The Wayward Home Podcast
The Wayward Home Podcast
65: Finding Your People: Building Community on the Road
Feeling connected while living a nomadic lifestyle can be challenging. In this episode, solo female van lifer Courtney Stevenson shares her best tips for combating loneliness and finding community on the road.
Courtney talks about how she leveraged social media connections to find and befriend fellow nomads online when she first started out. She then eventually met some of these internet friends in person while traveling. Courtney explains how attending van life gatherings and events is one of the best ways to meet fellow wanderers. She discusses some popular events like Descend on Bend and the Rubber Tramp Rendezvous.
We also chat about the pros and cons of seasonal travel and how winter brings more interactions by nature while summer allows for more exploration and independence. Courtney weighs in on the need to find balance between community and solitude, even as an extrovert. She also talks about dealing with loneliness amidst the highs and lows of van life.
Whether you’re a solo traveler looking to make road friends or a couple hoping to connect with other nomadic pairs, this episode covers actionable tips for combating isolation. Tune in to hear Courtney’s hard-won advice after 3+ years living in her van.
Follow Courtney on Instagram
Connect with Kristin Hanes and The Wayward Home!
Getting started with Van Life or Nomadic Living generally can have its fair share of worries. One of those is wondering if you'll have community on the road. One thing we noticed about Van Life is that we often boondock, so we're hardly around anyone to make friends with. We found the sailing community to be much easier for friendships. However, some Van Lifers have learned how to make it work and have maintained deep friendships on the road. In this episode of the Wayward Home Podcast, we'll get tips and advice from one Van lifer who's been living in her van solo for over three years but has learned how to find an awesome community. Let's go.
Speaker 1:Welcome to the Wayward Home Podcast all about van life, boat life and nomadic living. We'll bring you tips, interviews and stories from the road and on the water. Now here's your host, kristen Haynes. Hey there, I'm Kristen Haynes with thewaywardhomecom and I spend half the year in my Sprinter van and half on my sailboat in Mexico. I hope to inspire you to live nomatically too. So I get these types of questions all the time. Well, how do I find friends on the road? Is van life lonely? What are the best ways to find community? Today we have a lot of handy tips on finding people to hang out with when you're on the road, if you're solo or traveling as a couple or even as a family. I'd like to welcome Courtney Stevenson to the Wayward Home Podcast. She's been living in a van for over three years and has lots of advice when it comes to finding community on the road Now. But before we get started, where are you right now in your van?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I am parked outside of my parents' house, actually in Arizona for the holidays, on my path south for winter and just stopping to see family.
Speaker 1:Very cool. So let's talk a little bit about your background. When did you get into van life? Initially?
Speaker 2:Yeah, so I was part of the COVID era van lifers. I was actually on Southeast Asia backpacking trip back in 2020. I had quit my job in Las Vegas, had saved up money to travel, was overseas 2019 and beginning of 2020, and then the pandemic hit. So I came back to the US and I was like, well, what do I do? Like I don't want to settle down into a city. The industry that I had been working in was decimated and I was like, well, I'm probably not going to be able to get a job. Slash in my mind. I wasn't ready to find work again. I still had savings for travel.
Speaker 2:So I had been following van life for a long, long time and I had done van life for shorter periods of time in other countries before and it was like in the back of my mind like, oh, I will do van life someday, but it wasn't at my radar. But, yeah, with 2020, I ended up buying a van that summer, in July, and I hit the road in September of 2020, I expected to be on the road for like six months and then here we are, three and a half years later. Yeah, I have traveled all over the US. I've gone down to the tip of Baja two winters in a row. I love this lifestyle and yeah, that's kind of my journey, of how I got into the van.
Speaker 2:I'm in a 1999 Ford Accordaline that has like a fiberglass midroof on it. Again, I wasn't working initially when I hit the road, so I had kind of fixed savings and I was like wanted to just get something that would get me on the road, to get something that wouldn't immediately make me have to start finding work. So I definitely went the budget camper van route and got extremely lucky. This van has been very solid and stable for me and, yeah, she's been a great home, oh, fantastic.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I went through the budget route with my van set of Astro for many years and it's just nice to be able to purchase something you don't have to go into debt for if you're not at that stage in life where you're like making money. So it's really nice to see people living out of more affordable vans, because I think the sprinters. I have one now but it took a long time to get one.
