As I mentioned in my About Me Page, I discovered the modern van life movement almost exactly a year ago in the fall of ’21. Around that same time I began a deep dive into vanlife-related content on YouTube which, frankly, never really ended. I simply couldn’t believe how many people were living in vans full time and documenting their experiences.

Certain professions lend themselves to mobile living. I once watched a documentary about a pair of nurses who took temporary contracts at various hospitals across the country, living in a tiny home they towed behind their pickup. I’ve read about hiking guides and construction workers who lived in converted vehicles while staying at work sites off the beaten path. Then there are those who, through circumstances beyond their control, end up living in a vehicle out of necessity. In all of these examples, there was an external force that motivated someone into living in their vehicle. But in this modern wave of van life, it’s almost the opposite; people are choosing to live in vans simply because they want to. They didn’t lose their houses — they willingly left them behind.

By now I’ve watched hundreds if not thousands of videos on YouTube created by people who live in vans. Most of what I know about van life came from those videos. I’ve watched vanlifers install fans to deal with the summer heat and diesel heaters to deal with frigid winters. When my friends ask me questions — How do they cook? Where do they poop? How do they power all those gadgets? — I explain (often in too much detail) how those things work. And when they furrow their brows and ask if an exhaust fan will really keep the temperature inside a van bearable during the summer months, I assure them it will because the YouTube people told me it will.

A few years ago a rumor began circulating that said iPhones could be recharged by placing them in the microwave, which led to a bunch of videos like this. So maybe not everything on YouTube is true.

I never microwaved my iPhone, but I did buy a van. I have stated from the very beginning that I have no intention of living in my van full time. I have no intention of living in a van at all, in fact. I just think the idea of driving around in a self-contained camper van and spending a few nights at the lake and a few nights in a Walmart parking lot sounds like fun. If it weren’t fun, people wouldn’t be doing it. Right?

Shortly after purchasing my van I ran across a video by Captain Gnarkill titled Why I Quit Vanlife. Another YouTuber, Freya Haley, released a similar video titled Why I Quit Vanlife & Everything That Went Wrong. One of the most popular channels I had subscribed to, Travel Beans, released a video titled Why We Are Quitting Full Time VANLIFE. In July, William Shaker announced he was moving into an apartment in a video titled This is Why I Quit Van Life (It’s Been a Total Disaster). In August, Stephi Lee (a popular vanlifer with more than 250,000 subscribers) announced on her channel she just bought a house. Earlier this week, Allison Sharpe (Travel Snacks) announced that she is quitting full time van life.

Those videos are literally a drop in the bucket and represent only a small number of people who moved out of their vans after moving into them. Search YouTube for “quit van life” and you’ll find many more — and those are just the people who took the time to film themselves admitting defeat. There is no data from the thousands of others who simply went silent on YouTube and stopped uploading videos.

Andrew Ditton is another YouTuber who recently gave up on van life. Ditton spent nearly a decade living in an Airstream trailer prior to spending two years living out of a van. In his video titled Life After Vanlife: Why I QUIT Full Time Touring, Ditton shares the reasons he moved out of his vehicle and into an apartment. One of the topics he touched upon, one that I think many content creators intentionally try to hide, is that living in a van is more work than living in a house or an apartment, not less. Imagine if, in addition to the normal amount of time you spend at work, you spent several more hours each day driving — looking for bathrooms, recharging your batteries, and searching for places to sleep. If you think cooking dinner is a hassle in your home’s kitchen, imagine having to remove and replace your grill from a drawer three times a day. Vanlifers have to regularly obtain resources like water and propane, and constantly remain conscious about how much electricity they’re using. If you’ve ever grumbled about having to make your bed, imagine having to make your bed every single day — like, literally, assemble parts of your bed, and disassemble it each morning.

As a kid I always wondered why the hamburgers we ordered from McDonald’s never looked as mouth-watering as they did in commercials, and wasn’t particularly surprised to learn later in life that restaurants hire professional food stylists to make their burgers look more appetizing on television. I guess a lot of YouTubers do the same thing. To sell the lifestyle, they make sure those buns look good. Videos of girls in bikinis get more views and likes than videos of smelly people with crazy hair sitting inside their van and using McDonald’s WiFi to check their email. Creators know what gets clicks, and on YouTube, clicks equal money.

I want to unequivocally state that I don’t fault, blame, judge, or think any less in any way of the YouTubers I mentioned above for quitting vanlife. Every single one of those people are individuals with their own goals, needs, and desires. And while each of them have their own unique reasons for moving out of their vans and into a more stable living environments, many of them cited similar reasons for doing so. This summer’s high gas prices and high temperatures convinced many vanlifers that traditional domiciles, while admittedly less mobile, possess other desirable amenities… like air conditioning.

To be fair, many others I watch (Nomadic Introvert, VanlifePLUS, Vancity Vanlife, Leon & Anaia, Lost Renegades, Ad-van-tures Over 50, Alyssa Vanilla, Lady Bugout, Getter Better, Foresty Forest, and so many others) are still at it.

Around the time I turned thirty years old I realized I didn’t much care about what celebrities thought about anything, and probably never should have. I don’t get my politics from basketball players or my moral compass from guys who know how to play the guitar. The notion that billionaire Kim Kardashian knows anything about tennis shoes, or that buying Skechers raises one’s odds of sleeping with her, is an odd concept. The next time an actor tells you what to think, you should question their credentials. Is it because they are a subject matter expert? Or is it because they have nice cheekbones?

What does all of this mean to me? Nothing, really. None of this changes any of my plans. I just think that at the end of a long, hot, expensive summer, a lot of people all realized around the same time that full time living inside a vehicle isn’t sustainable for the long term. Ironically, the mood in almost all of those videos is one of failure. I, for one, think they should be celebratory. Anyone who survives living in a metal box on wheels for more than a week deserves a high five, in my book. Every one of those people had a dream and pulled it off. Ain’t no shame in that. I think living in a van is one of the most punk rock things young people can do, but nobody stays young forever.

To paraphrase Don Henley, “out on the road today, I saw a #vanlife sticker on a Cadillac…”

PS: In the 24 hours it took me to write this, Mariah Alice sold her van and Story Chasing posted a video titled Van Life & YouTube Burnout, in which she questions “the sustainability of vanlife and her YouTube channel.”