I wake to the bright morning sun streaming through the curtains and roll sleepily over to steal some of Tyler’s warmth–the van is still cool with the chill of a mountain night at the end of summer. We stay in our bed for a while longer, but before long the vibrant blue sky and sweet morning breeze become irresistible and we come fully awake and begin to slowly stir.
I step outside onto the gravelly earth in my bare feet and stretch up my arms in solidarity with the tall pines all around me. The world around me is all warm and cold, shadow and sun. I am alive and I feel it.
I wash up at the spigot on our site and the cold water washes away the last of my sleep. While Tyler goes through his (rather longer) morning routine I get to work. The little gas stove lights with a rush and soon the water begins to rumble. In the meantime I pull our small wooden table and chairs into a patch of warm sunshine. A jar for pouring water and two for glasses. A pile of day-old scones and muffins I managed to save from waste at work adorn the center of the table. When Tyler joins me again I pour two mugs of steaming black coffee and we sit down to a better morning feast than any king could ask for.
The sunshine warms our skin, the coffee our bellies, and the beauty of the world–our souls. The world is still quiet, but full of noise. The summer insects are brought back to life after the cold night as the air slowly regains its heat; a mule deer steps lightly through the brush as it skirts our camp, and a squirrel overhead gnaws on a pine cone. Our own voices break into that silent noise and it is no longer silent.
We chatter about the beauty of this day, of our love for everything surrounding us and our place in it. We speak of our desires for this day and they are the same. But we do not rush to the other pleasures awaiting us. We linger in this beautiful moment in time and soak in the sun and our coffee and are made better for it.
On top of Flat Top Mountain: Rocky Mountain National Park
For us the decision to live in a van was 1 part adventure and 1 part money saving. The adventure part is pretty obvious and we’ve already shared a bit about that. The money saving aspect is both more and less obvious than it might seem. A lot of times people find that there are a lot of hidden expenses in adventures like this (and there certainly are), but we also have a lot of hidden savings as well. For us this adventure is more than just where we sleep at night–its a whole lifestyle. So here is an inside look at how we make this whole crazy thing work and how it compares to our previous lifestyle over the last year (which was also pretty frugal, but we did live in the suburbs of Philly which are pretty pricey).
Last year’s expenses:
Housing– A 1 bed, 1 bath apartment, all utilities except electric and gas included (plus internet and cable). Cost: $875 per month
Utilities– Gas and electric Cost:~$40 per month
Groceries: Food for two, plus frequent dinner parties. Cost: ~$40-50 per week x 4= $200 per month
Gas– We supplemented our travel with bike riding, but drove more in the winter months. Cost: ~$30-40 per week x 4 = $160 per month
Cell phone– Page plus cellular, pay as you go plan. Cost: $29.99 per month
Laundry: We usually did it at one of our parents’ homes. Cost: $0
Any additional recreational costs as well as school loans and such which remain relatively constant regardless of where or how we live will be excluded from the to the total.
And the total is (based on highest approximates)=$1,305 per month
Now, for the van expenses:
Initial cost of van: $2,400
Cost of work put into van (mechanical + outfitting): ~$900
Total Initial Cost: $3,300
That might seem a bit steep, but we needed a vehicle regardless, so most likely we would have spent close to that amount no matter what.
Housing: $360 per month for government housing RV site on National Park land. This cost is a bit higher than we had originally hoped for (we had wanted to find places for camping or something along those lines). We decided to go for the campsite because it puts us very close to Tyler’s headquarters, town, and my job. And because we have never done anything like this before and wanted to ease into it and not get in over our heads.
Utilities: $0. Included on our site is a water spout and electrical hookups as well as access to a public bathroom/shower.
Internet: $0. We bum it from another friend on the site.
Groceries: ~$30-40 per week x 4=$160 per month. Living in a tourist town food is pretty pricey and after housing this is our number one expenditure. We have a lot of tricks to help keep this cost down as much as possible and I’ll share some of those in my next blog.
Grilled Puffball Mushroom sandwich. We love foraging!
Gas: ~$5 per week ( x 4= $20 per month) excluding recreational travel (ie. driving out of the mountains for our anniversary dinner. Such events only happen every few weeks). Because we live in our vehicle we are always hesitant to pull up stakes for a drive. This helps keep our driving in check and encourages us to use alternate forms of travel such as our bikes, walking/running/hiking, carpooling, and the free park shuttles to get around. We only drive if the distance is one we cannot make using other free forms of transportation. Tyler walks the 5 min walk to work each day, I bike 10 min into town. Church, hiking, and most recreational activities we can reach with our bikes. Biking is an incredible form of transportation that is free, good for you, entirely clean/green, and often takes the same amount of time or less as driving when over short distances and especially in urban areas. But it is so easy to slip into the habit of driving. Fight the urge!
