Why I Choose a Steady Job Over #Vanlife: Embracing Adventure Without Sacrificing Stability
This week I’m writing from a special scene. My toes dipped in the sand, sitting on a bench on an uplifted park space, watching The Waves crash as the lights of the hotels gleam in the evening sky and the darkened waters. Earlier this morning, I ran this same beach as I relished the cool breeze on my warm skin. Now I’m sitting here contemplating a question that has hit me often as – a familiar dilemma for me and adventurers alike. Why am I not living a life like this full time? Why am I losing my beautiful daytime hours to an office or cubicle, when I could be traveling fulltime? Could be exploring beaches fulltime? The thirst for autonomy and allure of exploration where you can dictate your schedule, your destination, your destiny. Every modicum of your life. #vanlife brought this allure straight to the surface, and I almost did it. I had the finances and the plan, but it came down to one thing: was stability in my career a leash on the adventure, or the security I needed to feel the freedom to roam?
The Allure of #Vanlife
I'm guessing one or two of you reading this has felt the same pull before. How could you not? This idea of living on the road has encompassed most of our waking thoughts at some point or another based off of the fact that we are the types that thrive on adventure. Our sports that we obsess so relentlessly on have athletes that are famed for their dirtbag culture. Ski bums, climbers, surfers. We watch Instagram videos of van life communities that meet across the country around nightly campfires, or do wake up morning hikes in some of the most stunning areas of the U.S., Europe, or the ANZACs. We idolize the freedom, we admire the devotion, we envy the escape. Social media proliferates the idea as we save every Reel and Pinterest on how to construct a self-made storage bed platform.
In truth, at one point almost gave up everything to live the #vanlife. In 2018, it was a substantiated plan, money on reserves to invest in it! As I prepared to leave Active Duty for a big excursion to New Zealand (I did the Te Araroa thru-hike in 2018/9), I started thinking about the level in which I could downsize my lifestyle when I came home. It took on a few forms. I thought of removing the back row of seats of my Jeep and doing a buildout. I thought about selling the jeep for a used van for a little more room and an indoor kitchen. I thought about throwing caution to the wind and starting a payment system on the (at the time) just re-introduced Airstream Basecamp, so I had a genuine little home-away-from-home. I thought about doing it before New Zealand, so I could drop the dog off at the parents on the West Coast after an over-country trip. Then, I thought about buying it when I got home once I got used to living out of a backpack. Every version of the dream, every iteration of the plan always had at least one common thread: I’d at least make it to Montreal for a few months, pup in tow, to learn French at my leisure.
The Reality Behind the Glamour
So, I don’t know French.
None of that reality happened because, frankly, the logistics became quite a difficult idea to become invested in. Sure, I loved the autonomy of the road and the philosophy of writing my own script outside the social normative narrative. Then, I started to dig deeper into the YouTube videos and blog posts on people that live a #vanlife. The car requires maintenance, more from the mileage. Gas can get too expensive to drive anywhere during the summer months. Destinations are dictated based on if the dog can stay in the car there or not with the heat or chill. If you can’t make ends meet, you have to get a job enroute, being forced to stay put temporarily, or you have to set yourself up for wifi everywhere you go. No camping sites can land you in a lot, A LOT, of Walmart parking lots or creepy parking between neighborhood homes where people assume it’s the other neighbors guest (yes, this is real). There are other considerations to take. If I hadn’t been a veteran, health insurance or more expensive car insurance would have to be added to the list of problems.
I at least tried the experiment once. After leaving my last North Carolina job in 2022, I decided to load up my Jeep with a bed, one for me and one for my 2-member zoo. We hit the road for 12 days, spending about 5 nights visiting friends’ homes and the rest on the road or in campsites from the Carolinas to Colorado. I got astonishing views, got to drink coffee by waterfront almost every morning, did weird things like put my cat in a bubble backpack to not leave her behind on hikes (yes, also real), and visited three national parks and two state parks with an easy pace. I also missed my bed, accidentally ran into a black bear, struggled to find a laundry source due to poor planning, and got lost in Kansas at 11pm at night because the one “safe” place to camp via an online source now had “will be towed” signs, and found a campsite that was so windy I was terrified it was a tornado (thank you, NOAA, for your weather service app to alleviate my concerns). I LOVED that road trip… and I was thrilled to sleep in an AirBNB at the end of it while I settled into my new, stable life in Colorado Springs.
The Benefits of a Steady, StandStill Job
Note that I do not say “my still life in Colorado Springs” because, frankly, it has been anything but. I will recognize my positionality, here, that I’ve scored myself a good job through my prior experiences that has been able to fund some pretty wild adventures. But first, what did I have to sacrifice when I chose to note do the #vanlife? As most professionals can guess, I’ve had to settle into someone’s 8 to 5 schedule, work calls sometimes leak into my trips or timeoff when someone doesn’t know where that file is, and I have a restricted amount of (luckily paid) vacation days. I don’t always leave work energized to do something at the end of the day because, with specific work hours, sometimes the sun isn’t even up anymore when I leave the office.
