Nate and Kara Buchanan spent a full year living in a van after switching from international travel during COVID. They talk through the real challenges, technical problems, and unexpected perks of van life compared to traveling abroad.
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We just realized a couple weeks ago that we were coming up on one year of Van Life, and we just kind of wanted to do something to commemorate that, but also make sure the full story was told. We had been hearing the rumors online.
Karen and Nate don't really like Van Life. It was true, though.
And at some points, that was true. Every good roller coaster starts with that first big drop.
If you're new here, we're Karen Knight. We spent four years traveling to 100 countries and building this YouTube channel around our international travel adventures. We had all intentions of continuing our international escapades until our flight leaves in an hour.
And.
It is seriously a miracle.
After spending one of the weirdest months of our lives in a hotel in Singapore, we realized this Covid thing wasn't going away anytime soon. So we made our way back to.
The US and we are back in.
Nashville, where we found ourselves quarantined in a cabin in the woods, going crazy.
Having no clue what to do as travel YouTubers during a pandemic. If we weren't able to get on an airplane again for the rest of the year, what would you want to watch us do instead? So we put our life up for a vote on Instagram. Buy a van, the Internet said so. That's exactly what we did. We are driving to Georgia to buy our van in May of 2020, when the world was filled with uncertainty.
It's ours, and our bank account is a lot lighter.
We bought a converted Sprinter V, and that's where a year of van life began.
One of the best parts about transitioning from international travel to van life is that we get to drink great coffee every morning. This might not seem like a big deal to most people, but moving into the van was the first time we've owned a coffee maker in over four. Four years.
It's so great.
It is May of 2021, which means that it has been an entire year since we bought this van. And if you've been following along with our journey, it's no secret that the past year has been full of ups and downs.
So without further ado, we present to you the Van Life roller coaster. Van life started way up here. We were pumped. We had just spent two months in a dark cabin in the woods quarantining, and we bought the van in Atlanta, drove it back to Nashville.
All right, here we go.
And it just felt surreal. We've never owned a home together. We haven't bought cars since we've been married. And for the last four years, we've been Homeless and carless. But today, we're buying our home and our car at the same time. We were so excited. We spent a whole month doing renovations, just making it more hours.
And as we were doing the renovations, the anticipation just kept building more and more. We were just so excited to get on the road and be traveling again. And then, literally, before we pulled out of the driveway, our fridge broke. Oh, it's attached. Yeah, that was dumb. So our first stop on this van life adventure was to the manufacturing facility of the fridge company in Kentucky.
Strong start.
Then from there, there was just a steep learning curve. Moving into van life. We quickly learned that when you have your home on wheels and everything bumps and rattles around, things are bound to break. And that's exactly what they did.
Our ceiling lights broke. Then a rock chips the windshield. One of our tires went flat. Our shore power quit working. Our solar panels quit charging. Door latches broke. But I feel like those first few weeks, like, we had a good attitude. We didn't really let it bother us at the beginning.
We remember this very differently. All I wanted to do was get out there and travel and start making travel videos again for this channel. And we couldn't do that because we were just living in a constant construction zone. So after getting the fridge fixed, the electrical from, like, day one was a headache.
I did not think that was gonna happen. I knew nothing about solar or electricity or batteries, anything with a cord on it. So it felt like, for the first few months, we were just battling keeping this van powered, and that became extremely frustrating. We're just gonna pretend like everything's fine until we have coffee.
And then there was navigating the whole compost toilet situation.
It was really more of, like, the whole liquid situation. Our toilet, our sink, liquids were created. Where do you dump these liquids? We have big time messed up. Oh, I need your help. Okay, put the camera down. I need your help.
I think we thought we would figure it out a lot more quickly than we did.
Oh, there's pee. There's pee. The world's not built for vans. We have to physically lift our pee and take it somewhere.
Just pour it down the shower drain right there.
Gross. And then the gray water that's created by the sink. Depending on what you read online and who you listen to, some people are like, sure, dump it in the grass.
Open it up on the interstate. What somebody told us to do that.
We ultimately ended up going with, okay, if everybody did what we were doing today, would this still work?
Just how much would it infect? Infect Probably. How much would it affect the environment and others if everybody did this? And that's kind of how we ended up making decisions like, everybody just dumped their pee in the grass. How gross would that be? Then there was the whole propane fiasco.
It's leaky. I've made smarter decisions in my life.
Previous to van life, we slept in a different bed every two days, every three days. And I kind of pride myself in being able to sleep really well in any environment, on any surface.
But the bed in the van is just plain old uncomfortable.
