‘Van-lifer’ road to happiness
WHY SOME CANADIANS ARE CHOOSING TO LIVE IN THEIR VANS AND TRAVEL FULL TIME
Jocelyn Lees never set out to live in her van. The 30- year- old Manitoba native has been tree planting every summer in B.C. for the past 10 years and until recently, spent every winter travelling — in such places as Ecuador, Morocco and Australia.
“The nature of my job is that I’m always away from home, and then in the winters I was away,” Lees says. “So, when would I ever be in this house that I would pay to have?”
When her car broke down a few years ago, she invested in a camper van, which gave her mobility and a comfortable place to sleep during her summers in the woods. Her 1981 Dodge has been her home ever since. She plans to base herself in the Vancouver area this winter.
“Having my van is amazing,” she says. “I just wake up at the beach.”
Lees is part of a community of Canadians who often dub themselves “vanlifers.” They have a variety of motivations: a desire for adventure; frustration with expensive rental markets and precarious employment; and the possibility of social media fame.
Many Canadian van-lifers end up out West, often favouring Vancouver Island. Twenty- two- year- old Sacha Morin- Sirois described Tofino as “literally, the end of the road.”
When Morin- Sirois travelled with his family as a young boy, he would dream of setting off on his own, sleeping in his van and surviving the elements.
“It’s mostly a call for freedom, I think,” he says.
He and his girlfriend left Gatineau, Que., in June in a van older than they are — it’s a 1991 — with plans that weren’t much more specific than “head west.” They both wanted to integrate their travels with their chosen careers: Morin- Sirois, a chef, took on seasonal work picking fruit in the Okanagan and developed dishes using whatever was in season. His girlfriend, a writer, started a blog about their experiences and worked on her fiction.
Lisa Felepchuk and her partner Coleman Molnar, who lived in Toronto until a year- and- a- half ago, also incorporate their work into their van life. They offer content and social media services through their company Li et Co Media and organize their travels around making sure Wi- Fi is accessible. That’s occasionally meant skipping out on some places they wanted to visit.
“Last year we were so close to the Mexican border, and I regret not going into Baja,” Felepchuk says. “But the Wi-Fi was a big question for us.”
Adds Molnar: “The only difference between us and somebody who has a regular job and lives in a house is that we’re able to just take our jobs on vacation with us.”
Other van- lifers prefer to unplug completely, using money saved from previous jobs to finance a work- free experience. Adrian Myles, 38, goes home to Perth, Australia, to work as a sommelier every few years, which allows him to travel for a year or two without having to worry about money.
“People living this life aren’t sitting around talking about what was back at home,” says Myles.
A New Yorker piece this year explored the business side of the # vanlife social media movement. A profile of Emily King and Corey Smith, who post under the Instagram handle Where’s My Office Now, demonstrated that their dreamy, aspirational photo feed — stunning cliffsides, starry skies, exotic vistas — was the result of hours of deliberate work in an effort to make their lives seem whimsical and spontaneous. Their social media following allows them, like other popular van- lifers, to monetize their travel experience. They receive money from companies to feature their products on Instagram or other platforms.
Canada has its own social media stars, including “Van Man” Philippe Leblond, a model originally f rom Montreal. He now lives in Los Angeles and travels out of his van, taking trips he documents to his 164,000 Instagram followers.
Felepchuk and Molnar know of King and Smith and describe them as “an inspiration.” But they also represent “a warning sign in (how you can) go wrong when you just advertise with whoever. They have these poems written about Kettle Chips, and it’s just like ...” Molnar says, his voice trailing off.
For their part, Felepchuk and Molnar say branded content is only a small part of their income.
Others eschew s ocial media. Myles says he used to take a lot of photos to document the places he visited. But he kept feeling that the urge to compose a perfect shot was distracting him from the natural beauty he had travelled to see.
Molnar is happy to admit that van life isn’t always easy and that the photos leave out a lot of the less- glamorous elements.
Vans break down all the time, he says, and old ones can sometimes be slow to repair.
“I like to say that there’s a thin line between freedom and homelessness, and we’ve walked that at a few points,” he says.
THE ONLY DIFFERENCE BETWEEN US AND SOMEBODY WHO HAS A REGULAR JOB AND LIVES IN A HOUSE IS THAT WE’RE ABLE TO JUST TAKE OUR JOBS ON VACATION WITH US. — VAN-LIFER COLEMAN MOLNAR, LI ET CO MEDIA