Speaker 2:And.
Speaker 1:I think that people don't see those original initial vans that are often more budget oriented. So I love that. Yeah, that's what you have, yeah, so cool. So you started in COVID and you mostly travel alone, right? Or you started traveling alone.
Speaker 2:Yes, I started traveling alone and have mostly been traveling alone, I did. I met a van lifer and we dated for a bit on the road. But even with that we had our separate vans and we would travel sometimes together and sometimes separately. But yeah, for the most part I have been a solo female van lifer for the majority of my time on the road.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and so did you ever have worries about, like, how you would meet people or find friends? Because I know I get a lot of people emailing me, even like my dad, which is hilarious because he has a mini van. He also lives in a house with his girlfriend, but he's thinking like I want to take a road trip by myself because his girlfriend's not retired, and he's like but I'm going to be so lonely, and I hear this all the time from people. So I'm wondering, like what you were thinking or feeling about that when you first leaped into it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it was really interesting and I, as I was like kind of getting you know ready to speak with you about finding Community on the road, I was kind of like reminiscing on my kind of journey of van life and finding friends on the road. And it was really interesting because when I First Started in the van it was still like peak COVID and people really weren't interacting with one another Like even when you were out, like on hiking trails, like people were just kind of keeping their distance and everyone was really kind of distancing. So it was interesting just like entering van life during that timeframe when things were still just kind of, you know, gatherings weren't happening, you just weren't meeting people. I also the first where I started van life, when my first destination was the upper peninsula of Michigan and then I went through the northeast to like Maine, vermont, new Hampshire and those are Beautiful but there are not destinations that are very like popular with van lifers, so I just wasn't meeting a ton of people. So I really did not, you know, make friends or find other van lifers on the road for the first, I want to say, three or four months. It wasn't until headed down to kind of the southwest For my first winter that I really started meeting people in person and really and this is kind of my like Tip number one of finding community on the road and what I did when I first hit the road was I used social media a lot to Make these kind of internet friends.
Speaker 2:So one of the things was there there used to be I don't know if it still exists, but there was a solo female van life Facebook group that was pretty popular and Active and when people, people would write like introduction posts and they would post a couple photos and they would just do a little bio, and any time I was on that Facebook group and I saw someone who, like shared similar interests, I would find them on Instagram and I would just send them a message like hey, you know, I'm Courtney, I'm also living in a van, like hope you know to connect with you down the line and say Through me that through like hashtags.
Speaker 2:Again, I was primarily like targeting like solo female van lifers to find, you know, female friendship on the road, but just kind of I had these like internet friends. That son I still have, you know, no, and we've never met in person and others. Obviously, through the years we've been able to connect. But really it was like being able to kind of be bold on social media and just like find people who seemed interesting and kind of connect that way, especially again because in the beginning I wasn't meeting people in person.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's super interesting that you say that, because I feel like I do van life and boat life and when I'm in the van especially, we like to boondock and you're kind of out in the middle of nowhere and you're really not near other vans and also it's weird.
Speaker 1:Like to walk up to someone's van in the middle of nowhere and be like hi, do you want to hang out? Like everyone's kind of looking around, like wondering who's approaching. So I find that Meeting people in the van world hasn't been as easy for us. Just because we're off the grid so much and we're in the boat, you anchor in a specific area and there's like four other boats anchored there and you meet people a lot easier in the boat life and in a boat yard, like where I am now. But social media, like what you were saying, is how I've like Interacted with most van lifers, even if I haven't met them in person like you. I've been chatting with you for a long time on Instagram, I'm meeting. But that's cool that you actually made it happen and met the people in person and really did that coordination on Social media. So that's really interesting, yeah, yeah, and did you do like Caravanning with them and like camping with them and how did that evolve?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I guess. So, yeah, the first time I actually met other van lifers in person was through, yeah, a girl that we had connected on Instagram, my friend Macy, and I saw this was, yeah, again, winter, my first winter. I was heading towards San Diego and I saw her post an Instagram story hanging out with other van lifers in San Diego, and so I remember being so nervous because I thought that they all knew each other. This is like a common, I think, misconception with, like van lifers. I I saw Macy hanging out with a group of van lifers and I sent her a message like, oh my gosh, like I'm coming to San Diego next week, like you know, would you mind if I joined you guys? And I remember feeling so nervous to ask that. And she was like, yeah, of course, and like I ended up meeting up with her in this like that group and and from the beginning it was just so good it was.
