Van Life

If you follow me on any of the social medias, you will already know that I am a self-proclaimed co-dependent human with my dog, Simone. I have no shame, especially since I know she is just as co-dependent with me as I am with her. We go through withdrawal from each other and I would not have it any other way. We just recently celebrated our seven year anniversary in honor of the fateful Saturday where I woke up and decided I wanted a dog. I spent a short time on Pet Finder and I immediately fell in love with her. After driving to the Bloomington, Indiana Animal Shelter to pick her up, I put her in the car and she immediately peed all over the back seat. But I didn’t care. She was perfect in every way.

Until she chewed up my couch, running shoes, leather belt, slippers, clothes, bedspread…

I am often asked what it is like to have a dog with me on the road and my immediate response is it is freaking awesome. I love having a hiking buddy who never complains and can keep up with any activity. She loves all the same things I do — hiking, snow, physical challenges, water, being free, breakfast sausage…  you know, the staples in life. I call her my little mountain goat, because she is more agile and nimble on rocks than I am. And there little in life that is more rewarding that seeing the bliss on her face when she is prancing through the woods.

With that said, she did not come to me that way. The first six months of having Simone was an absolute nightmare. I spent a ton of time training her (i.e. training myself) and there were even points where I thought I was going to have to bring her back to the Humane Society because I could not handle it. I cried every day for those six months. I hated her. I thought I was going to get evicted because she would whine, cry and howl every time I left the house and I was sure all of my neighbors were complaining to the landlord. I vividly remember after a month of having Simone I was lying on my bed (crying) thinking, “If she doesn’t get noticeably better in two weeks, I’m out. I’m bringing her back.”

It was then that I decided to bring Simone to dog training. She was about six or seven months old. Keep in mind that she was my first dog, so I recognized that I needed as much training as she did and we needed a third party to keep us from killing each other. So I took her to a training class where I dropped her off in the morning and picked her up after work. They spent those hours working with her to teach her basic commands. Then, when I came to pick her up, they would tell me what she learned and how to reinforce it at home.

This was a literal life saver.

All I needed was to be told what to do and how dogs think and we were golden. I had spent too much time on too many blogs and read about too many different ways of training a dog that I was overwhelmed and confused. But once we had one trainer telling us one way to do things, it all worked. The key was consistency. If I let her slip just once, we set ourselves back by a month. So I buckled down and stuck with it for six long difficult months.

And ta-da! I got a perfect dog out of it.

I know that not every dog is the same and for some it may take longer than six months to reinforce the good behavior you want. The morale of the story is that you get out of your dog the amount of work that you put into them. They need stimulation. They need a job. They want to do the right thing, but they need to be trained on what the right thing is and rewarded when they do it. And hugs and kisses are not enough of a reward, folks. If you want your dog to do what you tell them to do, bring out the big guns. For example, Simone wasn’t crazy about the hard baked treats, but anything soft and gooey or better yet, a piece of real meat, would incentivize her to do anything. If you want a good dog, praise is not enough of a reward for good behavior.

One of the other big lessons I learned with Simone early on was that unless I wore her out every day, she wouldn’t listen to anything I said. So it was fetch twice a day plus walks once or twice a day as well. That’s a small price to pay for an obedient dog.

Now that I’ve rambled for far too long, I want to highlight a few things about having a dog on the road and what you should expect if you are choosing the nomad life with your pooch.

1) Invest into training.

I bring Simone everywhere with me. She stays at campgrounds, she sleeps in the van, she stays at my brother’s house when I’m in Minnesota and at Air BnBs when it’s cold. So it was imperative that I could trust her to be well-behaved in just about every scenario. Admittedly, she has slipped up a few times… the most recent was when she got upset and destroyed several paintings that were on a counter at a friend’s house who is an artist. Of course I was appalled and embarrassed. But to her credit, it was because I was lazy and did not play with her that day.

For the most part, she is a good dog. As long as I put in my time to play with her and stimulate her brain, she is good to me. I can trust her to get along with most other dogs, back down when I tell her to be nice, rest calmly at a home if needed, and not get into other people’s stuff. She doesn’t take food from counters, make a lot of noise, and she is sweet when she meets new people. All of that came with an investment into training and it was one of the best investments I have ever made.

2) National Parks do not allow dogs on trails.

