I’ve lived exclusively out of my van for two weeks now! (Plus the 65 straight days living out of my Kia Soul before this). But bigger doesn’t always mean immediately more comfortable. In fact, because I was tent camping for a majority of those first 65 days, I didn’t have to think about stuff in my car causing a cramped environment.
Van living is different.
Let’s rewind seven years: when I started Sidewalk Science Center in Savannah, Georgia back in 2018, I would store all my science experiments, telescopes, tables, and signs in my trunk. Back then, I could even do it with my Kia Soul’s seats up.
Yeah. Impressive. I know.
Didn’t last long.
So all my equipment has been in my car, where I can pull it out, stack it in a cart, drag it to where I set up, then fold it all back up and tetris it back into my car. That’s how I did things for the better part of a decade, right up until I got the van, which just so happened to be July 11 2025, the seven-year anniversary of Sidewalk Science Center. And no, I didn’t plan on that.
When I built the camper portion of the van, I made sure to have enough room for the equipment I’d have with me. The very front of the shelf floor has my batteries and microwave, my solar panels shove in under the bed, and my backpacks and hiking gear live on top of the bed during the day, and in the front seats at night.
While I travel, this situation works great with minimal effort. Put the packs up front, the table, camp chair, water container, and solar panels all stay outside. Easy peasy, lemon squeezy.
Now I’ve discovered something.
While I’m working (sidewalk astronomy and stargazing tours), this layout is incredibly inefficient. And by that I mean every single day I have an intense workload to get out my telescope equipment, host astronomy, then stuff the equipment back in, find a place to sleep, and layout the bed while keeping EVERYTHING inside the van. Can’t just have half my things outside like I did during camping.
This tells me a few things, starting with the fact that my van is too small – and I’m very well aware of that fact. I bought what I could afford, and that’s all there is to it. This van cost me $4,500, an extra $1,000 for registration and dealer fees, $1,000 for the immediate repairs and servicing I needed, and $800 for the actual van build to turn it into a camper that I could functionally live in on the road. Sure, I dropped $7,300 on this (and only because I was paid for my conference speaking in June, otherwise I would never have afforded it) but now I can travel at will wherever I want, without rent and utilities, and nothing tying me down.
It’s the ultimate freedom. It’s friggin’ great. I absolutely love this.
But the intense workload of jigsawwing the equipment each night and unfolding the bed and finding space for all my bags?
That needs to change. I can’t get a bigger van right now, which means I need to downsize AND find a more efficient and standard way of arranging my equipment so it doesn’t get in the way of anything else in the van. I don’t want to continue sacrificing my own physical mobility. I want an arrangement that doesn’t make me feel like I’m cramping myself in. If that means cutting the bed in half and using the full height of the open side for storage, hey, I’ll do it.
Downsizing is also huge here. I have lots of things still on me that fit in my Kia Soul because I was tent camping, but are now in the way, limiting my physical space inside the van. I have a list of items I’m getting rid of first chance I can, items that I’m just not using whatsoever or won’t use on a seasonal basis, such as the queen-sized microfiber blanket that was so so so warm in a tent, but I haven’t needed at all in the van because of insulation and the thick blanket on my bed. Nor the box of science experiments. Or the photo slips. Or the frying pans. Or half my clothes.
Space is everything in my vanlife, literally. I already don’t need stuff. So I can offload even more that I originally thought I needed, but have come to find I don’t.
I have a three-week out-of-van trip starting on Thursday, where I’m traveling to Kentucky, Pennsylvania, and South Carolina before returning to Phoenix and completing one last stint in Arizona before moving on. Before I get on the road again and do this for the true long haul, I’ll downsize, open space, and perhaps even design a standardized way of storing my sidewalk astronomy equipment.
I’m loving vanlife, but I need to make it work for me in the most efficient and comfortable way possible.
This world is beautiful.
Alex
Follow me on Instagram, Facebook, Tiktok, or YouTube
Purchase my photography prints
Support my mission, travel, and outreach with a tip on Venmo or PayPal.
Leave a Reply