"Why do you live in a van?"

First day of our journey was to Quincy, CA
High Sierra Music Festival 💃🕺. instagram

Quick facts to start you off!

Me: Alisan Amrhein, 31 y.o. traveling across North America

Start Date: July 4, 2018 

Where we’ve been: 2 countries, 29 states, 2 Canadian provinces

Travel companions: my partner Theo and our dog Noah, a long-haired Rottweiler

Driving: 1983 VW Westfalia Vanagon

Howdy! Hello! How’s it going?! I am super glad that you (yes YOU) are here reading my new blog about my van travels across the U.S. and Canada. I have been living with my boyfriend Theo and our loyal pup for a little over a year, traveling to iconic destinations, exploring cute small towns, and seeing the country from the comfort of our Westy home.

In awe of the West's painted mountains. instagram

Hot springs south of Jackson, WY. instagram

Overlooking Snake River, Twin Falls, ID. instagram

Throughout our travels, we get asked these two questions the most: “Why van life?” and next “What have been your favorite places?”. So I’ll start here for my first blog entry with the number one question, and save the other for my second post, soon to come.

Our trusty and beloved van, Westy. instagram

Why van life?

For me, the dream started back in 2015 before I even met Theo. Two of my best friends Jocelyn and Morgan were planning to through-hike the not-yet-completed California Coastal Trail (CCT) that, as you may have guessed, runs along the entire coastline of the Golden State (shout out to Mojo Coastwalk).

MoJo Coastwalk team at the end of the CCT,
Border Fields SP, San Diego. instagram

 The hike also included a multimedia outreach and social media campaign to raise awareness for the uncompleted trail and we planned to host public events along the way. There would be help needed along the way for my hiking friends, along with toting a lot of luggage and electronic equipment (laptops, cameras, chargers, wifi hotspots, etc.). So come May 2016, I volunteered to move into a van for 3 months and travel beside them on (mostly) the entire route, helping with event planning, social media - which honestly I love to do 😊 and laundry, groceries and the like - which I didn't mind doing either for my BFFs!

Blanca, first van I've ever lived in.

Somewhere just north of the Lost Coast.

It was an AMAZING experience- one that the three of us will never forget. And I loved van travel. I had two dogs in there with me—my own and Jocelyn’s. Every night I made a comfy bed out of body pillows and my sleeping bag and slept peacefully, then in the morning we’d pull out the camp stove and cook a dope breakfast, as we also did with dinners.

Surrounded by dogs in the van:
best thing ever.

In the middle of all this time, Theo and I had met and started dating (ain’t nothing like a nomadic lifestyle to really secure a new relationship! 😆 ). Theo got the van travel bug too after dreaming of owning a VW van and getting to do all the mechanical and design work he dreamed of (he's a great maker and engineer 😍), so we got to work finding our own van. It didn’t take long—Theo searched online for vans for a couple weeks and didn't have much luck finding the right van at the right price, then suddenly a good deal popped up... in Albuquerque. We had to act quickly before someone else snatched it so we quickly jetted over, met the van's owner who had a sweet family, and completed our first mini roadtrip in the Westfalia from ABQ back to San Francisco, where we were living at the time.

Full moon in Sedona.  😂

Stopover on our first road trip with Westy. instagram

Next came… so what do we do now?! 

I’ve always had the travel bug in me, and really wanted a break (a permanent one) from my life in San Francisco. I loved our friends and my job there, but otherwise the high cost of living, the traffic, the amount of people, just city living in general, really got me down. It did Theo as well, though perhaps not as much. Still, he was ready for a change.  We worked incrementally over 2 years to get ready for van life. We had to: buy the van, fix it up, tie up loose ends in San Francisco, plan our travels, then finally pack up and move out. 

Theo did an awesome job renovating our Westy. He converted the engine, made it air-cooled instead of water-cooled, replaced almost all of the van's parts (more on this in a later blog I promise!), all without any previous car experience. He's a genius (just don't tell him I said that. 😉)

So we're out here because why not? Why not go out and travel in your 30s? "They" always say that you should work work work while you’re young, then wait for retirement to go do all the fun stuff. But what if you end up not having those retirement days? What if your time is cut short, or something happens (disease, money troubles, family issues, etc.) that restricts you from exploring the world? We knew that we could do it now, we could afford the travel financially and afford to take a little time off. Now was the best time for us.

Our little nomadic family. instagram

And once our van life comes to an end, we can’t wait to make a permanent, beautiful home for ourselves. Where will it be? Not sure yet. I’d say that’s why vanlife. I want to see more of this big gorgeous world. Somewhere out there is a place that I could call home. I just haven’t decided, or haven’t seen it yet. Wish us luck! 
And if you can, join us on our travels. We love getting to meet up with friends, or come visit! Follow this link or navigate to the sidebar to see our maps of where we've been and where we're going.

PS: Some of you may have noticed that my vanlife start date was over a year ago… yes, I am a procrastinator and have just decided now to start this blog. Not that I didn’t want to before; it’s just that writing seems to scare me a bit (#keepithonest #endmentalhealthstigma) Truthfully, doing any kind of art makes me anxious because I want it to be good… ya know? And unfortunately I’m the type to doubt myself. But enough of that! For real this time, at this for this one thing. When I was in grade school, my teachers noticed my love of writing and my skill at it, and always told me they imagined me growing up to be a writer of some sort. So here I am, finally starting this writing thing “of some sort.” 😉

***A list of my favorite VanLife Essentials