Speaker 2:It's actually that's where I met Brooke, who's a writer for the Wayward home. That's where I met Brooke, who's become a good, yeah, van friend. But it was just this kind of mod podge group of people coming in and out, you know, doing their own thing, going and traveling. Like you know, it was just that was the first time, yeah, that I met people on the road and I was so nervous because you just think that everyone knows everybody.
Speaker 2:But the longer that you're on the road you just realize that you know the the the door of van life is always evolving and there's always new people Hitting the road. There's always people who are switching to part-time or getting off the road and you're always like going to be able to meet people. And people don't always know each other and people generally are very welcoming. As long as you are, you know, kind of using good van life etiquette, but people are generally very welcoming. So, yeah, that was kind of my first time meeting other van lipers.
Speaker 2:And then I think it gets easier once you start meeting people, because it's like, okay, I started to connect with this group in San Diego. You know kind of seeing where their travels took them afterward, and then you'd be like, oh well, I'm now in Utah and this person that I met in San Diego is also in Utah. Let's meet up in camp. And then they have a few friends that they've met since then and it just kind of, I don't know, it gets easier, I think once you've started to establish meeting people for the first time.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and then how do you keep track of like where each other are? Is it because you're posting to like Instagram stories and you're seeing like, oh, this person is here, I should connect. Or are there any other apps or ways to sort of keep track of your roaming friends?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I am, it definitely is like. I think that the van life community can be like heavy Instagram based, because it is a lot of times where you're like, oh, I see, this person is also in this place. I know some of the apps. I don't know if it still is as popular, but seeker as KR, they have a feature where you can kind of turn, you can create a profile and you can turn on your like location area so other people in the same area can reach out and you can chat with others. And I've actually a couple of years ago in Joshua Tree, that's how I met up, that's how I met a few friends, because there was a girl who reached out to me and a handful of other people who she all saw was in the same kind of general area, like, hey, would you guys want to get together and have a potluck and a bonfire? And so we did, and it was five or six of us. None of us had ever met before, just like met up, you know, for an evening and it was great. Yeah, so there's seeker.
Speaker 2:Trying to think of other apps. There's a company here called Kift that they do some caravan he's going back to the caravan question. They do some like established caravans which are pretty cool. They just did one in November that was going through the Eastern Sierra in California and I know last winter they did a big caravan down through Baja and that was especially great. Kift they have a lot of people who work full time, like nine to five jobs, and so that's been, I know, a good community for some of my red friends who have more traditional careers, to meet people and also meet people who are also working a similar kind of schedule. So, yeah, kift is another place. I'm trying to think if there's other apps or ways that people have connected, but those are kind of the two big ones I think Kift and seeker. Yeah, totally.
Speaker 1:And I didn't know that. I've been intrigued by Kift for a while now. I know that they if people don't know who they are, they have a membership program where you can go live at these homes and park your van. It's like a van life community thing. I didn't know they did caravans. That's really interesting. But have you tried Kift? Have you been interested in trying Kift or what's your thought about that? I haven't.
Speaker 2:I am. I think it's really interesting. I think it's a cool concept and especially now that I've been on the road as long as I have, you definitely go through stages of kind of travel burnout and not wanting to go through that, not wanting to travel and drive all the time and also feeling like you know, you're kind of limited by two week camping limit sometimes, where it's like, okay, kift would be, I think, a really neat way of being able to stay and the ride, but kind of deep, you know, have that kind of downtime but within community. So I think it's a really cool concept. I haven't personally checked it out, but it's just because I haven't been in the areas that they've been having the houses. But it is, I think, and I've had friends who have joined both of their caravans and I've had friends or met people who have lived at the Kift houses and it's a really cool concept.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it sounds interesting. I'd like to pop in and try it for a few days at some point, but it's probably not something I would do like full time, you know, just because we do love boondocking so much.
Speaker 2:Yeah, out of nature.
Speaker 1:But it does sound really interesting in their home, seem like they're neat areas and stuff. So I think it could be a great opportunity for someone you know, depending on the stage of van life they're in and if they need a break from the constant movement, because that's the hard part, yeah.