Plain old uncomfortable. We've been in Mississippi too long. We weren't sleeping well for a long time, and I think that affected our attitude a lot.
Also, once we hit the road, we discovered that the hot water in the van didn't work.
Oh, it's not hot. It's not hot.
Which meant that we were stuck taking cold showers, which really meant that we just didn't shower very often.
Nope.
I know we're complaining a lot here, but this is the downward slide of the roller coaster. Last but not least was the constant struggle for Internet. As YouTubers, we needed to be able to upload big files. And to find Internet. Good enough for that in the van was a constant challenge. It seemed like we were just on one big scavenger hunt for good Internet.
I do feel like every time we found ourselves in one of those picturesque places where we're just living in the van with a beautiful sunset, mountain view.
We get parked, pull out our phone.
No Internet. Oh, always great. So that was, like, sad. You have this vision of, like, living and working on the road, but it took us a while to figure out how to really do that.
Just to be completely transparent, we didn't show everything and show all of the frustrations because.
Because of how we sound right now, really.
Remember Last year was 2020. It was a weird year. People had their own struggles, and we didn't feel like we needed to put more of ours out into the world.
I just realized every good roller coaster, like, you always board the seat from the ground level. That's where we were in the cabin in the woods. Lowest point, crank up. Slow crank. It was like, oh, we're going to live in a van. Okay.
But we didn't know we were on a roller coaster yet.
We were going up and up and up. And then every good roller coaster starts.
With that first big drop, but it.
Always has to go back up. Are there any roller coasters that just go down and don't go anywhere else?
That's a water Slide. But then we started to get the hang of things. We were figuring out where to camp. We discovered Harvest Host, which let us camp for free at wineries and breweries. And that was pretty sweet.
Harvest Host was a game changer.
We were out west. The weather was beautiful. We were with friends. And then there was the bike trip, which for me was a highlight of 2020.
This is beautiful.
Oh, gosh it rocky. And the only reason that we were able to pull that off was because the van enabled it.
Man, the bike trip was nuts.
I rode 500 miles without going to the hospital, so things were really looking up. And then we finished the bike trip.
Well, I got it apart. Boom, back to reality.
I gotta deal with all this stuff again. So I got this phone call from the National Park Service saying that we were getting a hefty fine and we were no longer allowed to film in national parks.
Two days later, I got a call from the FAA telling me that I was no longer allowed to fly my drone. Neither one of those things have anything to do with van life. It was just this frustration that we've been filming internationally for four years, and then we get to the US and there's all of this red tape.
National parks are the most beautiful parts of the entire country, and that was taken away from us. And we were just like, what are we supposed to do now?
And then things started breaking again. The backup camera went out. So we went to get that fixed. And then we learned that our van was about to catch on fire because of some faulty wiring. So we had to get that fixed. All these cables in your fuse sizes are not even close to correct. The weather started getting cold. We had some more power issues.
We had spent about a week living in a mechanic's garage, and we had just decided, let's get it all fixed by a professional. And that's what we did. It was this reset. We were so excited. We spent every day living in that garage planning the most epic road trip down the Pacific Coast Highway. And we couldn't wait. Everything was working. I'm so warm and happy. We were like, this is it. We're going to end the year doing what I've always wanted to do. We are heading north to officially start the Pacific coast highway from the very top.
Cancelled.
That was a low moment for me. We definitely had some really good times in the van in 2020. But if we're being completely honest here, when our PCH trip was cancelled, I was so done with the van. I think I've been trying to stay positive and work through it for so long. And I just got to this point where I thought, this isn't worth it anymore. And so we just decided that we were gonna turn the van around and drive straight back home for the holidays.
When we pulled into my parents driveway for Thanksgiving, I honestly thought we would never be back in the van if.
Our van mysteriously fell off a cliff, I was gonna be excited about.
Turned out that a whole month at home with friends and family Far away from the van Was the reset that was we didn't know that we needed.
It's true, distance really does make the heart grow fonder. We are officially moving back into the van. We're going to make some much needed upgrades, and then we're heading off on a big adventure.
So not only did we decide to give van life a second chance in 2021, but we also publicly committed to visiting all 50 states. But not before we fixed our three most annoying things about van life. We figured if we were doing this, we were going to do it right. First thing on our list was the bed. And Nate bought this giant trifold mattress.
And then you just go over that.
I was very skeptical about. I am very happy to report that this bed has been a game changer. It is 6 solid inches of memory foam, and I seriously don't know what we ever did without it. We have been sleeping so well this year.
