from the van

Miles started Light Harvest Solar 9 years ago buying solar panels in bulk and selling them a la carte. Since then, he's turned the company into a sophisticated supplier of both component-based and self-contained off-grid solar electric systems. I sat down with him in August as he moved into a new warehouse to talk about the direction of the company and his vision for off-grid electric in the future.

Charlie is a super activist and the Oregon Policy Manager for the Surfrider Foundation. While working at the aquarium, he moved onto an anchored boat right outside of Rogue Brewing in Newport, OR. I sat down to talk with him about the nexus between sustainability and minimal living, coastal advocacy, the similarities between territorialism in surfing and vanlife, and of course... pooping in a bucket.

I met Ed last summer on my way up the Oregon coast. We met up to caravan and record a podcast a few days later. It's really awesome to have a conversation with someone who's unapologetically confident about their path. I hope you have a good time with this conversation I thoroughly enjoyed.

Wow, Jacey Travels! We sat down in June, and Jacey made me feel like I needed to ramp it up. At 24, she had already traveled the globe on a shoestring budget, authored a book, and started traveling North America by van. 

Jarrod has been a good friend for 3 years, and he's been on my podcast too many times. But dude is fun to talk to, and he is constantly switching up his momentum for another new adventure. He's been on the podcast 4 times in the last two years, but he's also had 4 homes in that time frame. For a lot of van lifers, moving around geographically is enough. But Jarrod is constantly reframing what it means to travel and sit still. Is it all a gimmick to keep his YouTube viable? Well, I'm remiss that I didn't ask him that question directly, so I figured it was best to put him on blast in this caption to console my interviewer regret. Now, have fun listening to us be dicks to each other.

I met Erin & Joe at Tiny Fest this spring, and I'd been trying to get them on the podcast for a month. We finally connected right next to the Half Moon Bay Yacht Club and hung out for a day and a half. It was a rad place to rendezvous and spend an afternoon. Erin made us all some of her signature van life pizzas, and the next morning we finally sat down to record a podcast. It was a great time chatting with them. I was particularly interested in the van they built out on the same length Ram Promaster that I have. There are definitely some elements in their build that would have changed some of the elements of my build had I seen them first.

Nick & Jake are Moxi & Loon, a two piece psychedelic rock band that have played shows for years with their vans backed together outdoors at events. Jake is a full time van lifer in a Promaster with an impressive electrical system and Nick splits his time between his old converted Chevy and hashtaghouselife. Just as they were getting a tour booked in 2020, the world shut down. But they've used the time since then to sharpen their act and make connections that were uniquely available to them because of the weird world which presented itself last year. We just basically hung out and laughed at each other.

Sometimes, living in a van, you just meet someone in a parking lot. A lot of times living in a van, you just meet someone in a parking lot. Ali was parked over close to my favorite spot to cook and watch the surf in Encinitas. she was loading a SUP into her van, and we had a great chat. So we decided to record a chat about her decision to move into her van full time, and the travels she plans to execute in it.

Chris came out to Tiny Fest, CA from Nashville. He's only been in his van for a couple of weeks, and he's been going around to different van meetups as he settles into his mostly built van. We sat down to have a chat about his build and his adjustment into the whole van life thing.

I drove up on the bluff to walk the dog one day and caught wind of this woman giving stick 'n poke tattoos in the back of a van. This is a story you probably won't find anywhere else. So I tracked down her contact and set up the interview, slightly worried I should've done a little more due diligence to make sure it was wise to interview her. Kat turned out to be an absolute delight: clever, funny, and bravely honest with a dude she just met. It was an absolute pleasure to talk to her. And I don't know shit about tattoos, so there's a decent primer for the novices out there in this episode too. Enjoy it. I surely did.

Ellie is a rad woman with whom I became quite good friends over the pandemic lockdown. We originally met up with her boondocking with some of our other vanlife friends on BLM land outside of Bend, OR. Since then, we've kept in touch and keep meeting up to hang out whenever we're in the same area. I was stoked to finally get to sit down and record a conversation with her about her transition into van life and outlook on the whole situation.

