needed, but we are happy to share that we have not plugged in once, our solar power and DC-DC charging while driving has been more than enough!
A majority of the time we enjoy low or no cost activities and seek out free places to stay. Most of our meals are cooked in the van and since “this is real life”, we don’t have vacation budgets to save for!
Disadvantages Of Living In A Van
Of course van life is not all sunshine and rainbows although there is still a lot of that when you follow the weather!
Several aspects of this type of life can be uncomfortable. It’s important to recognize those realities if you are considering vanlife. So as promised, we’ve covered the good, now let’s get into the not so good.
Difficult To Get Into A Fitness Routine
We originally thought we would be outside doing a hike or bike every single day and going to the gym all the time in between and be super fit and all that jazz. It didn’t occur to us that there isn’t a gym that we are a member at in every town or a suitable bike route or hike and sometimes there are bugs, its 95° out at 9:00 am, there is a wildfire or a hurricane coming in.
This is wildly different than being steps away from our climate controlled home gym that we used 6 days a week when we had a brick and mortar. Our year two goal is to more intentionally route our travel to include fitness related activites on a regular basis. We still don’t know exactly what that looks like but we are actively working on getting back to our 6 on one off fitness routine so we can explore even more, ride further and hike higher!
Bathroom Situation
In our van, the bathroom, kitchen, bedroom, dining room, living room and garage are literally all one room. We opted for a small portable toilet with separator and compostable bagging system, but as you can imagine, that can get a little awkward when someone needs to use it and the other person is cooking dinner and its raining outside and you can’t open the roof vent.
There are of course other options like a dedicated bathroom space with a door, but for our build we opted not to use that much space for an enclosed bathroom. We didn’t want to have to worry about finding dump stations or dealing with chemicals either.
In addition to the afore mentioned awkwardness, you still have to dispose of your own waste no matter what setup you have and it’s not as simple as flushing.
I use a dedicated reusable shopping bag to transport our liquids container into a rest stop or pit toilet to empty it so it isn’t glaringly obvious I am walking around with a jug of wee.
We use public restrooms whenever possible, Planet Fitness for showers (we also have a pop up shelter and rechargeable outdoor shower that we have used a few times) and it has worked out just fine for us. That is not to say it is the right choice for everyone, just being honest with what we chose and had to get used to.
Maintaining Individuality
In any relationship, it is important to maintain individuality. No two people are exactly the same and it becomes extremely important when living in such close quarters to do things independent of the other person. When your house and vehicle are one in the same, doing separate activities can be tricky.
Eric’s interests lie mostly within the fitness category at this time. He is a much stronger cyclist and hiker than I am currently and so sometimes he goes on longer rides, overnight trips or group rides in various locations. He enjoys the community aspect of the group rides and the solo time to ride FAR.
I enjoy writing, working on the blog and painting in addition to physical activities and it has proven difficult at times to strike the right balance of our shared and differing interests. We try to communicate as openly as possible to let each other know what we need to maintain our sense of self. Sometimes the tight quarters can compound this bit of tension and it is important to remember to work through these struggles with an open mind.
It is also crucial to really assess your relationship BEFORE embarking on a journey such as this and if being in close proximity to one another most of the time isn’t feasible, don’t put yourselves through it.
Community & Making Friends
I personally am very happy always being on the move with my best friend and partner next to me almost 24/7. Eric on the other hand really enjoys the community aspect of an event like a group ride or playing music with friends. That is not to say I don’t enjoy a group activity occasionally like a buffle grass removal event I participated in near Tucson, but it’s not something I NEED to do.
Folks who thrive on interacting with lots of people will find nomadic living difficult by nature. There are of course areas that nomadic people congregate like Quartzite and Baja, but we haven’t explored those types of camps yet.
Overall we like to be by ourselves and experience things just the two of us. We have made a few new friends along the way and we make it a point to keep in touch with friends, both old and new, so we can meet up whenever we are nearby.
We of course miss our family and friends who are still in Michigan, but thankfully technology allows us to stay connected no matter how many miles separate us at any given time. Overall it is simply more difficult to cultivate community and new friendships while on the road, and that can be seen as a downside to the lifestyle for some.
FAQs
There are a few pretty common questions that are worth reviewing here and I will give you an honest answer on each. Although vanlife is an alternative lifestyle that is challenging at times, the good far outweighs the bad in my opinion.
Is living in a van worth it?
I believe with every fiber of my being that living in a van is worth it, 100% would reccommend. Personally, I have never been happier than the last year that we have been on the road even with any challenges that arose.
It is freeing, it is great for personal growth and allows you to experience a plethora of new things.
Can you permanently live in a van?
You absolutely could live in a van permanently if you wish. We will not get into the nitty gritty regarding the (ahem) ridiculous (ahem) legalities surrounding residence/housing/etc.
There are of course lots of rules about where you can legally park and sleep overnight, but if you are respectful of those rules and use some easily accessible tools like those on our resource page to find legal places to park, there is no reason you couldn’t live in a van permanently.
Why do people quit vanlife?
People quit full time vanlife for a variety of reasons. Sometimes they find someplace that feels like home and they want to stay there long term. Others have difficulties finding income options that work for them, get burnt out with decision fatigue or relationships begin to fail.
It is a lot to constantly be on the go and that may not suit some individuals longer term. Some people really enjoy a community to rely on and the nomadic life with ever changing resources is just too much to handle.
Final Thoughts
We are often told by people we meet that we are “living their dream” but I think that is said without really understanding what it actually means to live this way.
The reality of vanlife is that it’s still just life, an alternative lifestyle yes of course, but a life all the same. It requires sacrifice, and it’s filled with ups, downs, and daily chores just like any other way of living.
When we made the decision to take the leap into full time vanlife, it really came down to the question of what makes us happiest? Our answer to that question is traveling and being in nature. So the next step was to see what it would take to get to where we wanted to be. We aimed to flip the script, so instead of only having 4 weeks a year to get out and explore, we wanted to have most of our days involve travel, experiencing new things and nature. We sacrificed our routine, community, comfort in some instances, and most of our earthly possessions to make it happen. We carefully considered all of those sacrifices that needed to be made to see if it would be worth it.
For us, it absolutely was and we are definitely not done with our nomadic chapter. Living in a van full time has been scary, exciting, rewarding, occasionally wildly uncomfortable, challenging and absolutely never dull. We’ve experienced so much growth and adventure over the last year. This time we are taking to experience life in this special way is truly a gift, one whose magnitude is not lost on us. We acknowledge and appreciate the journey every single day.
I wouldn’t trade a minute of the past year for anything and I look forward to what our future holds. We hope you continue to follow along with us and see what we get into as we head into year two!