This was something that I did not realize until my sister warned me when we were planning out my route out west last summer. National Parks don’t allow dogs on trails, mostly because of the wildlife in the parks that they are trying to protect. Dogs attract that wildlife more than humans, so it is an increased risk to have them on the trails. I have mixed feelings about this policy, but it is what it is. If you are planning a backpacking trip or even a long day hike, you will need to board your dog or leave her with a friend. Most of the time I am able to board Simone at a place nearby the park. I haven’t had an issue finding a place when I need one. However, I will warn you that many dog boarding places are not open on Sunday, so if you are planning a weekend of hiking, you may need to wait until Monday to pick up your pup.

3) Always have your vaccination records on hand.

Since I board Simone so often, I keep her vaccination records available with me at all times. I have both a hard copy and a PDF on my computer. At first, I would call my vet and ask them to fax her vaccination records to the boarding place, but it just became such a hassle to call them every time, especially since I was at a new national park every couple of weeks. I had to be sure to call them within the hours they were open and get the fax number from the boarding place and then follow up and make sure they got them. It was a pain, to say the least. Now that I have copies myself, I can easily send them to the boarding place when I make Simone’s reservation, which makes my life much easier.

4) Let your dog off leash at your own risk.

I know a lot of people who break the rules and let their dog off leash when they are hiking. Admittedly, I am one of them. However, I will say it again that you need to be able to fully trust your dog in order to do this. The only way it works for us is because whenever we see someone else on the trail, I’ll call Simone and put her back on her leash and keep her there until we pass the other hikers. I can trust her to comply with this plan.

Without coming to me when she is called and stopping when I tell her to stop, she could easily get in a fight with another dog or scare someone on the trail. I view being off leash as a privilege and if she ever starts to get out of line or stops listening to me (which she does at times) then it’s back on the leash. You should be so sure about your dog’s obedience that you know they’ll listen to you and come, even when they are tempted to go into a dangerous situation instead, such as interact with a larger animal.

I do not recommend to hike with your dog off leash until she gets to a point where you have full confidence in her obedience. It’s only a privilege that the best of dogs get to enjoy.

5) Sometimes you’ll need to sacrifice plans for your dog.

The one downside of traveling with your dog is that it does change your plans at times. When we were in Colorado this summer, we had planned a full day hike up to a glacier lake and drove quite a ways to get there. When I got Simone out of the van, I immediately noticed that one of her nail nerves was completely exposed on her paw. It looked terribly painful. She actually did not make a fuss about it, but I knew it would just get worse if we went through with the hike. So I was able to clean and wrap the wound and we chose to instead spent the day laying by the lake.
Not being able to go to National Parks every weekend and having to change my plans at times is a small price to pay for the numerous benefits of having a dog with me when I travel. She is such a great companion and I would not have it any other way.

Living the nomad lifestyle is invigorating. I wake up to the warmth of sunrise creeping through my windows, I drink my coffee near the edge of whatever given mountain called me to me that day, and when I want to explore somewhere new, I go. No ties, no one to report to, nothing holding me back. Early in my career, I always thought I would end up with a job that sent me all over the world for work, and when that wasn’t happening, I decided that I needed to create the life that I wanted to live. And I really love it.

When I was a kid, I wanted to be an astronaut when I grew up. I was fascinated with stars and space. I mostly blame Tom Hanks and Apollo 13 for these dreams. When I was twelve years old, we took a family vacation to Australia and happened to be there just at the right time to see baby turtles hatch in the middle of the night and run towards the white foamy waves of the ocean. I honestly don’t know if I watched a single turtle that night, as the entire rest of my family of seven eagerly watched the adorable little creatures, but what I do remember is the feeling of looking up at the stars and experiencing everything else around me fade into the distance. It was like the world was on mute and me and the stars were in our own dimension, completely isolated. I felt like there was a tunnel pulling me up towards space and I couldn’t break my gaze.

As you may have realized by now, I did not become an astronaut. That dream shifted pretty quickly when I realized how much physics I would have to take. After that, I honestly don’t really remember what I wanted to be when I grew up. When I pictured my life as an adult, the main images that came to mind were all of the places I was going to visit. I thought I might live in Thailand or the Philippines. I loved (and still love) Southeast Asia. Such warm and welcoming cultures where people take care of each other. But I also had never been to the middle east or Africa or South America or Russia. There was so much to see.

