“I understand your life in a van,” Webb laughed as we prepared to say goodbye.
Not everyone does but he has done more with a smaller space than I shall ever do. Not everyone gets nomad life on four wheels, not even some of the people who themselves choose to live in vehicles.
I am without doubt the happiest I have ever been living in a van and I can’t speak for Layne but she says she is enjoying it too. We will probably have to or want to settle down done where one day (St Petersburg is my preferred Florida location) but there is no date set for such an eventuality. There is always the chance we shall die in the road and we have made provision for Rusty to be rescued should that happen.
When I was young in the 1980s the opportunities for wild camping and living in a vehicle were limited compared to the massive array of machinery and tools on sale today. In that respect a boat offered a much more self sufficient traveling home and we sailed Central America for two years and a dozen countries with two dogs and no hookups.
All of which combined with more conventional travel adds up to a lifetime devoted to the complex yet fundamental act of going away. I grew up being absent, I was always a temporary fixture in other people’s lives. I spent most of my time in boarding school and vacations came and went in a blur of travel between home in England and home in Italy and back to school. Thus to find myself merely a smear in the passing days of other people’s daily lives is normal for me.
I enjoy (and Layne says she does too so we should take that as given) looking for parking, for services, for changes in latitude each day on the road. There is no slipping into a routine here, no getting to know the pizza guy’s name or watching the plumber’s kids grow up. There is no Norman Rockwell community to conform to and for most people especially youngsters that’s not easy.
My lazy boy is the driver’s seat turned to face backwards at a small folding desk where I eat, fiddle with my cameras, read and write. My toilet is two steps away and my bed three. You could say I live in a prison cell.
Except for the open road, the absence of routine and supervision my prison cell sized home is a ticket to anywhere. For me van life is as freeing as sailing is for Webb.
But there is no need to get so extreme. An RV is a useful tool for a vacation, to visit a national park, to see grandchildren grow. A boat is a weekend escape, a tool to improve by checking the West Marine catalogue for gadgets not imagined.
The vehicle is simply the means of motion. What gets you going is the desire to go. A thought sent to me from Webb before we had lunch together yesterday:
You will like this quote from Robert Lewis Stevenson: 'I travel not to go anywhere, but to go. I travel for travel's sake. The great affair is to move.'
That’s the foundation of my life and always has been.
