VAN LIFE IN A COVID-19 WORLD
Stretches of highway surrounded by towering mountain passes with green trees covering each side of the road. I’m driving to my next destination where I would likely only stay for 2-3 days. It’s springtime in vanlife and it’s the beginning of our favorite season. The time when life feels the fullest, we hop from mountain to mountain mixed with a little desert landscape and ocean coastlines between, trying our best to soak up every ounce of sunshine that we possibly can for the next 6 months.
Our plans for spring into the summer included all of the magic you would expect out of van lifers. A trip from California to Nova Scotia with some work mixed in between, it was going to be our best summer yet. This would be the year we lived in the moment for every sun soaked second.
As everyone knows, that all quickly changed. We weren’t wrong. This year is different, just not how we imagined it. This year as we all know the clock froze and the world stopped spinning. COVID-19 came and stopped every single one of us in our tracks, and that includes those living on the road. So what are van lifers doing now that the “open road” is forbidden? What is it like living the van life in a COVID-19 World?
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Why Van Life is Different
Every person probably feels as if their situation is somehow different. There is one reason or another why COVID-19 has affected their lives much differently than another segment or group of people and they probably are right. Van life also feels this way. Many people in vanlife are homeless or as we like to say “full-timers”, which means our van is our home and the road is our life. We have put everything we have into our campervans, RV’s, buses, or even cars, which fuel our life on the road.
So when the world tells you to “stay home” what does that mean for someone whose home is 60 square feet on wheels? Where do van dwellers go when travel is no longer allowed? There isn’t an easy answer and no matter what option you chose you may feel like it’s the wrong one.
Van Life Options
There are a sea of options for many people in the world of COVID-19 and I am by no means an expert. For me these were the options that I saw in front of me and the options that have been told throughout the vanlife community. We as van dwellers still hold privilege and we are by no means complaining. We understand that many of us are lucky to have our home on wheels and know that without them the stress would be much higher. However we still have choices to make and need to decide where to go.
To Go Home
The most common option being spread throughout the community is to “go home”, if you are not a “local” to the area then you shouldn’t be there. It seems like a simple enough answer if you indeed have a home. Unfortunately, not all of us have another home other than the one on four wheels. It’s possible; we have parents, family members, or close friends that would provide us shelter but not everyone has a safe place to go or even one that makes sense to go to. If you are in California is it actually safer to drive all the way back to the East Coast to a small town?
Possibly yes. For example, Kristin of Where the Road Forks was already on the East Coast and opted to make the drive home to Indiana as she knew she would have a safe place to self-isolate with her parents. She took all the necessary precautions to keep contact to a minimum and headed home. In her situation, it made sense to head home. This was an ideal situation and a great choice made. It’s not always that simple though which is why it is such a hot topic in the community.
A topic that was discussed during an interview between Sydney from Divine on the Road and Katie from So We Bought a Van during a podcast about COVID-19 and vanlifers. They spoke of the options on whether to head home or stay on public land, which is another popular option among van dwellers.
To Stay
The next option is to do what we vanlifers do best: go self-isolate on public land. So much of our lifestyle is spent in the middle of nowhere on BLM land. If the acronym BLM is foreign to you then, BLM (Bureau of Land Management) is public land that is available for anyone to camp on up to 14 consecutive days. These stretches of land allow people to camp, hike, and play for free with the request that you take care of it. Clean up after yourself and follow county and state fire regulations.
Keep in mind many vanlifers are heading to the desert or woods and self-isolating there. In theory, it’s a perfect option; however it’s not without its downfalls. In the beginning, many people were flocking to their favorite destination such as Moab or Sedona, flooding the area with tourists they simply could not support. Even with people staying out in the wilderness, they still need groceries, water, and the possibility of medical support. Such small towns cannot handle even one case of COVID-19 and the travelers risk bringing in the virus to a vulnerable place.
The truth is that the majority of vanlifers are on public land near larger populated cities such as Palm Springs, Las Vegas, Phoenix, and many more that have resources to support them. The majority of people that are taking part in utilizing BLM land close to higher populated cities are in the best situation possible and have little effect on the community around them.
The Day to Day of Van Life in a COVID-19 World
I can’t speak for everyone but I can tell you what it’s like in van life during COVID-19 on public lands for me. It should feel like everyday in van life but truly it feels far, far from it. On a normal day in vanlife it would be filled with errands and responsibilities like anyone else’s day. We go to the grocery store, exercise (shower at the gym which is no longer a possibility), head to a local coffee shop or restaurant, and then retreat to our camping spot for the night. In a pre COVID-19 world, we would not stay in one place for more than 2-3 days.
Now we are at a campsite presumably until all of this is over and the travel bans are lifted. Our neighborhood walk is the dirt road we came in on. There are a lucky few who are in great areas filled with beautiful hikes but that’s not the case everywhere and if the hike isn’t close, we are being respectful of the bans and staying in our campsite. Mostly trying to fill our days with Netflix, Facetime, and whatever else we can to keep our minds off the fact that we are in a world of unknowns.
Van life in a COVID-19 World is similar perhaps to anyone else in a home who had tough choices to make and little answers to their questions. We are all doing everything we can to follow the guidelines so as little people as possible are affected by this virus, lifting each other up, and trying to see our future in a world where our future has been erased.
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