by Amelia Fontein

Jon and his wife, Pamela, live in Colorado and bought a Sprinter van in May of last year. Since then, they’ve been gearing up for a huge road trip to Alaska and then back down to the east coast. They plan to live in their van for 10-12 months, exploring the U.S., biking, and visiting friends along the way.  I spoke with Jon in January, about 2 months before they plan to depart. For more information about Jon and Pamela’s trip, check out their website: http://roamingrobos.com/about/

Amelia: How did you learn about #vanlife and what inspired you to choose this lifestyle?

Jon: I have a background of traveling on the road for work, so I was sort of already living out of a suitcase. My wife is also really big into traveling, and we kind of came to a point in our life where we wanted to mix it up a little bit. We have a friend who owns a Sprinter van who has it converted into a camper van, and when he goes to bike races or camping, he just uses that as opposed to a tow-behind trailer, so it peaked our interest.

Amelia: How often do you go on van trips in your Sprinter van?

Jon: In the summer time it was very frequent. We purchased the van in May, I built it in June, and since June I’ve spent 31 days in it already. Starting in March, we’ll be on the road full-time for 10-12 months.

Amelia: When you travel in the van, who comes with you, and where do you typically go?

Jon: Primarily it’s the three of us: my wife, the dog, and myself. In the summertime, we mixed it up and my wife and I went for 2 ½ weeks and then I went solo for another 2 weeks. I went down to Richmond, VA to see some friends and spectate the world championship bike race that took place down there.

For the most part, the 3 of us will visit my family, and then we’ll go someplace either Crested Butte here in Colorado or we’ll be in the Boulder, Nederland area. But starting in March we’re gonna go all over. We have destinations in Flagstaff, the Grand Canyon, the Pacific Northwest. We’re gonna take the ferry from Washington to Alaska, and then drive down back into the Northern part of the U.S. And then eventually ending in Vermont and New England to see family in August or September.

We miss the fall. We’re gonna chase fall from Maine all the way down to Atlanta, GA.

Amelia: What is the most appealing aspect of #vanlife for you?

Jon: It’s really the ability to have less and do more. You don’t need 800 T-shirts and 40 pairs of jeans, you can get away with 3 shirts and a couple of riding outfits and 1 bike that can do most of everything; gravel roads and dirt roads. Also the flexibility to follow the wind, or for us, we’re gonna follow the sun. It’s really just having that freedom at your fingertips and being able to say, “Oh wait, I really like this place. Let’s stay another day.”

Amelia: What is the most difficult part of living in a van?

Jon: Trying to figure out the best way for my wife and I to get alone time. Cause we’re gonna be together essentially 24 hours, so it’s gonna be worth that balance for the two of us not to snap at each other. We have some of that figured out, but it’s gonna vary as soon as we get on the road.

Amelia: What are some of your successful strategies for finding solid alone time?

Jon: So she’ll go for runs on her own. I get up early in the morning and make the coffee an hour before she gets up. So I’ll have my moment of zen, per se, for the hour prior. And then other times she’ll sit and put on some headphones, or she does adult coloring books. The two of us just found an app called Head Space, which is a really cool app for meditation and just zoning out. So we use that individually so we can kinda just go somewhere and hit control-alt-delete for ourselves and then return to the group.

Amelia: How important is social media in your lifestyle, and in what ways to do you contribute to social media?

Jon: I mean, honestly, it is a cornerstone for what I think most people are trying to do with their own van adventures. We are leveraging it to sort of turn it into a business. It’s also what I do on the side for other people. I have a couple people that I do social media for, since I’m gonna be away from my day-to-day job and on the road. So for me, it’s definitely a source of income for executing social media for others.

And then for us to engage with people has been huge. We’ve come in contact and become friends with another couple called SprinterVanDiaries…We finally met up after months of correspondence through direct messaging on Instagram, and we had coffee and our dogs met and played for 2 hours. So it’s that weird sense of community, but also a little bit of distance. When you meet someone, you’re like “I feel like I’ve known you forever…but I’ve never really met you face-to-face.”

I think a lot of the people who are building out vans and wanting to do this hope that people have a blog…because they want to learn tips and tricks and info about how to build their van and what works best for the scenarios versus having to trial and error everything. Everyone who builds out their van has a set of pride standards, and I think posting about how you did that is one of them for sure. It’s also giving back to the community. It’s like an open-source forum. That’s one of the ways that I think social media really benefits this community: the wealth of knowledge that people are really open to discuss.

Amelia: How do you fund your journey? Do you work while you are on the road?

Jon: Part of it is helping friends in the industry leverage their social media outlets by executing them for them. And then we’re renting our house while we travel. So we’re gonna receive passive income by renting the house.

Amelia: Why is Vermont an appealing destination in your van travels? What are your favorite places and activities in Vermont?

Jon: I have family in New England. My folks are in Maine, my wife’s folks are in Massachusetts. We’ve lived in New England and we’ve traveled to Burlington and we know the area really well. We want to get back and explore the back roads of Vermont and we have some friends who own a maple syrup farm in Vermont that we’re gonna check out. It’s kind of a combination of reconnecting with people that we haven’t seen in quite a while and going to Vermont, which happens to be a destination for that.

Amelia: So what parts of Vermont do you plan to go to?

Jon: We’ll definitely probably be in Burlington and then Pawlet. That’s where the bike race was that we did. And then there’s a farm that we visit down there. Being New Englanders, we love the off-the-beaten-path, Mom and Pop establishments. I’m a sucker for country stores, and there’s a bunch in New England and Vermont. That’s gonna be a staple in our replenishment stops along the way.

Amelia: Do you feel that you are part of a larger #vanlife community? In what ways do you connect with other vanlifers while you are on the road?

Jon: I think we’re part of a larger community that everyone engages with, it just varies on the level of intimacy (for lack of a better term)…I think that communicating on the road is key, because someone can tell you about somewhere that is really crappy or a tourist trap and you don’t want to go there, so go 3 blocks to the left and you’re gonna get a better experience with nobody. I definitely think that the #vanlife community is supportive and it’s informative, and there’s a bunch of forums out there for Sprinters alone, but there’s hashtags and social media that go even further than just websites and forums. I think we’re definitely gonna communicate with others on the road about our travels and give advice and ask for advice while we’re out there. And I think that we’ll meet up with more people. If Brad and Meag come to Colorado and want to meet up or have questions, we would be more than willing to respond to them or anybody.