Dream Big, Live Small: Why The Van Life Is Taking Hold In California

Speaker 1: 00:00 The California dream used to be a car and a house, but for some people today, the dream is a car that is your house. These are not people pushed by high rands to live in their cars. They are people who choose it. They call it van life as part of our California dream collaboration, Capitol Public Radios at Sam e k Ola goes in search of the van life community. Speaker 2: 00:26 Okay, Speaker 3: 00:27 so I hop in with this guy. He goes by the name Travis wild. We're in his shiny navy blue. Speaker 2: 00:33 Yes. It's the bumpy road, like this looks at a cool spot. Then I get back into potentially, Speaker 3: 00:37 he's been living in this van for about three years. He's constantly looking for a new campsite to call home tonight. He rolls up on a rocky bank near the south Yuba river and lets his dog out. Speaker 2: 00:48 Yes. Got a lot of energy to get out. It was probably a little less than seven hours of driving. Speaker 3: 00:53 Did you hear people in the van life share a big dream of living small and going places? It's taking off in California. We're rising. Housing costs and a sense of adventure are inspiring more and more people to go wheels only. The first thing I notice about the insight of Travis's van is how comfortable and clean it is. Pretty simple. His walls are pine, the floor is bamboo. His bed is surrounded by bookshelves and a surfboard hangs from the ceiling. He shows me some space saving tricks like this hidden table, that slides, Speaker 2: 01:25 I'm right here. I'm just from under the bed Speaker 3: 01:30 and then continuing just all of this, the storage on the sides. Travis is part of a community that's choosing the nomadic lifestyle to save on rent, to live greener or just because it seems like fun, but there's a whole other set of people who are forced to live in their vehicles because they can't afford housing. Sometimes these two groups joined forces to fight local bands on sleeping in cars. Those are popping up in places like San Diego and Berkeley. As more people go mobile, voluntary van dwellers say they know it's a privilege, but it's not always easy. Vehicle maintenance, Internet shortages, and even finding a place to use the bathroom can be a struggle. Speaker 2: 02:07 Well, there's always like these little kinks that are, at first it's like, oh, this is part of the adventure, and then you're like, oh, this is like, it's rainy and I have to stay inside here a little bit more than I would've liked to. Speaker 3: 02:19 None of this stops fan lifers from doing their thing. Gabrielle Lewine is a Grad student in psychology at the University of Southern California. She's researched millennials, their hopes and goals. She says some are rebelling against their parents' dreams. Speaker 4: 02:33 Millennials are just questioning whether that's worth it. You know, it's a very traditional thing to think about. The primary thing you need is, is a roof over your head in the same way that millennials are to use the very trendy word of disrupting other kinds of marketplaces. Non Traditional living situations is I think just another, another piece of that trend. Speaker 3: 02:53 Van dwellers tend to work remotely. They're artists, accountants and web developers. The lifestyle even generating its own micro economy. Some travelers become social media influencers who make money by tagging gear companies. On Instagram, others run van life websites and apps. I stopped by to see Josh Thompson. He's converting a van into a mobile home right now. Country Music plays as he measures out space for cabinets and other furniture. Speaker 5: 03:20 So the bed will be up here and this'll be like kind of storage area for um, extra bike space. And then also we're just like climbing deer and whatnot. He's getting pretty good at building these. Sometimes he sells the band, he's keeping this one for himself. Like life's pretty short, you know, it's just a minimal living that allows you like the freedom to make choices of what you do with your time and what you do with your money. Speaker 3: 03:45 Travis says the same thing, that it's about freedom that and the people he meets on the road, Speaker 2: 03:50 it actually allows like face to face interactions, which are really important and becoming less and less common in today's world I guess is a big thing. Like you can chat online all you want, but like you'll really get to know somebody if you like. You know, I have a couple of beers around a campfire and go on a hike and like that sort of thing. That's really the fun part. Speaker 3: 04:12 I say goodbye as Travis starts boiling noodles on his countertop stove. Speaker 5: 04:16 So we'll get that going. Speaker 3: 04:18 I notice a plank above the door scribbled with a dozen signatures from friends who have stood right here, but tomorrow, like hundreds of other California vagabonds he'll set out alone. And Yuba city. I'm Sammy Cola. Speaker 6: 04:34 Uh.