When you think of vanlife, what comes to mind?
If you are like me, you might think of freedom, the open road, and constant adventure. 

Prior to embarking on this trip, I would spend hours scrolling through #vanlife on Instagram in a daze of ecstasy as I saw snapshot after snapshot of beautiful people living their best lives. These modern-day nomads would meander from place to place, sleeping under the stars, swimming in pristine rivers, and enjoying a simpler life far away from the cooperate hustle and bustle that I had become accustomed to. 

I longed for that kind of freedom and imagined how picturesque my life would be if I took the plunge to join this band of vagabonds on the fringes of society. These feelings were magnified by isolation due to COVID-19 and the constant barrage of the news highlighting protests, death, destruction, natural disasters, etc. 

So, I did it! I am now a bona fide vanlifer. I get the newsletters, I have a social media accounts with the perfectly curated pictures, and I have found my place in this incredible community of dreamers and misfits.

That being said, I quickly learned that vanlife isn’t exactly what it is cracked up to be. The barrage of photos that have become synonymous with vanlife paint a picture of pure bliss, exotic locations, and a constantly rotating cast of interesting characters. My experience though has painted a completely different picture and while vanlife does have these things, I’ve learned that it is grotesquely romanticized and glamorized. Don’t get me wrong, I love what I am doing and feel like I am right where I am supposed to be. I cannot imagine ever swapping the keys to my van for another briefcase – but I do wish I had a more grounded understanding of this lifestyle before diving into in headfirst. 

So, if you are one of those people who are considering vanlife and you find yourself fantasizing about freedom on the road – or you are just curious about the more cringeworthy aspects of vanlife, this blog is for you!

Top 5 Worst Things About Vanlife

5. Finding Places to Stay

To anyone who has been following our blog, seeing this item on the list might come as a surprise. After all, we just published a post titled “Finding the Essentials: How We Locate Free Water and Free Camping While on the Road” in which we outlined our process for finding campsites each night.

Our process is both easy and successful; so much so that we have never had to pay for a place to sleep. So why then did finding places to stay rank at number 5 in our list?

Finding campsites comes in at number five because it is a constant struggle for us. On travel days, as soon as we wake up, we are start scouring maps for potential sites. 

Once we find a spot, we hit the road. Most of the time, that is all there is to it. We pull into the camping area, get set up, and relax for the night. 

Other times though, we are not as lucky. On occasion, we have pulled up to a camping area to find all the spots taken or that the area was not suitable to stay because of trash.
On other occasions, we found that the campsite no longer existed.

In all of these scenarios we were sent back to the drawing board to look for campsites. In these situations, If we do not have service, we have to drive blindly in hopes of finding something – which is always stressful because we are racing daylight. 

Once we do find a place for the night, the process starts over. 

4. Battling the Elements

Nothing is more frustrating than those things that we have absolutely no control over, including the weather. This is particularly true when you live a lifestyle that is totally dependent on the weather. 

So far on our trip, we have been lucky enough to have pretty pleasant conditions in almost every area we have visited, but every now and then, the weather can take an unpleasant turn.

We are constantly exposed to the elements. 
If the weather is nice, vanlife is perfect. If the weather is miserable, you might find yourself cursing vanlife and wishing you had stayed home. 

For example, when we were in Utah. We found a beautiful campsite located off of an access road in the middle of a desert landscape.

The views were incredible, and we had the whole place to ourselves. We arrived at around 6:00pm and watched the sunset as we ate supper. It was a perfectly clear with temperatures in the 60s. 

By 9:00am the next morning when we rolled out of the tent, the temperature had risen to nearly 90 degrees. The complete absence of clouds in the sky almost guaranteed to us that it was only going to get warmer as the day went on. 

We spent that whole day drenched in sweat, doing our best to stay cool as we hid in the shade of the van huddled around a small oscillating fan.

Other times when we have found ourselves in the midst of  rainstorms, we would have to quickly throw everything inside the van or tent and ride out the storm as best as we could. 

Wind is another challenge. If the wind is strong enough it will wreak havoc on our campsite.

A simple gust can whip through our van and our camp sending things flying in every direction. Also, on more than one occasion we have been sleeping in our tent and a windstorm would come through blowing the tent over, ripping the stakes out of the ground, and leaving us to pick up the pieces, dazed and confused, in the early hours of the morning. 

Lastly would be cloudy days. These days can be great as they provide a nice respite of the intense summer sun, but too much cloud coverage means that our solar panels can’t get the sunshine they need to recharge our generator. No generator means no power and no power means that we cannot cook certain foods, use our devices, etc.  

3. Everything is a Struggle 

One of the things nobody ever tells you about vanlife is how everything is a struggle. Simple tasks, like washing your hands, become drawn out chores in the van. We can’t just walk over to the sink, twist a knob and have an endless supply of warm water. Instead we have to move our solar showers into the sun, let them warm up, open the valve to allow the water to flow, and step on the solar shower with just enough pressure to allow water to flow.

