by  Amelia Fontein

Brad & Meag

Brad and Meag are a couple currently living the #vanlife as they travel in their Volkswagen van from Vermont to Texas, and then back east. They own a small business, which they continue to manage as they travel. Their end destination is Asheville, North Carolina, where they hope to begin a new phase of their lives by possibly building a homestead and starting a farm. They left Vermont in November, and they’ve been on the road since. When I spoke to them, they were hanging out next to a donkey pasture somewhere in Texas. Here’s their take on #vanlife:

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

Brad: We’ve actually had the van for about 7 years now. I got it sophomore year of college while attending UMASS Amherst. So we’ve been kind of partaking in #vanlife a little bit, it hasn’t been a full-time thing up until recently…Right now we are really just traveling in the van and going around while we transition to a new home. Once I was on Instagram, I started to find things that I’m interested in, and my van is a big part of my life so, by nature, we came across all these other people that had Volkswagen vans. I like to look at projects that people work on and where people like to travel in their vans, and obviously the hashtag started popping up, and it just kind of went from there.

Meag: We’ve been wanting to live in the van to kind of practice living minimally. We are collectors of things and by living in a 16’ van you really learn what’s necessary and what’s not necessary.

Amelia: Do you ever meet up with other van lifers on the road? Do you travel with other people?

Meag: So we haven’t met up with anybody yet, but the more we keep going we’d love to because there’s so many secrets and hacks and challenges. When you come together with a community doing similar things, it’s a lot easier to say, “How the heck are you doing dishes when you have limited water and space?” That’s why Instagram is so cool, because its easy to see other people’s challenges and connect with them in that way. I think when we get to more city areas, it could be possible to meet up with people.

Brad: I think that part of it is that we don’t really know how to…We enjoy meeting other people, but a lot of our days are taken up with driving, or just seeing sites or relaxing or yoga, or a handful of other things.

Amelia: What’s your route?

Brad: We were pretty much just looking to head south [from Vermont]. Our plan is to go on this great adventure, and then we’re eventually moving to the Asheville area of North Carolina…I’ve always wanted to explore the Gulf Coast…I really wanted to road trip it; it was a very unique area, an awesome part of our country that I hadn’t explored. And that’s definitely want #vanlife enables is exploration.

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

Meag: We don’t have to wake up when our alarm clock says to. We don’t have to be somewhere at a certain time, answering to someone else. We answer to ourselves. We worked really hard after college with two full-time jobs and running a business. We worked and worked and worked. And we finally realized that life is short, and it’s time to have fun. And that’s the best part of this. We can get up when we want to, we can make breakfast together, spend all day together. Some people would say we’re crazy, but we actually love being together this much. And it has its challenges, but just the freedom to figure out what is really true to our hearts, and being able to do that. That’s the best part for me.

It’s eye opening to go into another state. Even in our own country, we have so many different cultures. And people living with different resources available. And it helps us to become a more well-rounded, understanding people to see how others live and make sure that we are grateful for the things we do have.

Brad: I have a big traveling itch. And this [#vanlife] is something that just constantly tickles that itch, which is awesome…I very much enjoy the simplicity of having everything within an arm’s reach inside our van. Its a much more simple lifestyle, and our life has been so complicated the last four years, so it’s just a nice break from that…It’s the best thing I’ve ever spent my money on. Obviously it’s an expensive investment, but it’s amazing how much money you can save. You have all your amenities with you. It’s such a magical thing to get to do, and I highly recommend it to anyone who gets the chance.

Amelia: What’s the most challenging part about living in a van?

Meag: Part of it is being isolated. I am more of a homebody but at the end of the day, it’s just the three of us: Brad and I and the dog. And I have to come to peace with that and realize that its okay and there’s still people around, and I can feel connected even if I’m not necessarily with people…We don’t have that immediate support of family being close by. It’s important when we are in towns or a little cafes or when we meet people to really make sure that we’re in the moment and enjoying their company.

