We are on week 3 of living in a van and we are starting to get the hang of some parts of it. But vanlife is for sure an adjustment. This week, we headed into Oregon but changed our plans because of wildfires and smoke inland. We decided to stick to the coast. We also had to find a spot for my work week, which was Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday this week. So far changing plans and locations has turned out to be the norm and not the exception. But we are rolling with it because we have to be mindful of temperatures and air quality. Being on the coast has more cloudy days and less solar for our electricity, but we don’t have to deal with the smoke. But this week, I definitely had the more clear realization of like, yeah, we live in a van. And it’s not all sunshine and roses. Duh.
When we built the van, we tried to think of everything we would need to be comfortable and enjoy life in the van. And it turns out, some things were a good idea while some others, we don’t even touch. We also have started to become pretty aware of how tiring it is to be hunched over when doing the dishes, brushing your teeth, or basically anything you would do at a sink or kitchen counter. We can definitely see how people end up trading up to a Sprinter or Promaster. Now that we’ve been in it for 3 weeks, there are definitely things we may want to leave behind in our storage when we head up next week.
Coffee in the Van
Coffee is something we knew we needed to figure out because we both love to drink it. But we don’t drink the same coffee. I generally make almond milk lattes, while Will drinks his dark roast coffee black. We also need to be mindful of electricity usage and space, so we weren’t going to bring our coffee maker or Nespresso. We brought the french press and mokapot and Will bought a hand grinder for beans. But what I’ve been drinking the most? At the grocery store, you can buy a 3.7 oz tin of Starbuck instant coffee. When I wake up, it’s just so much easier to heat up water and add some instant coffee, sugar, and almond milk. I love when we have enough electricity to use the collapsable electric kettle to heat up water, so convenient. That was one of the BEST purchases Will made (we even heat up water for tea, to wash our face, etc). Will has been doing instant coffee half the time and the other half of the time he’s been using his french press. Most of the time, he makes our coffee on days I work. So on those days, I drink whatever he feels like making.
Shower
We bought a solar shower and a shower tent to stay clean when we stay in places with no showers. But we haven’t opened it yet. So far we haven’t been too many days from a shower. We typically have showers every place we stay when I work and we’ve showered at friends or families’ houses. We still might use it, or it may end up in storage.
Laundry
I really thought I was going to hand wash my clothes and hang them up on a clothesline. Especially underwear. But again, we’ve never been too many days from a laundromat. It turns out that laundromats are more expensive than I planned for and my $40 in quarters may not be enough to make it to month #2. But we’ve managed to wash our clothes and linen regularly enough that I haven’t hand washed anything. I have hung up things that can’t go into the dryer around the van, but I haven’t used my clothesline yet. In fact, doing laundry has been so easy, I haven’t even worn half of my clothes because we usually do laundry before that. So I think I have too many clothes and WIll does too. But he has wor all three of the hats he brought, much to my chagrin.
Kitchen
We use certain things in our kitchen every day. The spoons, forks, and knives. The spatula. Scissors. Can opener. 2 plates and 2 bowls. But some things we haven’t used and some things we don’t need many of. We often make overnight oats in a mason jar. In the van, we packed three jars, as if we were going to make three days of oatmeal in advance. But we don’t actually have room in the refrigerator for 3 days of overnight oats. And we wash our dishes as soon as we use them because there is no space to leave around dirty dishes. So 3 jars, definitely overkill. Also, we don’t need 2 spatulas, 3 different spoons to cook with, the meat thermometer, and a lot more utensils. We usually cut veggies with the same knife, so we didn’t need the whole butcher block full.
Despite all of the challenges, we have actually enjoyed making do with less. I haven’t worn make-up in 3 weeks (not that I wore that much, to begin with), I hardly look at myself in the mirror, I don’t think much about what I am wearing other than the weather, and I kind of like it better this way. Will said it makes him appreciates what things he has more. I don’t know if we will last past our 3-month mark or if we will want to upgrade to a Sprinter (or RV like Will has suggested). But we don’t regret the adventure we are on yet.