If we want a shower, we have to pull out the shower tent, set it up, hoist the 50 pound shower bag onto the roof of the van, thread the nozzle of the shower bag into the shower tent, and take a quick shower so that we do not waste water.

 If we want a hot meal, we have to pull everything out of our cabinet so that we can access the tools and dishes we need, set up the propane stove, light the stove, disassemble our couches to get to the food storage, then cook the food. When we are done, we have to disassemble everything and return items to their homes (in a very specific order to ensure they fit and do not shift while the van is moving).

Do you get the picture? Literally nothing in vanlife is simple and for every task, there are 15-20 steps that need to be done to complete the task. 

2. Personal Space

Coming in at number two is personal space! 
This affects vanlifers differently, but at the end of the day it is a universal struggle.

To better highlight this challenge, I wanted to divide this into two sections:

 1. Challenges facing vanlifers traveling alone

 2. Challenges facing vanlifers traveling with others.

Solo Vanlifers

These brave nomads arguably have the easier time when it comes to personal space – I mean they are solo after all. That being said, too much of a good thing can be a bad thing. 

Over and over again I have talked to solo vanlifers who have talked about how difficult the solo life can be. Sure, they never have to awkwardly dance around someone who is in their way or go to grab something to find out it has been moved, but the tradeoff is that they spend a lot of time on their own. 

They don’t have someone to talk to on long drives or someone to laugh with when funny things happen. Additionally, they don’t have someone else around in case something happens, or they need help in any way. 

What I hear most often from solo travelers is that they are lonely. They spend the majority of their time completely isolated in their vans and they long to connect with other adventurers.

Luckily, the vanlife community is extremely tight knit and starting conversations on the road is easy. Also, those traveling alone can always caravan with other vanlifers – traveling from place to place together to take in the sites. There are even vanlife meetups throughout the year which are these incredible festivals that blend all things vanlife with a Coachella vibe (or so I’ve been told).

Vanlifers traveling with others

If traveling solo doesn’t seem like what you are looking for, then vanlifing with a friend or partner might be what the doctor ordered. It does have its drawbacks though. Traveling with people under the best of circumstances is hard. Now take that travel experience and confine it into 20 square feet of space. 

The truth of the matter is everyone has different personalities, quirks, triggers, expectations, etc. Under normal circumstances these differences might not come to light because most people have space from one another. When you are in a van though, the idea of personal space is an illusion. Your entire life revolves around the van, as does somebody else’s, so you will both constantly need access to that space. Also, when you are traveling with someone, they are always there… always. 

Get ready to constantly be dancing around someone because you are both trying to get something from the same place, having petty arguments about things that don’t matter, , and, if you’re an introvert like me, being tired all the time because you don’t have space to amply recharge. 

1.The Battle for Cleanliness

Don’t let those photos of perfectly manicured models in vans fool you, vanlife is dirty and staying clean is a lot harder than I ever thought possible. 

Keeping Your Space Clean

This is our biggest struggle. The van gets dirty – and it happens quick!
We clean the van several times a day and are still never satisfied. It is a losing battle thanks to the dogs and Mother Nature who work together seamlessly to keep us on our toes. The dogs are constantly tracking in mud and dirt while Mother Nature is constantly hitting us with flurries of dust and debris anytime the doors are open to get a breeze.  In addition to this dynamic duo, we are mobile meaning there are constant spills and messes when we hit bumps or potholes. 

Personal Hygiene

If you are one of those people who loves to take multiple showers a day or if you like to sit under the stream of warm water for hours as a way to let the stress of the day wash off of you and flow down the drain, then you might struggle with this too!

We are lucky if we get a shower every two to three days and half the time we bathe in rivers and streams where the water is cold enough to make your body go numb.

On the other hand, there are days where we set out the solar showers and they don’t get warm at all leaving us shivering as we ration just enough water to get the soap off of us. If a shower is out of the question, we have to resort to using all-natural, biodegradable, baby wipes to keep ourselves clean. 

A second aspect to hygiene is going to the bathroom. We essentially have 3 options:

1. When we are in remote places, we grab the shovel and dig a hole. This is a surprisingly empowering and invigorating task – but learn from my mistakes, dig the hole deep enough that your dogs won’t find it.   

2. Gas stations – a necessary evil on the road. 

3. In more developed campgrounds there are pit toilets. These are by far the worst option as they are usually very poorly maintained and overused – but when nature calls, you have to answer. 

So, there you have it, our top 5 worst things about vanlife!

Vanlife comes with a lot of sacrifices and compromises. That being said, if you are able to make those sacrifices, the rewards of this lifestyle are endless. You will deeply connect with yourself and with others. You will find happiness in simple pleasures, and you will find a deep sense of fulfillment.