I had the great privilege of growing up in a family that took vacations around the world and I absolutely loved those trips. When we first went to China when I was seven, I remember that I got so excited that I had my own porch off my room and was convinced that I could now get a horse and keep it on my porch. Or when we went to Thailand for the first time, I had never seen a dolphin or driven a jet ski. Each trip was so exhilarating. The thrill of exploring somewhere new becomes quite addictive. Even the vacations where I was a complete brat and didn’t want to go to the Natural History Museum or Stonehenge — just leave me alone and let me listen to Savage Garden on my walkman! — e’hem… our family trips are what I remember most about childhood.

What I realize now looking back, is that wanting to be an astronaut was my internal spirit’s way of telling me that my lifeblood was to explore. I wanted to see everything and experience it all. And when I dreamed of life as an adult, I knew that was my path. I spent a lot of my adult life getting distracted from that truth. It’s not that I didn’t travel or explore before choosing nomad life, but it wasn’t a top priority and I was minimizing a part of me that brought incredible joy. I am sharing this background to remind myself (and you) to go back to those childhood memories. To really feel what it was like to be happy in those most perfect  moments and pinpoint what it is that brought you alive. Go back to those the thrills of childhood. There is something so genuine and true about the joys we experience as a kid. Make those dreams real.

With all of that said, choosing to live my dream of endless travel and adventure, comes with sacrifices. And it turns out that adulting is still a thing, no matter where you are or how much you try to simplify your life. I a still  I am a tax paying citizen, I pay my bills, I get junk mail. People often ask me what I do to handle these types of scenarios. Where do I bank? Where do I shower? How do I do laundry? So in attempts to bring some of the adulting to the romanticized life of the nomad, I am going to answer a few of those questions.

Where are you a resident?

This one is tricky because it impacts my taxes, car registration, voting, how my employer pays taxes, etc. I don’t have a childhood home or parents who even live in the country, so there hasn’t really been an easy default location to choose to be a resident. So I decided to keep my residency in Indiana. It didn’t make sense to change it to somewhere else if I wasn’t sure I would be there long term. Fortunately, I have friends who are gracious enough for me to use their home address in Indiana. I was still able to vote in the 2016 election, I filed my taxes and will be able to renew my car plates this month. My advice for other nomads? Stay a resident wherever makes the most sense for your job and is somewhere you go back to often enough that it won’t be too complicated.

How do you get your mail?

Honestly, there’s almost nothing that comes through the mail that I need to have access to. A few super old school businesses like my doctor and vet, but other than that, I purposefully made sure that all of my important info comes through email before I hit the road. This is SO important and really only takes a couple of hours to set up. As far as anything that does come through the mail, the easiest way that I’ve seen so far is to have a PO box somewhere in the country where you can request them to forward you your mail periodically. Forwarding is pretty easy and most of the time I have things sent to General Delivery at whatever USPS I will be closest to. A couple of weeks ago, I ordered a package and sent it to General Delivery in Port Angeles, WA and when I showed up at the post office, there it was. Even the smaller town post offices offer this service. It’s pretty incredible! It has also allowed me to get a few letters and packages from friends here and there, which is always a highlight when you are on the road.

Where do you bank?

This one wasn’t much of an adjustment for me since I already had a completely online bank — Capital One 360. So I have not noticed much difference being on the road vs. not. If I need to send a check (god forbid…) I can issue one from my bank and it takes about a week to get to the recipient. I haven’t done that in over a year though and almost always use Venmo or PayPal to send people money. I don’t have a checkbook at all. There have been a few times where I had to get a money order, but that is also relatively simple. You walk into CVS, ask for a money order, fill out the little slip, hand them your cash, and there you go. Nothing from my bank goes through the mail, it’s all paperless, and I can deposit checks from my phone, so this is one area that is pretty simple to navigate.

How do you shower?

I am not sure if I am proud to admit this or embarrassed, but I went a solid six months without having regular access to a shower. Some vanners have solar showers that are hooked up to the back of their van where they can wash off. I do not have such civilized contraptions… So I would shower wherever I could. Sometimes I would sneak into a campground to shower, a few of them actually had pay stations for their showers. In between long stretches, I would just bath in a lake. I actually didn’t mind doing that for a couple of weeks even. I could even kill two birds with one stone by soaping up Simone and playing fetch with her in the water until she was rinsed off.