Seth and our buddy, Dave, built out his Sprinter camper in like 3 weeks, which has got to be some sort of record. Also odd, he moved full-time into his van right as the COVID-19 locked down much of California and the world. But he stayed stoked anyway, because that's what Seth does. We had a good socially distant chat about all of that just as Southern California began to experiment with reopening much of its businesses and public space.

Melanie is a trumpet player and part time van lifer from Tasmania. I miss hanging out with podcasts guests in my van, but the upside of the current state of the podcast is that I got wonderful insights about van life across the world from a quite pleasant Australian I may have never actually spoken to otherwise. 

Johnny lives part-time in a low top Ford Transit traveling around New England photographing headshots for colleges. The Coronavirus outbreak sent him back to hunker down on his property in southern Alabama. Since then, he's been hosting van lifers like John, giving them a place to post up rather than having to navigate life on the road during lockdown.

Megan is a good friend of ours who lives in a beautiful Sprinter. For 6 weeks, she's been self isolating on public lands in the Southwest. We hopped on a zoom call to talk to her about her experience quarantining outside. We had a great chat about how mountain biking, her experience with solitude in the outdoors, and how this whole coronavirus situation might affect her van life timeline in the future.

Madelyn, Caleb, and Christian have all been on the podcast before... before Corona. Now, Madelyn and Caleb are hunkering down at an uncle's property in Texas. Christian is temporarily posted up in Idyllwild, CA. We got on a video conference to record a podcast about how we're all coping with van life during the pandemic. We talked epic trip they took together. We speculated about what this means for the van community going forward. It was fun, and surprisingly sort of uplifting.

We're stuck posted up in a driveway in Oceanside. We miss our friends, and we can't meet up with them to record podcasts. So we tried one on Zoom with our buddies Shane Dennis and Jarrod Tocci. We're all pretty close, so it was a total train wreck. Hopefully you enjoy it anyway. Stay safe.

In the midst of a global crisis, Colette lost her car and computer in a matter of two days. We are having a good time.

So, Colette, Spin, and I are observing social distancing and lockdown. We've only been to the grocery store in the last six days and only went there once. We've had a lot of #vanlife sort of stuff going on notwithstanding the global pandemic spreading around us. We took this isolation as an opportunity to talk about our new van, last month's TinyFest, and, of course, van life under this shelter in place order. We like chatting with each other, and we're super thankful that anybody cares to listen to us. Stay safe, friends. 

Peya is a lovely young woman from Idaho living in a large Dodge Promaster. She plunged into van life based just on research she performed on the internet. We talk about her journey from her father helping her build out the van in his shop, to finding a close knit community of people in a small Northern California town.

Renee is the creator and organizer of Tiny Fest events around the country. This coming weekend is Tiny Fest California at the Del Mar Fairgrounds in San Diego County, featuring tiny homes, container homes, skoolies, and vans. It was super cool to sit down and chat with her about minimal living and the societal shift that these movements will inevitably bring. She's also offered us stage time on Saturday, February 29, to host our first podcast episode in front of an audience. Tune in at 5pm on instagram. I'll do my best to live-stream the podcast.

Matt is a professional wind tunneler and skydiver with a Guinness World Record. He's also a survivor of one of the nastiest set of injuries I've ever heard recounted. He's leveraged this experience to a thriving place of positivity and gratitude. Talking with this guy really put my melodrama and self pity in perspective. He's recently moved into a van, and will be traveling the country promoting community with his company, Flock Goods. Check him out, and try to hang with him when he's in your town. Time is well spent with Matt.

Mark and Tim came into town to pick up a couple of vans to take them up to his conversion shop in Portland, Oregon. Nomadik Customs converts vans for all sorts of customers. We had a great chat with these guys. They definitely know their stuff, and seem to have a great time working at it.

Shane showed up in our hood while we were gone. He's recently come out from New Jersey, and he's living full time with his pitfalls Millie and Bucky in a giant Mercedes Sprinter that he converted himself. He's been great to hang our with for the last little while, and we had a nice little sit down and chat. Hope you enjoy it.

Jarrod Tocci is a vanlifer, youtuber, and comedian who's just finished his second van build. It's a 2019 Sprinter with as many bells and whistles as I've ever seen in a DIY-ish camper van. He designed the van and did a lot of the work himself, but he got professionals to help him out with many of the more technical aspects, so he calls it a DIY-Assist build. He's also a good friend, so we basically just hung out and bullshitted for an hour and a half on this episode. Here's hoping you enjoy that.