Speaker 1:So yeah, have you found, like, when you were meeting up with these people that you're meeting is it mostly, do you think, women doing this? Did sometimes solo men go, or like, what was the demographic of who people are pretending to connect with out there?
Speaker 2:I think it really depends on kind of your lifestyle and like the activities that you're doing and like where you are. I feel like I meet a lot of solo female vanlifers, but I don't think that's like self-fulfilling prophecy because that's typically who I am like connecting with. But even like I've just whenever I've been hanging out and meeting up with like a group of vanlifers, it does feel like it skews solo female vanlifers. There's a lot of couples and then they're like the kind of the just barely lower is like solo men on the road. You kind of get all all all kinds of people and like one of my favorite things of the road is just I don't know, the wide variety of like demographics and ages and what people do for work and their kind of road story. You kind of get all of it. But yeah, I definitely tend to connect a lot with the other women on the road Totally, and probably neither of us know this for sure.
Speaker 1:But I wonder if it's like harder for men to do this, because I know I don't know if men are maybe some are, but some that I know are not quite as community oriented, like actively seeking out other men to hang out with, and I know women tend to be very like community and friend oriented. It's just like the way our brains work. So I just wonder, like, what it would be like for men. I guess I should interview a solo male at some point and ask do you have you, have you heard anything about that at all, what it's like for them? Or you mostly hang out with solo females. So it might be I got no, yeah, I don't really know.
Speaker 2:I know I'm so curious.
Speaker 1:I did meet. Actually I interviewed a man for this podcast and he lived in a Toyota Prius for a number of years and he was an older gentleman, I think in his 60s, and he was actually prepared to be very lonely, and even him he said it was like the least loneliest time of his life because he would go to campgrounds or he'd be hiking and he would just meet people. And I was like that's super cool to hear that. So that's the only anecdotal evidence I have is from one person and he said he met a lot of people. So that's what I tell my dad. I'm like just go, and if you stay probably in a campground, you're more apt to meet someone than if you're out boondocking as a solo male, because I do think people look at men maybe a little bit more warily. I know that we do, definitely.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Sometimes they tend to be really, really nice, but I think they have more obstacles probably going for them than women who are trying to find community. But definitely, and it leads me to another idea, which is like the meetups are probably another way people can go, or you're not like on social media or running into people, but you're actually going to these events. Have you been to any of these events yet?
Speaker 2:Yeah, and that's another like really great way of meeting people on the road. It's kind of where you can meet like the most amount of people, I think, all at once. So, yeah, my first band gathering was back in the spring of 2021, which was Descend on Los Sierra. So Descend is a pretty popular van gathering. They do their signature like most popular event is up in Bend, oregon, every Labor Day weekend, but they also do, over Memorial Day weekend at May, a smaller gathering in California, and so that was my first band gathering. It was Descend on Los Sierra and it was amazing because it was really small, like I want to say, maybe a hundred vans or so. So you really felt like you were kind of I don't know, seeing the same faces over and over. Yeah, and that was where I met a lot of my, like Instagram friends that I had, you know, been chatting with. A lot of them were at that event, so I got to see some of those people, some of the friends that I had met that winter, like just a few months prior. It was like van gatherings are a really great way of kind of reconnecting with people that you've met on the road, and it's also a really great thing. If you've just hit the road or you're a few months in and you're kind of struggling to find van community or you're not on social media or don't want that to be the way you meet people, I think van gatherings are a really great way to go.
Speaker 2:So yeah, some popular ones are the Descend events. There's Rubber Tramp Rendezvous, which happens every January in court site. There's the Journal of Last Time events. There's Van Fest USA. There's a number of them that go on throughout the year and it's a really great way.
Speaker 2:There's a lot of like music and speakers and just downtime and I think because, like you said, when you're boondocking it can be a bit intimidating or just you're not seeing as many people. But at a van event you know if someone's like slide or door is open generally, you know you can go pop in and say hi and just have a conversation. It's a really great way of just finding people. Also, it's really common sometimes after van gatherings for people to kind of hang in the area or caravan together. You know I've definitely spent the weeks following a van event with people I met at the event, kind of traveling and hiking and floating on the river and doing activities together, so it's a really, you know, fun way of meeting people. That feels like a little easier barrier of entry, because I think generally people are at band gatherings for the same thing, which is building community.