On a daily basis, I use facial wet wipes to wash my face and at least every other day to wipe down the rest of me. It’s amazing how refreshed you can feel from something simple like that. I also use dry shampoo almost daily for my hair. I have since grown up (slightly) and gave in to buying a gym membership. I joined Planet Fitness, which is inexpensive and all over the country, so I have access to a shower in most states.

Where do you do laundry?

About once every two weeks or so, I’ll hit up a laundromat. I no longer sort colors, white and linens, it all goes into one giant washer and one giant drier. I actually kind of the like the routine of sitting in a laundromat, people watching, as we all stare into the massive machines tumbling our outfits round and round. There is something very iconic about the experience and it makes me feel like I am in a movie. To wash all of my clothes, it costs me about $10, which is not very different from what I was paying at the apartment previously.

Where do you go to the bathroom?

I was having a conversation with a group of people recently about building out vans and one of the guys mentioned that he didn’t think he would need a bathroom. I was quick to agree and said, “Hey, if I as a girl can function without a bathroom in my van, then any man should have no problem without one. Is that really gross and way too much information?” We all laughed.

TMI alert, I do not have a bathroom in my van and I frankly, I don’t really need one. I cannot tell you how many times I’ve stopped on the shoulder of an off ramp to open my two side doors as “curtains” to pee. When you travel as many miles as I do, you don’t have time to stop at a gas station every time you have to pee. It’s completely inefficient. When I’m hiking, I pee in the woods. If I have to do more serious business, there are a million gas stations, McDonald’s, restaurants, Starbucks, etc. that I have access to. As much as I’d like to be in the middle of nature most of the time, the reality is that we live in a highly civilized country and accessing a bathroom is not difficult. Honestly, it’s the least of my worries on the road.

So there you have it! The logistics of adulting on the road has actually not been as painful as I originally thought it would be. The main way to make it work is to have supportive friends and family to help when needed. Happy to take other questions for anything I missed!

When I tell people that I sold all of my possessions and am going to be traveling the west for a while the most common response I get is, “Wow, I am so jealous.” I know that those people have good intentions. It’s encouraging to know that people support what I am doing. And many of you reading this probably said that very thing to me.

First of all, you don’t need to be jealous. There is a path for your life that will make your heart sing. And it will be unique. It will include all of the awful, painful heart breaks as well as the beauty. I was recently asked the question if I would choose one person’s life to live, would I choose my own? I thought about it long and hard. I thought about it for days. And I finally concluded that, yes. I would choose my life over anyone else’s. I created my life into what I what I want it to be. I didn’t get to choose all of the circumstances that affected me, and hell, there are a lot of them that I would gladly do without, but in the end, I do get to choose what I want my life to look like. So no, don’t be jealous. Create the life that you are in love with.

Second of all, living on the road is sure as hell not easy. I get frustrated at times when I hear over and over that people are jealous, because there are moments where I just want to shake them and say, do you even know what it’s like?? There’s a reason that not a lot of people do this. Don’t get me wrong, I am not trying to be whiny. I love this trip and I wouldn’t take it back. But in efforts to ease your mind just a little bit, let me tell you some of what it’s been like to live out of a van for the past several months:

1. You wake up every morning grateful that everyone is alive

The first few months in the van I was living in Minnesota in my brother’s backyard. Yes, it was April. Yes, it was 20 degrees some nights. Amelie learned pretty quickly to crawl into my sleeping bag to stay warm, which of course I welcomed, since it was like adding a little tiny heater to my sleeping bag. Simone, on the other hand, is slightly too big. There were nights where I would wake up and feel her shivering and not know what to do. She doesn’t really like blankets, so I didn’t know how to help her stay warm. I am not kidding you when I say that every morning I wake up and look around at my pets and feel an incredible amount of gratefulness that, yes, we made it another day. 

2. Nothing goes as planned

NOTHING. Ok, that is a little dramatic, but it often feels like that. Even on the days where you wake up with the best laid out plan that you thought you could have ever created, it will most likely all go to shit. You have to be prepared for the unexpected at every moment. Including losing solar power and having your entire fridge full of food rot. Or the weather changes and all of a sudden your plan of keeping the pets in the van goes out the window because you are paranoid they might die in the heat. Expect the unexpected.

3. Sometimes you pee in a bucket

There’s not really a lot more that I need to say to explain this. When you are in a parking lot and can’t find an open bathroom nearby (or maybe you are just really lazy), you pee in a bucket.