We are very used to me doing the grocery shopping, and I have high standards of organic, fresh, and for me, plant-based. And that’s not easy to find. I keep joking that if anyone wants to lose weight, live in a van and go on a budget. It’s a lot of rice and beans and celery and peanut butter. But I see that as the cost of living this really great experience. It’s a challenge, but I know that food is a way bigger challenge for a lot of people, and I want to figure out how to bridge that gap of getting people the food that they rightfully deserve…Its a challenge I’m learning to love, and we are privileged in a way of always having had good food available to us. To force ourselves to live in areas or travel to areas where people don’t have this kind of food helps me to have an appreciation for what I do have and how I can help people whose only grocery stores are 7-Elevens or Dollar Stores.

Brad: For me, I think it just kind of has to do with the money management and van management. Meag and this van pretty much rely on me to keep the van running…

I think the other thing would be safety. That’s one of the big challenges because we’re obviously traveling to areas where we have no idea what the population is. You should never judge a book by its cover. You just don’t know. Is this a safe Wal-Mart parking lot to sleep in overnight? If you were to make that wrong call, the repercussions can be pretty bad…We’ve been much more conscious about the luxuries that we used to buy into. We do miss them.

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

Meag: I feel like I’m almost more connected to it because we are isolated from the people that we know and we love. I have family members that can go on Facebook and check up on our photos…But I also often find ourselves leaving our phones behind, because there’s so much more to life than being connected on social media.

Brad: I think it’s become somewhat important to post what we’re doing because I like to prove it to people that it’s possible to do something like this. I think a lot of my family and friends say “I live vicariously through you.” And when people say that, it’s obviously a compliment, but I like to say back to them: “What do you want to be doing? Is there something that you’re not living out because you have a full-time job and something is holding you down?” It kind of starts that conversation. Part of my inspiration comes from my father who was diagnosed with cancer five years ago… no one knows how long we’re gonna be on this earth, so you might as well live it up while you’re here. Obviously live responsibly. And that’s something that’s super important to us: living responsibly and sustainably. And I find refuge in social media being able to spread that word. Just showing how much fun it can be when you drop everything and go on a trip.

Amelia: How do you fund your journey, and have you been working on the road? It sounds like you saved up a lot of money first.

Brad: A lot of it was just saving…As far as working on the road, we are working on our business. A lot of it has been responding to emails and keeping our wholesale accounts happy. But we are doing work to that end…It’s tax time too, so I’ve been working a lot on getting our taxes ready for the business…Recently, we’ve decided that we might try poking around at some hourly work. Craigslist every once and awhile has posts for people who are looking for two people for an eight-hour day or just doing manual labor or farm picking. Once we head into Austin, we’ll probably start poking around to see if we can find odd jobs just to make this last a little bit longer.

Meag: We decided to save for this before we saved for our wedding. A lot of our family kind of told us “Come on guys, its about time.” But we wanted to do this.

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

Brad: We’re looking for a culture; we’re looking to experience fun daily life that’s different than the regular. Burlington obviously has a very unique culture. It very much speaks to both of our souls…There’s the local food movement up in Burlington, that’s definitely a huge attraction for us. And a lot of good people. That’s what we’re seeking out right now: meeting good people and finding sustainable ways of living.

Meag: We lived a 5-minute walk from Oakledge Park, and we would take a break from work (or take our work with us) and pop over to the lake. We would watch people swimming or the fires that would pop up along the rocks and view the sunset. You see so much lake and the mountains and Vermont is just beautiful…And I loved going to eat all the food too.

Brad: Burlington is amazing. The big kicker for us is the winters. We want to grow food, we want to have our own homestead where we can make a lot of the things that we need in daily life. And we both know that it would be a challenge in Burlington, and we both know that we want more sun, which Northern Vermont doesn’t have a ton of. But it’s amazing, and it’s definitely been a big part of our life. And we’ll always come back. I know I never want to stop going to Vermont.