These things take us pretty much anywhere we want to go 🙂
Cell phone: ~$18 per month. I downgraded to a plan with Virgin Mobile that allows me to control exactly how many texts, min, and GB of data I use/pay for each month. I reduce my bill by using a free texting/calling app that uses wifi as well as nearly exclusively using wifi at work and home instead of data.
Laundry: ~1.50-3.00 per week x 4=$12 per month. We have on site machines and a clothesline. We can usually get away with one load per week–$1.50 per wash load. And then we hang dry to save another $1.25. I also started making my own laundry detergent; it is extremely cheap and better for your health and the environment. This is the recipe I use: http://www.diynatural.com/homemade-laundry-detergent-soap/.
Alright, what’s the total?
Total: $570 per month!
Difference between last year and now? $735 per month.
That might not seem like a huge difference, but remember that we were already living extremely frugally then. And we do hope in the future to reduce that number even further (by hopping from place to place without fees and getting solar panels, etc). We feel a lot more freedom to do the things we want now, like go out to dinner, go to the movies, go out with friends, buy wine, and travel around. And I mean, we are living in the Rockies.
Look for my next blog on eating on a shoestring budget while living in a van!
After our long journey from Philadelphia, PA, to Chicago, IL, to Estes Park, Colorado we finally pulled our van home into our RV slot on government housing property in Rocky Mountain National Park. Our new home is just a ten min bike ride past gorgeous snow capped mountains into the quaint little town of Estes Park.
Although Tyler wanted to immediately begin climbing every mountain peak in sight I insisted that we take a day or two to settle in and set up our new home. Our original setup of the Vamp had been a bit hurried and things had gotten a bit jostled during the trip, so I wanted to get things properly settled into their appropriate places.
The first thing to be done was to pull out our little collapsible camping table (see above picture) that my mom had picked up from a garage sale. I have never seen one like it before, but it is awesome. Just like the folding camping chairs the base is made of collapsible/folding poles. The table top is composed of a bunch of slats of wood, all hinge connected so as to be able to be rolled up and placed in a bag along with the base. Very space efficient, but also sturdy!
Next came the pole tent. In the picture it is set up on all five poles, but because it gets pretty windy here we ended up instead tying two corners directly to the van to make it more sturdy. The tent makes a huge difference in the “homeyness” of our living situation. It expands our living space and provides shade when it is sunny and protection from the rain when it storms. This is particularly nice since we generally always cook outside on our little two burner propane stove. It also allows the step of the two side doors to function as a kind of “stoop” See picture below 🙂
One of our next top priorities was the hammock!
We brought this hammock back from our recent trip to Nicaragua this past March. Having an outdoor lounging area just a few feet from the van is wonderful. We also strung up a clothesline from the tree to the side mirror of the van. We are quite fortunate that the campsite provides a laundry room, bathroom (with shower!) as well as water and electricity right on site. But the clothesline saves us a few bucks a month and saves a bit of energy for the environment.
We aren’t very fancy with our electricity, as you can see. We simply run an extension cord from the outdoor outlet, in through the window, and down to our electrical strip under the bed. (The underside of the van also provides some storage space to get our shoes out of the way!) We don’t use a whole lot of electricity, (we kept things simple because we were originally planning on buying a solar panel, and hopefully will in the future) just one light (a desk lamp that clamps onto the headboard of the bed) a small fan (also a clamp on), laptops and phone chargers. A few battery powered camping lanterns scattered around outside provide us with outdoor lighting after dark. Or a campfire, campfire light is always the best.
Our only refrigeration is this this small cooler (see below); only $15 at Walmart. It is supposed to keep stuff cold for about 3 days. We bought a bunch of blue ice packs and Tyler brings some of them to work each day and puts them in the break room freezer at his work. Then he brings them home and exchanges more the next day. This way we don’t have to deal with the melty mess of ice or the expense. We do have to keep our fresh food limited though, and we try not to have more perishable kinds of foods in there for more than a day or two. The majority of our food is either canned or dried. We eat lots of rice, beans, and potatoes. Cheap, filling, and long lasting!
I had meant to get this done before we left, but things were crazier than I expected and it just didn’t get done, but I finally got around to making curtains the other day. And the results made a bigger difference than I expected! The van feels so much cozier now and the curtains help block the sun during the day to keep it a bit cooler.
Another major factor in reducing the internal temperature of the van was covering the windshield and front side windows with reflective material.
