Couples roll along in homes that make an RV look palatial
What if you went on a road trip and never came back?
“To live on the road is to live with much more freedom.”
— Rey Callau
Two couples called the road their home for years, logging hundreds of thousands of adventurous miles. Their refuges? For one couple, a Mitsubishi Delica fourwheelvan, small when compared with an RV or even other vans, let alone a faddish tiny house. For another, a Ford Festiva, small compared with just about anything on four wheels.
The coronavirus pandemic has idled both couples and their vehicles, for now, as they all wait for their next chapters.
That 1988 two-door Festiva came to be known as the Peace Love Car. It was Sam Salwei’s home for eight years, and Raquel Hernández-Cruz joined him four years in. After a chance meeting and then traveling together for a month in 2012, they reunited in 2013 — and have been together ever since.
“While I was working on my bachelor’s degree, a friend gifted me the car,” said Salwei, a 39-year-old native of Crystal, North Dakota, who got his degree in social entrepreneurship at the University of North Dakota. “A free car that was also gas-efficient was a dream. I really didn’t need anything else.”
He started with short road trips, then figured he could stay places longer if he didn’t need to return home. “Little by little I started adapting the car to allow me to sleep in it,” he said, pointing to “a slow five-year conversion.”
As the car rests at Salwei’s mother’s North Dakota home, the couple have continued their travels. They have spent recent winters in Thailand, but after the coronavirus outbreak early this year, they left to ride out the pandemic with Hernández-Cruz’s family in Puerto Rico. In September they headed to California, where they, too, bought a Delica and have been outfitting it while living a hermit lifestyle in Long Beach.
For Hernández-Cruz, who is 40 and grew up in rural Puerto Rico, “my life seemed pretty ordinary as I followed the road previously laid by my parents — school, college, marriage, grad school, maybe have children and work at one job for the rest of your life.”
That was not her path. She started practicing yoga, and wanted something different. She met Salwei and they were soon traveling the world as the YogaSlackers, teaching “slackline yoga,” on what is basically a tightrope.
Their car was, of course, heavily adapted to the nomadic life. It had at least 10 USB charging ports, seven 12-volt power ports and six 110-volt plug-ins. It took two RV-type batteries and 400 watts’ worth of solar panels to power the hatchback, a small fridge, various electronics and a ceiling fan.
The windows had screens, the body panels were insulated, and the bed slept two adults (snugly). It has a DIY rear lift kit, with an upgraded suspension and steering system. Two rooftop boxes functioned as the attic, holding adventure equipment, backpacks, cameras and accessories.
The car’s kitchen consisted of a Craftsman tool bag and “a random combination of camp kitchen and home kitchen items,” Hernández-Cruz said, everything as small and light as possible. When hunger hit, they pulled over and cooked: free campgrounds, rest stops, gas stations or the side of the road. Empty, the car weighed just over 2,500 pounds, but full it pushed over 3,700 pounds.
Everything in the car “has a place, and usually you can reach it in less than three movements,” Salwei said. “Parking is a breeze, it’s easy to squeeze into small campsites, and most importantly you can pick it up and move it by hand if necessary.”
The Festiva’s odometer reads 524,000 miles, and since 2008 it has crossed the United States about 20 times. Since 2013, the couple have toured and taught their way through three countries and 49 states (Hawaii the exception). The Festiva got a farewell tour in 2014, and since 2017 they have been trying to find it a new home, seeking “a worthy pilot in need of an adventure,” Salwei said.