Speaker 1:That's true. I was wondering if they'd be slightly intimidating, because I love hanging out with people in small groups of people. But as an introvert, thinking about a large group of people to me sounds slightly scary. But I'm just curious, like I bet a lot of van lifers are introvert. Yeah, knows how to approach people.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think I'm in like that. I've had conversations with friends before because I'm an extrovert but I feel like that is not the norm in van life. I feel like there are way more introverts in van life than there are extroverts. But even for me and this is like a good point to bring up like All of this talk of finding community on the road it really gives me like first day of school vibes, like Even as someone who's nice meeting other people and who will go up to people and just make conversation. It's it kind of like takes a brain override. Because I think, especially in like US culture we're so like I don't know when I used to live in a city and go out with my friends, like you wouldn't go up and approach a stranger and start typing with them. That's just not how our culture really works. But in van life that kind of you have to kind of do that and like you have to put yourself out there and you have to kind of, you know, be uncomfortable, but it like often pays off and it was really interesting actually this.
Speaker 2:I was just in Bend this fall for a little bit and there's like a really popular area that people typically camp in up there and there was like a bonfire happening that night and I knew one one girl and she was like, oh, I should come. You know, there there was sing a bonfire over there and I was like, yeah, I'll come by, that sounds fun. And as I was walking over, I like had that like nervous feeling because I'm like I only know one person at this bonfire and it feels really scary and intimidating Even though I've been on the road for a long time now to like go in to a situation where you don't really know anybody. And so I was like really like humbling of like oh, this is like the first day of school again.
Speaker 1:Well, I'm happy to hear that extra extrovert also feels sometimes at these events, because I guess and you put it perfectly the new school vibe thing on first day of school, because we did have a gathering here at the boat yard Recently and like few days ago, and I was like gosh, I don't know like three, fours of the people here, like we need to have icebreakers, you know.
Speaker 2:I was like are these people.
Speaker 1:But you're at the van life events, you know, sounds like there there's so many activities and you just start, you know, go to a fire pit, or you go to an activity with people. You just it's an easier way to meet people, I think, because you're doing something in common. So, yeah, that's pretty cool.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah, what was my other question? I was wondering is there a much crossover between, like van lifers and RVers, do you think, when you're out and about and about meeting people, I know to me van lifers seem like a special breed of people, but I'm wondering if you've seen that like the crossover?
Speaker 2:not a ton of crossover Between, like you know, fifth wheelers or RVs. I do, there are. I have friends who are in kind of like the vintage I don't even know what class they would be in, but kind of like the vintage RVs I am, but they're not as you know, they're not as common. I feel like there's obviously a lot of crossover of like vans and school buses or schoolies and like truck campers and Try to think one of their rigs, yeah, like the smaller, even like Priuses or people in mini vans, but To this is obviously a generalization.
Speaker 2:But the people in like fifth wheels and RVers are typically Like more weekenders or their retirees and they're staying more in campgrounds where, like you, I'm mostly staying on public land boondocking, and another like this is something to mention too Like I In all of these ways I also I camp with people a fair, a bit fair bit. I camp with my van friends on BLM land and from there you kind of meet other people like friends of friends basically, but out there you're just not seeing quite as many years, or if they are, they're doing their own thing and they're kind of living a different lifestyle. Then I think the typical van life is big generalization, but yeah, oh, totally.
Speaker 1:I've thought of that a lot, though, too, because my mom does travel in a class, a RV, and she's like gosh, I meet people all the time. And she's like why aren't you meeting people? And I'm like, well, you have such a different Lifestyle and approach, like you're in an RV park and you're like 10 feet from the next RVer or in a campground where people are kind of walking the loops for days and days on in like long-stay campground and I'm like words, like moving around, and we're way out in the sticks, and when someone approaches us, we're kind of weirded out about it. But that, and also I think that another generalization but we tend to live a very gritty lifestyle. A lot of us don't have showers, you know. We don't have toilets. We're kind of like backpackers that have an extra bit of shelter. It's kind of like, yeah, takes a certain person to want to do van life, that's not everybody, 100% like when you meet one of your fellow Van lifers, you really click with them.
Speaker 1:It's kind of like sailing the community that takes a certain person. I think a lot of sailors are van lifers actually, because it's also very gritty. It's like actually it has more components than van life. Actually, in my sailboat I have like a shower and a toilet and an oven. It feels big, yeah, but it's definitely like a. It's a gritty lifestyle, it's hard. There can be some difficult parts of it.
