Our little family has now been on the road TWICE! The first time around we towed our 5th wheel home around with us as we traveled the country. This time we decided to try a variation of van life. We are traveling in a minivan and using airbnb to find short term rentals. Some things about this trip are very much the same as living in the RV, but some are not. These are the main things I’ve found are different between RV & van life.:
- Much more minimalistic way of living
- Different Location options.
- More comfortable (at times)
- Cleaning/maintenance responsibilities
- Different stress-ers between locations
- We now have our baby traveling with us!
Living on the road has made us be more minimalistic.
I mean, obviously, we can’t fit as many things into our minivan as we could the 5th wheel. While we have less stuff with us I don’t necessarily think of it as a downside to van life. So far with the things we’ve brought with us, I feel like I’ve got everything we need! (I’ll keep you updated if that changes, lol.) When I started packing, I did a lot of research about how I could get the most out of my suitcase space. (I go more over packing in my previous post. Check it out here.) I had to pack less clothing overall, so I had to be smart about what I chose and make sure I could have clothes for all the different weather we might encounter. Not to mention a few nice things to wear for the wedding’s we’ve got on the calendar this year!
It is also interesting to see the different ways our thought process has shifted on this trip. When we are at the grocery store, we are only buying things we are going to eat in the next couple days. We don’t bulk buy anything or store extra gallon water bottles. The goal is go have minimal kitchen/food items to transfer between our short term homes outside the essentials we brought with us.
Van life has opened our location options!
It might seem silly since you can park an RV almost anywhere, but for us van life has opened our location options. What I found when trying to book RV sites was that RV parks mostly ended up being located on the outskirts of major cities (which makes sense if you think about it). Also, not every park offered the monthly spot discounts we needed to afford to stay. So, normally our drive into town to experience the city/town long and more expensive in our big diesel truck (which also wasn’t very city friendly at times). In our airbnb van life we can be closer to the town/city we want to see. This way it really gives us a taste of what living in these different places would be like.
With van life we can also stay in places that might have a little bit colder weather this time around. I saw snow for the first time in close to 3 years just last week! Living in the trailer we tried to stay in as warm of weather as possible during the winter months which really limits your location options. When it was cold outside it was tough to keep the trailer warm and you always felt a cold draft. It was just uncomfortable and not enjoyable to be in an RV around freezing temperatures and snow.
(Place picture of map. Photoshop stars on destination location ideas)(See our planned route and must see sites for this year here.)
(Star:Austin, lake havasu city, redding, shingletown, eugene, portland, bend, billings, denver, minnesota (?), virginia, maryland, florida)
Moving from place to place is entirely different between RV and van life!
There are definitely still stress/anxieties of moving to our next “home”, but they are not at all the same as in RV life. Before when we were traveling with an RV moving was much more of an ordeal. The morning we left was like a small marathon. I would secure everything inside the trailer, fill up our water tank, and pull in all of the slides. While I did that, Bryce was cleaning up outside decor/items, clearing our grey/black tanks and making sure we unplugged and stored our power cord & hoses. Then he would double check we had a full tank of gas in the truck before we hitched the trailer on to take off. In order to leave we also had to have planned a safe route for the drive with the RV.
A safe driving route with the RV entailed a couple things:
- There are NO low bridges on-route.
- There are lots of truck stops/travel centers along the way for easy gas fill ups.
- Not too mountainous of travel.
-this would keep truck running smoothly. (No overheating. Easier on breaks overall)
-this also cut down travel time. climbing a mountain range slowed us down significantly. - Look at the weather to avoid severe weather. (Wind & ice especially with the RV)
After we had a route planned the next challenge was finding a safe/comfortable place to stay overnight night. It was tough to know how far we would be able to drive in a day. It seemed that no matter what our ball park plan was either we felt we stopped too early, or bit off more than we could chew and were pulling into our reserved spots late at night. Either way traveling weekends felt exhausting.
