Wanderlust Calls

A little less than a week ago, May 5, I headed out on an 8 month vanlife trip. This seemed to some people in my life like a hard left turn; having been a corporate drone for 32 years and being a close approximation of a responsible adult. From the outside it’s easy to see that as who I am. And seemingly pulling some dramatic movie heel turn by throwing it all away to drive off and “go find myself.”

That wasn’t me, though. It’s an aspect of me, but not how I define myself.

I think I have found myself, and that’s what led me to make this change.

In the time leading up to this trek I was reflecting back on my other adventures and pondering where the seed was planted. 

Anyone who’s talked to me for any amount of time will have heard “this one time, on my bike trip….” Eleven years ago, also on May 5th, I set out on a cross-country bike trek. It was ‘self supported’, with a group of other riders where we carried our own gear, camped and cooked most nights, and had no support vehicle.

It was on the bike trip that I first saw RV and Van living, and it planted the first seeds of the idea for what this vanlife trip would become. But the very first grains of sand of my wanderlust started long before that. 

Going way way back, 30 years ago I went on a ski trip with the college ski club. Having grown up in Florida I’d never skied before and had barely even seen snow! Nonetheless seemed like a fun adventure and a few friends helped encourage me to do it. 

The ski trip was to Steamboat Springs, Co., but I flew out early to visit a friend in Denver. Apparently even way back then I was collecting friends all over the country. From Denver I took a 6 hr Greyhound bus to Steamboat.

Strangely enough, this bus ride was the most notable and memorable part of the trip.

Sure, I remember learning to ski, falling in a snow bank up to my chest (and being frightened that I couldn’t get out!) I vaguely remember some of the people. I do remember enjoying skiing and being fairly good at it, enough that I’ve been an avid skier ever since. 

It was that bus trip, however, that had such a profound impact on me.

On the bus I met a fellow traveller coincidentally also named Aaron, and we struck up conversation. We chatted for the entire 6 hours of the ride. Chatted about everything; I remember part of the conversation inspired by the Joan Osborne song ‘What if God Was One of Us’. I think what we talked about was if you could ask god one question, what would it be?

I don’t remember what I said, but it felt like a really deep conversation for 21 y/o me!

Looking up the song put a date to the trip somewhere around March 1995. So yeah, exactly 30 years ago!

I learned that this other Aaron was a painter, a traveller and a vagabond - long before I knew what the word vagabond meant. He travelled the country going town to town doing house painting jobs in exchange for room and board. He’d put ads on Craig’s List in places he wanted to see, and whichever ad was answered next, that’s where he went. Just got on a bus and went to a new place. The idea of it was so amazing and outlandish it was difficult to comprehend.

Yet the idea of it stuck with me. Rolled around in the depths of my mind. Not that I’d ever consider becoming a nomadic housepainter, but playing ‘what if’ with my imagination. That is what I attribute as the very first spark of the idea that would grow and evolve over the years.

Somewhere around 18 years ago my friend Davy struck out on a cross-country bicycle trip. He blogged about it and I read every post with excitement and vicarious joy. His trip, the candid highs and lows of the adventure, planted the seeds for my own bike tour several years later. David even helped me prepare for it, and lent me some gear to take along (remind me, I still have some stuff to return to him!) 

Each adventure fed into the next. My cross-country bike trip introduced me to the idea of extended road trips. So at the beginning of the pandemic I took a 2 month trip out to Moab, UT. There I saw tons of people living ‘vanlife’. It was the beginning of the pandemic when vanlife was coming into vogue. That was where I decided on my 5-year plan; 5 years from now I’m going to quit my job and go do vanlife.

I started saving, I started planning, reading up on vans and thinking about what my life could look like on the road. At work people would ask or talk about ‘where will you be in 5 years?’ And in my head I’d answer “In a van, down by the river.” The answer was funny to me, being the extreme opposite of climbing the corporate ladder the question implies. 

In-between these bigger adventures were plenty of smaller ones that fleshed out the overall picture: Backpacking in Patagonia, trekking in the Himalayas, rollerblading halfway across Germany (yes, really!), backpacking in Yosemite, photography excursions to remote dark skies locations, skiing in the Austrian Alps, chasing the solar eclipse, and so many more adventures. Each one feeding my sense of adventure, and instead of satiating it, making it grow bigger. 

Until finally the 5 years was up, and my cubicle could no longer contain my profound need to GO. At work I was restless, vibrating with the need to just to GTFO.

And then finally, almost suddenly, there it was - the culmination of 5, 10, 30 years of wanderlust came to fruition. It was never going to feel really “real” until I actually bought the van, and even then I couldn’t bring myself to get excited until I finally pulled out of my driveway and drove away. Which I did one week ago, on May 5th.