Speaker 2:There's some like camaraderie and that goes on, and like lots of swapping of, like just different stories relating to those topics.
Speaker 1:Oh for sure. Yeah, so as a solo traveler, you probably have to balance Community between wanting to go out on your own. Do you feel like that's something that? Or how do you balance that part of van life?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I've kind of Figured out like a good Cadence. I think generally like winter time seems like the time that people are in community more just by proxy of like I've never done like a snow van life, like that's not my jam but and other people who don't do snow van life, you're kind of limited to where you can go, so a lot of people go down to it. You know the desert in Arizona and Southern California and down to Baja and by proxy You're kind of in areas that are just more populated so you're meeting more people, sometimes out on BLM land but even like out laundromats or showering or you're just kind of circling the same places. So van life in the winter feels a bit more social to me, especially these last two winters that I've spent down and bow how like you are Really around people more often Then you. Then you would be whenever I'm traveling and in my man and the summer in the US, and then summer time to me feels more like I'm out doing my own thing, like there's just more to explore. You know some people hunker down and get seasonal jobs during the summer. There's just a bit more, there's more places that people can be and it's a bit more to me. That's like when I'm doing my Backpacking trips and really just like going and like traveling, where winter for the past couple years has felt more like Really being in community, living on the beach with my friends. Like it's been just a different kind of mindset for me and I think Really easy to like burn yourself out on community Like I know that I know like I need to like have my routine, like I need to make sure in the morning I don't open my door until I've, like you, gotten my kind of like head-on straight and I've got my priority set for the day.
Speaker 2:It's really easy, like when I've camped a lot, you know, with groups of you know several friends and everyone has different work schedules and you need to have like a bit of discipline. Like I need to make sure I'm carving out time to get my like work obligations done. I'm carving out time to be social. Like you know, there's every day of the week people will be doing different things and having different schedules. I think you need to have a bit of like discipline and just knowing what you need to do and like also knowing like hey, I need to take a couple days or I'm ready to move on and not just feeling like I need to grip to people because I don't know when the next time I'll be around. People is kind of thing.
Speaker 1:Right, yeah, that's interesting. It is harder to get work done when you're just surrounded by your friends like all day. Yeah, yeah, I could see that. Yeah, yeah, that's very. That is so true, and especially down in Baja, I don't think there's like as many boondocking opportunities, so it seems like people are more condensed on certain beaches and in areas. Did you find that?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think especially if you have like a capable four by four vehicle, you can definitely go to more remote places. But for me, and like a two wheel drive van, like I've kind of done the kind of normal Baja route for vans, and there's many, many times where you are camping on beaches with like lots of other people people you know, people you don't know, but it's just more. Yeah, you're bumping into way more people down there. It's way less secluded, it's more. Even when you're on free beaches there's just a lot of people on them as well.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, totally. And like how does the sociability of van life compare to like your life prior? Was it more social? The same kind of how is it comparing? That's interesting.
Speaker 2:It's kind of I would say it's more like dark differences. Now, whereas you know I lived in Las Vegas, that's like the last place I was in and you know I lived with, I had a roommate. So in that aspect, like in van life, like I can always retreat to my own van, but yeah, in Vegas, you know, like I had a roommate, I had a really solid group of friends and we did a lot of things together and I was always doing things our weekends.
Speaker 2:If I wasn't going and like hiking and exploring like around Las Vegas, then I was going out a lot in Las.
Speaker 2:Vegas. So it's a different. I don't know it was kind of a different. It's hard to compare those two, but in van life it really does feel like kind of like feast or famine. You're either like really alone and like I'm out doing my own thing and like not seeing a soul for a week or two weeks on end, or you're like around, you know, van community. So I think it's just different and it's definitely been finding a balance for me. I think there are seasons where I want to be, you know, around van friends and social, and then there's other times where I'm like, yeah, like I like being by myself, I like my own company, I want to, you know, focus on X, Y and V or just kind of do my own route and do my own thing. So I think it just depends.
Speaker 1:Just to that offer. Van life offers like that perfect mix where you can choose to be alone or choose to be with people, because when you're in a city, you're constantly there's people around, no matter what. Yeah, so you don't have as many choices with alone time? I think yeah.