I bought two of those reflective windshield sunblockers. I bought the cheapest ones I could find, about $3.50 apiece. Most cost closer to $10.00. These were indeed much flimsier than the more expensive ones, but advertised the same amount of sun blockage as the more expensive ones; and I had plans for improving these cheap ones. I purchased some sticky-backed velcro ($2.67) and then cut pieces of this and applied it to the inside of the windshield and the reflective side of the sun blocker. This allows me to attach it directly and securely to the windshield. I took the second one that I had bought and cut it in half and then held one half up to one of the side windows and trimmed it down to size. I then applied the velcro to the edge of the door and the shiny side of the material and voila! Sun blockers for the side doors, too!
One last improvement we made was to mount Tyler’s highly prized fishing pole along the ceiling, saving on valuable space. We bought plastic hooks with adhesive on the back and applied the adhesive side to the wood strip along the ceiling of the van. Three of these now hold the fishing pole up and out of the way. And it looks nice, too.
Well, once I was satisfied with these initial improvements to our Vamp (more will come, trust me), Tyler finally got his wish to climb something. And check out the view from the “hill” (Eagle’s Peak) in our back yard!
We left Lancaster, PA on May 16th after having breakfast one last time at the Green Dragon. We drove pretty much straight through until we arrived in Chicago, IL. There we lingered for several days to visit my older sister, Rachel, and her family as well as a close friend, Annie Bolger, who lives in Chicago. Chicago is an awesome city and we had a great time exploring everything that it has to offer. One of the highlights was probably going to Eataly with Annie, and her husband Jake. We had frequented Eataly when we studied abroad in Torino, Italy and so having dinner there again brought back so many memories. It is a wonderful store and restaurant and I would highly recommend it to anyone who has any appreciation for Italian food or culture (or wine!).
Getting some appetizers with Annie and Jake at Eataly.
Eventually, however, we had to say our goodbyes and continue our westward journey. It didn’t take long after leaving Chicago for it to feel like we had really hit the West. Everything suddenly seemed even flatter and drier than before. And there was nothing to be seen anywhere for hundreds of miles except for farms and the occasional highway rest stop.
We drove all day until the sun had set completely and our eyes began to flutter. We had driven through what remained of Illinois, all of Iowa, and had maybe a quarter of Nebraska. It had been a long day. So, when the next rest stop appeared we pulled off and settled down for the night. That is the really nice thing about travelling in your house…no tents, no hotels or motels needed. We used the facilities to get ready for bed, let Julie take a walk and then settled down in on our wonderful memory foam mattress. Just as we were drifting off to sleep a massive thunder and lightening storm began to roll in. It wasn’t raining much, but the whole of that big open sky was lit up time and again by great flashes of lightening streaking across it. If I hadn’t been so tired I would have gone outside to watch, but instead I laid safe and warm in my bed and tried to keep one eye open to peer out into the darkness to watch the storm. It was marvelous, but it is amazing how exhausting sitting in a car all day can be and before long I had drifted off into a solid sleep.
We slept long and soundly and didn’t wake up until around 9am (impressive seeing as we were sleeping in a parking lot!). We then brushed our teeth and headed out again, but stopped at the first diner we could to treat ourselves to an amazing breakfast of omelets, bacon, and pancakes. We knew we would reach Estes Park before dark and our spirits were quite high.
Back in the Vamp again, and determined to stop as little as possible until we arrived. Nebraska wasn’t much better than Iowa, at least not until the very end. Just the same old flat, dry, landscape scattered with farms of old corn stalks. But near the end as we were almost to the border of Colorado, the landscape took a pleasant turn. It changed to soft, rolling hills, covered with long grass, and dotted with cows.
Occasionally though, we would pass a factory farm and my resolution to try to avoid all except ethically raised meat was strenghthend. I tried to take pictures, but none came out at all and we were in such a hurry to get past the stench that I wasn’t about to stop to get a good one. But the images are well imprinted upon my mind. The rolling hills of grass stopping abruptly and suddenly turning into muddy pens holding hundreds upon hundreds of cows. While the cows were in the “open” not indoors in concrete pens, I don’t know that this was really any better. There was hardly a foot or more between the cows lounging on the ground in their own filth. And even if you tried to tell yourself that maybe it wasn’t so bad, that horrible smell assured you that you were wrong. I have been to many farms and passed through plenty of farm country and never smelled a smell like that before. It wasn’t just overpowering, it was sickly and horrible. That part of the trip made me very sad.
But soon we would pass by those nasty stretches of land and back out into the open pastures where the cows laid in the sun in the grass and looked happy and healthy. This was probably my favorite part of the drive.
Julie seemed to like the prairie, too.
