The End of Van Life?

Why I came home

I was a day and a half into my 5,000-mile drive south for the winter when I impulsively pulled off the highway.

I didn’t need gas, but I stopped at a gas station anyway to top off my tank and buy myself a little time.

Since leaving New Hampshire the day before, I had felt my heart ripping out of my chest with each mile I drove further from home. There was the sad goodbye to my parents and husband in a grocery store parking lot, after Seth had spent two hours trying to make a last-minute fix to my 26-year-old camper van. There was a long, dark, rainy drive late into the night to park in a stranger’s driveway in Pennsylvania, where I could plug in and run my electric space heater, bracing against the 30-degree cold. There was waking with a feeling of dread and wondering if I should turn back, but I kept going, hoping my discomfort would fade.

Seth fixing the van in a grocery store parking lot on my departure day

Now I was six hours into another miserable day of highway driving, my van stacked between semi trucks for hundreds of miles straight. It was 5pm, and I was only halfway to my next stop. Each mile I traveled farther from home stretched my heart closer to breaking.

The moment I exited the highway, I decided I couldn’t stretch it any further. I had to stop and reevaluate my plans, because every mile I drove was another mile I’d have to retrace if I turned around.

After topping off the tank, I pulled up to a patch of grass and let the dogs out. I gave them dinner. I had a snack.

Then I opened my maps app. I was hundreds of miles from my next stop, with darkness descending. I opened my weather app. Flashing yellow signs all along the highway had been warning of a winter storm coming. I would be heading straight into the storm if I turned back.

I was stuck.

I agonized for hours about what to do. I was two days into a six-month adventure I’d been planning for months—a repeat of the road trip to the U.S. Southwest and Baja California, Mexico that I’d embarked on exactly one year earlier. I’d spent weeks ordering and organizing everything I’d need to stay on the road for up to a year. I’d spent a day on the phone renewing my travel insurance, my satellite radio, and my Planet Fitness membership. I’d spent two days packing the van, tucking everything into its place and ditching what didn’t fit. Seth had devoted weekends to getting the van ready for me, installing new brakes and new speakers and a new fire alarm, scrubbing the awning, and building a barrier around my solar panels to decrease wind resistance. Two months of my life had been devoted to the singular goal of getting back on the road.

And now all I wanted was to turn around and go home.

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