But what do I get in exchange? First, Financial stability. The pay is always there and the job security of growing a career and a reputation and a face-to-face relationship with my colleagues means that I have assurance that my paycheck will always be there to pay for the adventures I so crave. Do I have to pay for a mortgage? Sure, but the ability to grow this career means the ability to grow a paycheck to cover both. There’s another line of thinking amongst some vanlifers that their remote work pays well enough to allow them to save for big life goals, like a home, in the future and that’s great. It works for some, when the fully remote jobs are available or your freelance work is making those ends possible.
However, the added benefit of having a home to return to, and a work community that genuinely misses our coffee break talks when I’m gone adds an a second benefit to my life - Social Stability. I get to grow a community here. I have people that notice me at the local farmer’s market, and coworkers that ask where I went climbing this last weekend. It means that when the dog can’t come along for the adventure, I have people that know him and love him enough to take Tucker on while I’m gone.
Then there’s a third benefit that can come and go based on your own boundaries. If you are like me, being told that “thou shalt work 8 hours in a row” is a great control factor. Once you’re clocked off, you’re out, and so are your peers. And when you are on vacation, there is an assumption that you do not have any modicum of technological connection to help with that work project. The third benefit: You have a work-life balance. This can get blurred and tricky on the road. Your schedule become reliant on where you can get internet service. If you freelance, you are at the customers schedule which can blur into weekend work. Sure, you can stop for two hours midday to do that hike, but you also plugged in at 7am AND 7pm to make that happen, and now you’ve been thinking about work for almost 12 hours.
Embracing Adventure Without Sacrificing Stability
These huge benefits ultimately align with the type of person I am, but have had a surprising positive consequence: I get to live my adventure in relative freedom. I don’t have to stress where I’m going to sleep forever because, if a weekend away in the jeep goes sideways, I can sleep in the comfort of my bed when I get home. The financial support of my career has opened the space for me to travel this year to both Patagonia and Alaska.
Now, there are choices I made, specifically, in my employment that has also allowed for another element of adventure. First, I chose to move to Colorado so access to the adventures I want – climbing, snowboarding, backpacking and easy flights to travel – were easily accessible. I also downsized. Not to live in a van, but to ensure I could afford to live in Colorado, afford a mortgage and utilities that would leave expendable income for my excursions. I also downsized to free up time, like choosing a smaller, shared housing development that didn’t require I maintain things like the yard to absorb my free weekend time. I chose to take a job that aligned with my previous career, working as a civilian in government, so my time earned in building up vacation time continued to expand and give me more time-off opportunities. I chose a job that offered during hiring some level of telework or Vacation without Pay on a case-by-case basis. I chose a job that, on occasion, allows me to travel.
Best of Both Worlds? If You Accept your Right Fit
For example: It's 8:00 p.m. Today, I fought through an hour traffic, getting my daily workout in, finding dinner outside of the hotel. I worked an 8-hour day, and I’m tired. But it’s 8:00 pm, and perhaps you’ve forgotten the beginning of this narrative, but my toes are still in the sand on a beach in Hawaii as I type this for you, dear reader. Today is writing. Two days ago was snorkeling. I went straight from work to the beach called Kohola Lagoon and went snorkeling till the sun set. Tomorrow, I’ll catch another sunset on a trail run to Ka’ena Point. They will send me home on their timeline, and chose the days I’m here and how much free time I’ll get… but I’m still here when I otherwise may have missed the chance if it hadn’t been for the career opportunity given. And when I leave next week, I still get to sit on my couch, with my cat, and my bookshelves full of books, and wave at my familiar neighbors as they run by my window of the familiar mountain view. Stability gives me a home once all the adventure is over, and my mind needs to quiet to absorb the experience rather than dwell on the next camping spot.
The Merit in Both
I choose the stability of the “social norm” life, and choose to fit adventure around that model, rather than giving into a fully-invested adventure lifestyle and the “Class 2” fun it can come with, where the adventure becomes part of the work. But there is merit in both. When thinking back on the days I placed my home into storage and my dog with a trusted caregiver, and it was just me and my backpack on the trails of New Zealand for 1800 miles and 179 days, I know how self-rule can be healing and transformative. It helps define you on your rules. And yet, sometimes the answer is that YOU are a person that craves the stability of a standard means of living. And that’s ok. I lived from a backpack for 6 months, and that was ultimately where I found myself. It doesn’t mean I’m any less adventurous. Sure, I didn’t make one choice, one day, to live in a van. Instead, I have to choose every day to find ways to ingratiate adventure into my life, to move through my journey every day. And in a way, isn’t that even more aspirational?
What do you think? Is sacrificing the western way of living more important to experience life? Or can stability open doors? As a professional, what would you choose? Comment Below!
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