Reaching West PART 1
Raise your hand if you’ve ever wanted to live on the road! I assume 90 percent of your hands are raised or you wouldn’t have gotten your hands on this magazine. Living on the road, specifically in my own converted van, has been a dream of mine since I was about 24 years old. You know, the typical millennial trying to avoid real life and solely traveling for a living. Except there’s a catch. I actually went to school to be, and am now employed full-time as, a mechanical engineer. This has put a major hindrance on my van-life dreams in one major way: My job is not remote. That being said, let me tell you about my journey…from there to now. Including living full-time in a van for five weeks, and now constructing my own to live in by summer’s end!
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I follow this rad and inspiring account on IG called @ ourhomeonwheels. They are the sweetest young family who were living in their third converted van when they decided to begin renting it out one summer. I was like, alright this is cool, but I want to LIVE in one, not vacation in one, so I kind of wrote it off. Then I saw that they were vacationing out of country for two months, which sparked an outrageous idea! I would ask them if I could rent their van long-term while they were away, and I would attempt to get approved for leave without pay from my job. I crossed my fingers and just assumed it would never work. But lo and behold, three short months later I was packing my bags to fly across the country and finally get a real taste of what solo female van-life would look like.
I picked up this beautiful yellow creature in Arizona, and planned to make a big loop zig-zagging up through California and Nevada, turning east from Oregon to Idaho/Montana/ Wyoming, and finally driving south through Utah before returning the van back to Arizona. All in all, I stuck with that general idea, letting the national parks route my trip for me. I drove a total of 7,679 miles and stopped in 14 national parks across eight states. I slept in a variety of places, including Walmart parking lots, BLM land, paid campsites, and strangers’ driveways via Boondockers Welcome (highly recommend). I met some amazing people, fellow nomads and locals alike, which overall strengthened my view of the world that people are inherently good and friendly. Prior to this trip, I was unsure if I would be able to mentally do it: Survive alone in the van, mostly without cell service, in a part of the