Speaker 2:And I think also with the community discussion, and I think it's like important to mention like van life can still be really lonely, like I'm not saying that over. You know the last three and a half years that I've not like dealt with loneliness, so I think that's really important just to mention as well that like there are going to be times where you want to be around people and you really want community and they're just not there. Like either by you're just there, you know they're physically not around, or you just haven't met people yet. Like those things are super valid and if anybody is listening to this and feeling like gosh, I just like haven't found it yet. Like I think that's so common. There's so many people who have not yet found you know community or people on the road and know that it exists and it just takes time, but it is out there and it's really special, you know when you find it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that is true, because I think also when living in cities, people can join like interest groups and stuff. I know when I lived in San Francisco, like I was deeply involved in the tango and dancing community and you'd instantly meet people or you could join like a hiking group or community. So there's way more like community functions you can join when you're living in a city, where the van thing I think you have to more actively be proactive and seek things out in order to make it happen. Yeah, totally. So it's an interesting difference.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so cool. Is there anything we missed? I feel like we covered so much with how to find a community. Was there any other thoughts that you had that I didn't think of?
Speaker 2:I don't know. Let me hear it, let me think I think we covered it. Yeah, those were the main, main ways.
Speaker 1:I think so too. Yeah, those are the things that I've heard from other people that have experienced myself. I'll have to go to a van meetup at some point. I went to the Adventure Van Expo, but that wasn't really a van lifer meetup, it was more a demonstration of different vans. So I'll have to try like a descend event, like you said. I think it'd be fun to go to one of those and meet, because I haven't met many van lifers in person. You know, it's only been through the podcast or through Instagram. It's more like I meet the sailors, and so it would be fun to go and meet the van lifers at some point.
Speaker 2:So I'll have to try that. Yeah, yeah, they're fun. I enjoy. It's been a minute. I haven't been to one in a couple of years, but they're, they are fun.
Speaker 1:Awesome, well, great, well. Thank you for sharing all your tips and just let people know, like, where to follow you find you. You're always posting fun stuff on Instagram, so, yeah, working people look you up.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so I yeah post often on Instagram. My handle is at court like the body part, but there's 70s. This is a complicated username but, yeah, court underscore in 70s. Hopefully that's. That'll just be in a show notes, it will be easier.
Speaker 1:Yes, yes, I'll definitely also put that in the show notes.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I've never had to say that out loud.
Speaker 1:And yeah, let people what's next for you, what are you up to and what are your next plans. Yeah, I say in quotes yeah, I am.
Speaker 2:Actually, I think, at the end of this chapter of my band life journey, I am. I just listed my band last week and I am hoping to go down to Central America and spend time in Guatemala, el Salvador, nicaragua, et cetera kind of getting back to I get my. When I first took off to travel back in 2019, I had this vision of living internationally and I kind of want to get back to that. So, yeah, I am. My band is for sales. Anybody is looking for an amazing budget camper, van and, yeah, heading to Central America. But I know this won't be the last time that I lived on the road. My fan life is my favorite way of travel and I just need a break. Three and a half years full time is a lot.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it is a lot. I can't imagine doing that because I also have the boat and that feels like a break from band life and vice versa. I'm glad I have the two modes of travel because, yeah, the boat just is a way different form of travel and then sometimes just staying put and being in a house or an apartment or a hut or whatever is really nice as well. So we've done that in the past too.
Speaker 1:Yeah, totally so, that's exciting that you're going to be exploring a different, different style of nomadic living. There's so many styles that we can do. Yeah yeah, I'm excited, very cool. And so where is your van listed? If people listening, if it's still for sale when people hear this, where can they check it out?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I have a post on Instagram. It's also listed on Facebook Marketplace in Phoenix. But yeah, if you actually, if you go to my Instagram, that has all the information and you can shoot me a message there.
Speaker 1:Very cool. Well, thank you so much for coming on the podcast and talking about community. I think people will find it helpful. So, thank you. Yeah, thank you so much for having me. Well, thanks so much for listening to this episode of the Wayward Home podcast. If you want to stay in touch with me via email and get answers to all your questions, head on over to the waywardhomecom forward slash subscribe to join my email list. That's the waywardhomecom forward slash subscribe, which I'll also add to the show notes. See you next time on the Wayward Home podcast.