Prelude: My Transition from living in my Kia Soul to a Ford Transit Van
I’ve spent most of the past four months living out of my car and, now, my van. And for most of the past four months, it’s been relatively smooth sailing.
I guess I’ve been spoiled, though. First leaving Florida, and then crossing the Mississippi River, I left the major east coast metropolises behind and ventured into the far more rural regions of the country. I camped a good amount while I was still driving my Kia Soul, and have stayed with friends in the more urbanized areas such as Phoenix, Salt Lake City, and Portland. In June, while I was delivering keynote speeches in Idaho, I stayed in hotels that were paid for by the conferences.
But now I’m living in my van, and I’m on my own.
With most of my current work being sidewalk astronomy and stargazing tours, I need to be around people. In Florida, I had any number of cities within a 30-minute drive. Bradenton Riverwalk was down the street. Sarasota’s Bayfront Park was 20 minutes away. Downtown St. Pete was 30 minutes. I still had a 2-bedroom rental house (paying $1600 including utilities for my HALF of the rental) which I viewed as throwing away money when I spent most of my time on the sidewalk doing science and astronomy.
So taking up vanlife and venturing west to darker skies and unlimited exploration was a no brainer.
Vanlife in Sedona
Choosing Sedona as an “astronomy homebase” the entire summer has been great. Despite the significantly lower visitation compared to the nearly 10,000 people per month I’d see in St. Petersburg (I’m only seeing about 1,500/month in Sedona), this dark sky town is obviously a popular tourism city and people are looking for things to do. Setting up the telescope(s) brings consistent traffic, revenue, and stargazing tour signups.
While earlier in the summer I stayed in hotels around Sedona, the van allows me to live then rent- and hotel-free, saving literally thousands of dollars per month. When I finish sidewalk astronomy and stargazing tours, I go to the spot I spend each night, sleep until about 7am, get coffee, and drive outside town to my “morning spot” located on federal land, where I relax, eat breakfast, charge my solar batteries, film videos, fly the drone, and take a shower before heading back into Sedona to write and work.
It’s a great routine, it’s easy, and the best part: I can get far enough away from town to kind of just…be on my own.
Enter San Diego
The unfortunate lack of a monsoon season in Arizona has meant that I’ve able to host sidewalk astronomy and stargazing tours nearly uninterrupted by clouds all but four days this entire summer. But cloudy skies did eventually arrive, and after three days in Sedona right at the end of August, the forecast for the remainder of the week was nothing but clouds.
I had a choice: stay in Sedona twiddling my thumbs…or go somewhere else.
I’ve never visited San Diego, and my current plan has been to travel there from December through February to spend the winter as I wait out the clouds and snow before traveling to the PNW in the spring. So with the onset of clouds in Sedona, I thought, hey, why not go to San Diego now as a brief scouting run so I’m familiar with it prior to coming back later this year.
So on a cloudy afternoon on September 1st, I threw all my stuff together and left Sedona bound for San Diego.
To say the least, I was in for a shock. Not particularly in a bad way. With brief exceptions, I haven’t been in a big city in a long time, and in my time living out of my car and now van, I was camping or staying in mostly rural areas on federal land or campgrounds. Coming to the city has been an eye-opening experience.
I should state that my van is on the smaller side, and because I do astronomy and have two telescopes with me, I need LOTS of storage. As a result, the living space is on the smaller side, not at all like the giant vans you’ll typically see with an extendable bed, a kitchen space, drawers and shelves, and sometimes, an internal shower. One day I’ll have that to increase my storage and open up my living conditions, but it is not this day. My entire goal right now is to save money and pay down debt and loans to reach some semblance of financial freedom that I’ve yet to achieve.
Check out this video to see the van I’m working with.
Back to San Diego.
San Diego is a bigger city. I’d estimate maybe around 3-4x times the size of St. Pete, Florida. The urban sprawl is dense, and whatever rural areas exist outside it within a reasonable driving distance, I’ve yet to discover (I’ve only been here three days as of my writing this). This is to say, when I unfold my bed and get things situated for the night, I’m not in an empty area. When I park for the night, I wake up surrounded by cars (I find comfort in the fact that there are definitely two other vanlifers who also stay the night where I have been here). The light rail/train/city transit slides by each night, making for a noisier, but not unbearable nighttime situation. Funny enough, I’m sleeping perfectly fine.
When I drive out for the morning to eat breakfast and change clothes and brush my teeth and whatnot, it’s not down some empty gravel road miles from town: it’s in a parking lot at a trailhead where other people are milling around. And forget taking a real shower: I’ve conceded that to stay in San Diego long term (and probably most other cities) I’ll need to get a gym subscription.
If the comfort of rural vanlifing exists in San Diego, I have yet to find it. This isn’t Sedona, where I can vanish for a few hours and then return to civilization ready for the day. And this is a far cry from the desert where I’m completely isolated.
Vanlife outside the city is easy. In fact, despite my need for people in order to, you know, make money doing astronomy, I prefer the complete isolation. I’ve always called myself a city person, but I think this summer has shown that whatever version of me I am now, I’m not a city person any more. Put me in the desert alone. The mountains. The prairies. Let me roam, let me exist, let me make memories and share those experiences with people I meet. Let me tell those stories.
Looking Down the Road
I’m only 109 days on the road, and 6 weeks into vanlife. This is still the very beginning and I’m learning a lot. Data collection, keeping lists, making adjustments–I’m living an iterative experience. Watching how others do it and engaging with them, especially during their own struggles, helps me make adjustments while also (hopefully) showing them they have someone in their court empathizing with them. I’ve seen vanlifers unhappy with the builds, heaters breaking down, odd leaks, wheels come off. I’ve already had two check-engine lights and put in an uncomfortable amount of repair cost. But I’m finding the issues I’m having are becoming fewer, which hopefully means I’m doing something right and that the cost-per-month will continue dropping. In fact, outside of gas, I’ve spent less than $100 in the past two weeks.
I’ll have a cost-per-month video and post coming out eventually, now that I’m in this for the long-haul. For now, my focus is finish up this week, get back to Arizona for my friend’s birthday camping trip, and continue learning this life to make it efficient and fluid. I’ve enjoyed it every day; the reason I’m struggling a bit right now is because it’s the first time I’ve been in a city, living in the van, and I’m facing all the challenges I listed above and more.
But! We’ll get through. It’s a process that will take time to master. And my future goals include upgrading to a larger van with much more space for storage and day-to-day living that will make city living easier than the conditions I’m facing with my smaller build. That’s why we learn.
This world is beautiful.
Alex
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