Finally, we saw a sign signalling that we were entering Colorado! But the prairie continued…And now we were only about 45 min from Estes (which we knew to be thoroughly buried in the mountains) but there was nothing more than a “hillock” in sight. We were going through towns now and we finally rounded a building and caught our first glimpse of the Rockies peaking through the clouds on the horizon. They rose suddenly and steeply from the plains. And we continued straight for them. We reached the base of them and began the long steep climb up through the narrow gorge that would supposedly take us to Estes. As soon as we entered the gorge we were in absolute awe. The mountains rose on either side and the views seemed to only get better with every twist and turn.
After a long, long upward climb, we crested over a hill and suddenly broke out into the open and were looking down on a little valley and a lake, and a little town nestled into that valley. And at the far side of the valley rose up a massive range of snow capped peaks with the sun just setting behind them. And then we saw a sign “Welcome to Estes Park” and knew we had reached our home for the summer.
The “Vamp” From left, Addison, Tyler, and myself, Martha.
When my husband, Tyler, got a 4.5 month position working at Rocky Mountain National Park as a field scientist right after graduating from Eastern University this May, we made the only rational decision there was to make: buy a van and convert it for living in and drive on out to Colorado!
Why was this a rational decision for us? Good question, to many it might seem like pure lunacy. We were already quite short on funds from working on paying of my many thousands of dollars of school loans, paying Tyler’s college bills, and the pricey cost of an apartment in the suburbs outside of Philly (where Eastern University is located). This made the prospect of making the move, finding a new (pricey apartment) in a tourist town, moving or buying furniture to furnish the new apartment, and at the same time looking at taking on Tyler’s monthly loan payments as well, all quite appear quite daunting if not impossible. And so, we started looking at alternate housing options….
The converted van/camper (we affectionately refer to it as the “Vamp”) seemed to be the only feasible option with our very limited resources. And so the search began. Tyler insisted that one of our top priorities had to be that the van have a “hi-top” so that we would be able to walk around more or less upright inside the van. I thought this was unnecessary (and raised the price range we had to look in) but I have since recanted and admit that being able to stand up makes a huge difference in comfort and was quite worth the extra expenditure.
We needed something as cheap as possible (we were/are broke, remember) so an older van was what we would be looking at. But at the same time it needed to be reliable enough to make it halfway across the country (a solid 1,800 miles), and preferably still have a bit of life left in it upon our arrival. We set our budget at a max of $3,000. After much searching on Craigslist we finally found our dream van! A dark green, 1996 Chevy hi-top van, with 138,000 miles on it for $2,400. When we purchased the van we only had about a month to get it inspected, make any repairs, and have it fitted-out for our adventures, before our departure date, May 16th.
After a few hiccups and a few hundred dollars in repairs we got our Vamp back…one week before departure. And then the fun began! Tyler’s awesome brother-in-law, Richie, who works for a mattress making company, made the generous offer to make us a custom made, memory foam mattress as Tyler’s graduation present. Talk about luxury. It is fortunate that Tyler and I are both relatively small individuals. Tyler is just about 5’9″ and that is right about the width of the van, so we made the mattress a little wider than a twin (42″) and a good bit shorter, 61″ to be exact. As luck would have it, we also have a master carpenter in the family who was willing and able to build us a bed frame to hold our awesome mattress. First step in our project was to rip out all except the two front seats; leaving a generous empty space for us to work with. Next, our master carpenter, David, went to work. He built a platform at the widest part of the back of the van with a portion extending into the more narrow space at the back doors (this functions as a shelf while the wider part supports the mattress).
(This is a view from the side doors) The space underneath will provide valuable room for storage. We measured the height of the frame to just allow large rubbermaid tubs to fit underneath) This was all finished just the night before we left. We had to move quickly to clean up the mess and move everything we would need for the next 4 months in! Annnnnddddd, here is the finished product! The “head board” at the back is actually just a removable piece of wood that can be stored under the mattress so as not to block the rearview when driving. It serves the dual purpose of giving us something to lean against if sitting on the bed as a couch and it separates the bed from the “shelf” portion of the platform which we see in the next picture. This area in back serves as our kitchen (as I’m sure you can see). The plastic tub inset in the shelf/counter has a hole cut in the bottom which allows it to drain into the white bucket below. The red laundry detergent container is upcycled to function as a water dispenser for the “sink.” Food stuffs and other necessities are stored below.
Check out all that storage space! And yes, those two tubs hold all of our clothing. I hope to create a better system eventually, but like I said, time and resources were limited.
We picked this dresser up for free from the side of the road. It holds more food goods and dishes. Again, I would like to install a better, more permanent storage facility, but that will come with time. To the right you can see our little kennel for our tiny travel companion, Julie.
Our faithful companion 🙂 That’s all for now, folks! More updates and pictures to come soon!
The reflective chronicling of the most beautiful, singular moments of life.
Snapshots of a Traveler's Life 