Pulling in late and knowing we had another long day the next day we wouldn’t unhitch the trailer. This blocked our access to the generator, so we didn’t have lights or running water in the trailer. We would leave the slides in, and all just hunker down for the couple hours we might be able to sleep before jumping back in the car the next day. Stopping early made it easy to have time to unhitch the trailer and get out the generator if needed, push out the slides, and get comfortable for the evening. However, it also stretched out how many days we had to travel in total. And as I mentioned, a morning on a traveling day is stressful. If we chose to press on a little further, we would have trouble finding a safe place to stop that was quiet enough to get sleep.
Traveling now in the van is much more simple.
Now with van life, the difference is that we really only have to consider A few things. First, how many hours we spend in the car and how many days in a row we have to travel. Since we are traveling with Valerie now we need to keep our hours in the car within a reasonable range. Secondly, we also need to stop early enough in the evening to maintain somewhat of a nighttime routine with Valerie so that we can all get to sleep.
Lastly, I make sure to pack a small “overnight bag” to give us easy access to some basics. This will have an outfit or two for each of us, pajamas, a hairbrush, our toothbrushes & some toothpaste. Really the only similarity moving from place to place between RV and van life is that it’s still important to look and avoid severe weather when we’re on the road.
There is bound to be tons of differences traveling now that we have a little one!
Not everything about van life is easy, whether we are comparing it to van life or not. There are a few challenges we have run into that I would imagine have been easier in our RV life. Mostly these are things to do with having a mobile infant on the road with us now.
Finding baby-proof & baby safe spaces are tough
We already had a few requirements that limited our airbnb options. One must for us is a full kitchen wherever we stay so we can eat at home frequently. We either need a king bed, or two smaller beds to make sure we can all sleep comfortably. We also have to have a pet friendly place since we have Zita traveling with us. Most of the time we also are looking for airbnb’s that have a couple other luxeries we didn’t have in the trailer. We try to find a space that has a fenced yard of some kind for the dogs, and access to a laundry room. But none of these have been as difficult as the new challenge of baby-proofing.
Creating a baby-safe space is one of the more difficult challenges we have come across since Valerie just started crawling a few weeks ago. In airbnb’s we are going to have an extra curve ball because it will be a new space each month that we have to find baby proofing solutions for. Had we still been in our RV baby-proofing would be easier because we could use the same solutions in the trailer no matter where we were.
Routines are also more tough on the road. In Austin, I was really finding a rhythm with the gym and a group of mom friends. I had sign language class with Valerie every week and was looking forward to starting swim lessons with some of the other moms. Being on the road makes that kind of routine feel very fleeting. Nothing really feels like a routine when you only do it for a couple weeks and then have to research opportunities all over again. But I knew that would be a challenge on this trip because that was also a challenge of RV life.
But after all is said and done, Van life is just more comfortable.
There are just SO many things that seem to be easier about van life versus RV life. Living in a home, whether it is a small apartment or a house, makes the biggest difference. You have more space to move around and live in. There’s access to a full kitchen (as per our requirements). Not to mention a real bathroom sink and toilet. Never again will I have to worry about poop pyramids leaving a lingering smell in our RV! We also will not have to worry about utility bills other than our cell phone.
The other thing about van life that is easier is there is no maintenance to anything other than our car and our wardrobe. Both the truck AND the trailer almost had consistent different things that needed some TLC. And nothing was easy or cheap to get done professionally nor am I very good with power tools. I felt overwhelmed with the different things I kept learning I needed to do in order to keep the trailer in tip top condition and was baffled by how much more expensive everything was to own and take care of a diesel truck. All I need to do now is keep a space clean, which is easier when you have a limited amount of stuff. And we just stick to the rule that if we get anything new, we have to get rid of something else to make space for it.
I would say that the only difference I like less between RV and Van life is that now we are traveling and staying in someone else’s home. When we had the RV, it was all our own. But we have everything we can really want with us, other than family and friends. But this trip will be all about stopping places to see our loved ones so we really do have a little bit of everything we need no matter where we are. <3