Reaching West- Rachel Nevill

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!

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

Reaching West PART 1

country where I knew very few people. But I did it, and it was quite literally lifechanging.

The day I got back from this trip was the day I started my budget and began planning for the life I wanted: Full-time van-life. I gave myself three months to save money before searching for my dream van, which was a 2002-2006 144-inch High Roof Dodge Sprinter with under 200,000 miles. Pretty vague, right? I test drove three vans that didn’t quite meet my expectations - they were either too rusty, too large (158-inch), or too high a price for the value of vehicle. Also, right smack dab in the middle of my intense van search, COVID hit. This severely limited my travel options (lots of vans for sale on the west coast), and also drove the market way up for sprinter vans. A double whammy. So about eight months of searching for that perfect van, I was about convinced I would never be able to do it. Then, out of the blue, a friend of mine and fellow van-lifer messaged me asking if I saw that the church across the street from my apartment had some old vans for sale. She convinced me to go give them a test drive and I walked away that afternoon with a 1997 Ford Econoline 12-passenger van. What on earth had I done?

That was a very short six months ago. Fast forward to now, and I have completely gutted it, driven it across the country to get the 12-inch roof replaced with a custom 24-inch fiberglass roof with slider windows and a vent fan, completed by Fiberine, and ordered all the electronics needed for an off-grid setup. All I have to do now is the fun part: Build it! I will be doing this work myself, with the large caveat that every friend I have will likely get roped in to helping me.

I have some traveling left to do in the coming weeks, but after that I will be buckling down and spending almost all of my free time getting the van ready! I turn 30 at the end of July and my goal is to be living in the van by then. I will have a few more things to do after the build is done, which include getting a lift, a paint job and a roof rack, but I plan to be doing all of this while living on the road. I will be updating you guys on the good, bad and ugly of the whole process in the September issue, so keep an eye out for that!

I’ll see you on the road!

Part 2 Continued in Fall Issue

Rachel Nevill

www.instagram.com/totesrach www.instagram.com/totesvanlife