4. You “shower” in a Starbucks bathroom

Wake up in the morning, find the nearest Starbucks, grab my cosmetics kit and spending a solid 10 minutes in the bathroom freshening up. Brushing my teeth, washing my face, putting on makeup (if I am feeling extra snazzy), etc. Maybe I get weird looks or maybe I am just imagining it because I feel like people should be giving me weird looks.

5. If you forget to lock your car, your whole life is gone

As someone who has lost their house keys more times than I would like to admit, or locked herself out of her car too many times to count, I am constantly paranoid that I will forget to lock the van and someone will steal my entire life out of it. It’s a reality. It could happen. My whole existence is in one tiny 100 sq. feet space.

6. It’s more expensive than you think

I spent less on the van initially than I thought I would. But the amount that I’ve sunk into converting the van has easily doubled what I was planning on and I am not done yet. On top of that, there are expenses that you just don’t think about as much, like park fees, buying a lot of bottled water, eating out because you are too exhausted to spend 1.5 hours cooking, paying for a place to crash when you need it, etc. So far, it’s not much cheaper than how I was living before, but maybe it will even out. knock on wood

7. People are thrilled for you or they judge you

I get two kinds of reactions when I tell people about van life. Either they are ecstatic for me (which is about 20% of the time) or they look at me very confused, which prompts a long explanation of how I got here. It gets tiring to feel like you have to explain your choices to everyone.

8. Everything takes longer

This weekend I was camping in Rocky Mountain National Park and I got up early (5:45am) to make breakfast and get out on the trails early. I wasn’t allowed to take Simone with me on the trails, so I wanted to hike early in the day before it got hot in the van. I got out my propane stove, ground and brewed my coffee, cooked breakfast, ate and cleaned up. Those tasks took me 1.5 hours. What would have normally taken me about 20 minutes in “normal” life took me almost five times as long. That’s part of the sacrifice.

9. You always feel like you’re mooching

Whether you are staying with friends, at an Air BnB or camping, there is something about being around people all the time that makes you hyper aware of how your life is affecting everyone else. Don’t get me wrong, I LOVE being with people and wouldn’t want it any other way, but the feeling of always taking other people’s generosity weighs on me at times. I like to feel like I am giving back as much as I am receiving, so it’s tough to strike that balance.

10. Sleeping is hard: lights, traffic, cows, etc.

The other night I slept in Oakley, Kansas and barely got a minute of shut eye because of the cows. The COWS. Who knew that being in the middle of nowhere would be the spot that I lost the most sleep because the cows were mooing all night. You just never know…

11. Say goodbye to Amazon Prime

Yes, I had to cancel Amazon Prime. I have nowhere to ship to. As someone who does not like shopping in the first place, giving up my online alternative has not been easy.

12. You can’t decorate

This may sound superficial, but it’s really hard not feeling like I can have a tidy, well-groomed space where all of my things feel like “me.” No matter how much stuff I get rid of, the van still feels messy and I am constantly shuffling things around to find what I am looking for. No longer are the days where you pull a pan off the shelf to cook with. Now you have to open the back door, open the cabinet door, move a few containers, shuffle some other cooking items, and maybe you can find the pan… but is your stove set up? Where’s the propane? I can’t find the cooking utensils. I don’t even have cooking oil. Put it all back, let’s go to the store…

13. Having a routine is next to impossible

As much as I love adventure and new experiences, there are aspects of my life that thrive in routine. I wake up, make my coffee the same way every morning, eat my breakfast the same way every morning, work for several hours, eat the same lunch, continue working, drink my afternoon coffee and snack, finish working, run, and then have my evening to cook, run errands or visit friends. It is really hard to keep this up when every day is unpredictable. If I get out of my routine, it definitely takes a toll on mental sanity.

14. Every day is an unknown

Even if I have a place lined up for the next day, you never really know what lies ahead. That unknown brings with it a certain level of stress. What if I get to my campground and they don’t have any camp sites left? What if they don’t allow dogs? What if I get kicked out of the parking lot I’m parked at? What if I get a flat tire on the way there? I am generally not a worrier, but I have a whole new understanding of stress with van life.

This is not meant to be a pity-party, but  I definitely have been learning the realities of this life style the past few months. But hey. Life is just one big learning lesson, ammiright??