Megan is a nomad accountant living in a converted Mercedes Sprinter. We met when she was between vans in early 2019, and we've been trying to get her on the podcast ever since. We kept missing each other, but winter in SoCal is where all the vanners flock in the winter. Turns out we didn't even need to chase her. But it's been really great to spend some time with her.

Angela owns a house in Phoenix and lives part time in an old Ford Econoline van the rest of the time. We had a wonderful hang. We talked about the pursuit of a nomadic lifestyle, heartbreak, and trying to find a gig that fulfills. Though we had only just met, she was simply inspiringly candid and kind. If you get a chance, you should probably hang out with her too.

Ben Carter doesn't live in a van, but he is the Senior Litigation Attorney at the Kentucky Equal Justice Center. He deals with eleventy billion equity issues including affordable housing, which is quite relevant to the various minimal living movements like vehicular habitation and tiny houses.  We visited him in his comfortable stationary house in Louisville, KY earlier this year. And we had such a spirited conversation that I asked him to come on the podcast when he came out to a conference in San Diego. This guy is fucking brilliant and equally compassionate. And I love it when a conversation changes the way I think about a topic. I'm pleased to say that happened in this podcast.

Bowen is a paraglider, kite surfer, and entrepreneur who moved into his minivan camper the day after the last time he was on the podcast. He and I both have the Mercedes Metris diy camper van, and we hooked up down in San Diego county to talk about his first few months in van life and where he's headed in his van to camper conversion in the future. We talked about parking, travel around North America, and his plan to ship his van over to Europe next year. It's always fascinating to compare and contrast experiences with other folks living on the road to hear how we perceive our space in this nomadic adventure.

Becca & Jeremy spent the last couple of years living in a tiny house on Colette's dad's compound in Fallbrook, CA. Tim had a bit lot with space for another structure, and he helped them build a stand-alone loft studio / shed in the yard. They've since moved into a larger place in Palm Springs, and they're getting married in June 2020. I wanted to have them on the podcast to talk about the similarities and differences between #vanlife and #tinyhouse life. They're delightful folks, and we had a great conversation.

Kamryn moved out to California from Alabama a few years ago. After being confronted with astronomical rents, she was inspired by members of the climbing community to build out a van and move into it. Today, she’s living with some friends of mine in a house where I used to live several years ago. We had a great chat about her decision to move back into a brick and mortar residence as well as what her time living in a van taught her about herself and the world around her.

We were racing back to San Diego through the Colorado Rockies. I was looking for someone to ask for advice on where to go hiking and where to crash in the van. The local paper had a write up about these guys who are building out vans close to vail, so I hit them up. Two strangers turned out to be two super sharp dudes who are approaching the van thing from a particularly community-oriented angle. I really enjoyed hanging out with Dave & Matt. Go bother them at their shop when you're passing through Gypsum, CO.

Blair has customized her Mercedes Metris as a weekend river surfing adventure rig. We were passing through Denver and had a good chat with her about this fascinating sport we've never tried.

September 21 marked one year of Colette, Spin, and I living in my van full-time. We sat down to talk about her life and our experience making a life in a very small living space. We discussed our desires for the next van we'd like to move into and our friends & families' reactions to our decisions to wade into this somewhat unusual lifestyle.

This is a different one! D-Stroy is an emcee who's part of the Arsonists, a NY hip hop group that put out one of my favorite albums of all time. D-Stroy is of particular interest to me because he's a super inspiring renaissance man, of sorts, who has cultivated and translated his performance talents into a super diverse career bridging from hip hop to announcing for a variety of sports to hosting a show on satellite radio. He's energetic, hilarious, and exploding with positivity. Very inspiring. I've been a fan of this guy for 20 years, and it was an honor and privilege to get to sit down and pick his brain. 

Billie and Kaleb are a couple from North Carolina that we met at a van life meetup in San Diego last year. When we came to meet up with them in Brooklyn, they were trying to take care of an drivetrain issue with their friend Alex's van. They took a break to all come over for a chat about living on the road in our van, parked a few blocks away.