Underneath the bed, we have these cushions that turn into couches and a table right here. But we hardly ever convert this anymore because the bed does kind of add an extra step and make it a little more annoying. But now when we do want to sit back here, I put this blanket on here so it looks a little nicer. You just lean back on it like this, and it's super comfy. It pretty much feels like you're sitting on a couch with your feet propped up and we're ready to go to sleep. We just pull it back out, and the bed's already made.
So my master plan to increase the toilet capacity didn't exactly work out. That's.
Going to hold a lot of pee, which is good as long as it fits. But of the three things on the list, this was probably the least important.
Drum roll, please. And the biggest game changer of 2021 is.
Oh.
Our professional RV friends gave us this hot spot, and it has been absolutely life changing. Instead of having to get a hotel once a week to be able to upload video or work in parking lots because cities are the places that have good Internet, We've been working for Places like Yellowstone and Badlands National Park. We've been actually camping in the van.
It's crazy, right?
It's a beautiful thing. It's the best thing, and it's unlimited.
It changes everything.
Also, we started this season of van life in February.
Almost four months have gone by, and I have yet to open the electrical cabinet.
The cabinet of two.
I used to be underneath this cushion trying to fix something like every other day. Our power has worked flawlessly. Getting the alternator charger that charges the batteries while we drive installed last year has been a game changer. That, and I'm a little embarrassed to admit that I learned that if you turn the inverter off when you're not using it, it saves a lot of power.
Hey, better late than never. Now, this year hasn't been completely perfect. Both our faucet and our water purifier froze and burst, which means we were without running water for a very long time. But I think our attitudes are just better this year.
So while it wasn't ideal, we didn't let it detract from our happiness. Like past problems.
Hard as a rock.
And the icing on top is now. We're starting to get some beautiful warm weather, which means that finally, after 12 months of living in the van, van life is finally starting to live up to what we thought it would be from the very beginning.
We've been cold for so long.
We might just be slow learners, but we feel like it's taking us this long to really get everything figured out. So at a time when we thought we'd be so ready to get back on airplanes. Planes. We're loving van life more than ever.
But don't get us wrong, International travel will always be our first love. And as soon as we're done with this 50 states goal, we'll be back on airplanes flying to new countries. But we're not in nearly as big of a rush as we were before.
We've actually been talking over the last couple days about how hard it's going to be to go back to living in a suitcase. We've gotten really spoiled in the van.
Yeah. Like, I don't know if I could keep up with my previous. You know when, like, your mom picks up a basketball for the first time in forever and, like, shoots what? And it's like, oh, I hurt my shoulder. Like, I feel like that's gonna be us traveling. Like, we're gonna be, like, running from the lounge. Yeah. Being like, I need a cart.
I feel like we were pretty negative about van life. At the beginning of this video. So let me give you our favorite ways. Our lives have changed since transitioning from international travel to the van.
So I pretty much went four years without cooking, and I love going out to eat. It's a huge part of travel for us. But it's just been really nice to cook what I want to eat, go to the grocery store, stock up on my spice cabinet, be able to have a few fridge where we put our leftovers, and reheat them the next day. It's been a nice change, and I think we're healthier because of it. Maybe not. We absolutely love having our home with us all the time.
It doesn't get more convenient than this.
We did not know how much we loved this until we did a short road trip to Sarah gordo earlier this year without the van, and I didn't know what to do with myself.
Anytime we're driving down the road, it's like, I'm hungry. Problem solved. I'm thirsty. Problem solved. Have to go to the bathroom. Problem solved.
Oh, shoot. We were supposed to be on a business call five minutes ago.
Pull over. We always have a dining room, Especially during the pandemic when dining rooms are closed and you have to eat in your car anyway, right there in the.
Parking lot while the food was still hot.
Mmm. That was a huge plus.
No more soggy fries for us. Most people have to get rid of stuff when they move into a van. We, on the other hand, we lived out of a suitcase for four years. I'm pretty sure the size of my suitcase is equivalent to one and a half of these drawers. And now we have room for all kinds of stuff that we couldn't bring with us before, like my essential oils diffuser, my lap desk. Not one, but two pairs of tennis shoes, my massage gun.
Way too many clothes.
I have at least three cardigans in here, which is two more than I used to have. Exercise weights. Actually, just got these. You get the point. Now more stuff isn't always better, but it's been really nice to have all these little conveniences.
Ow. Speaking of extra stuff, not only do we have it, but we don't have to pack it up every single time we want to move to a new location. When we used to travel internationally, we love cruises because it was the only way that we could get from one place to the next without having to unpack our suitcase. Now that's just our life. We definitely miss flying on airplanes, but we did not and will not ever miss packing.
And now every time we're getting ready to leave. All we have to do is throw all this stuff in the sink and close all the windows. We're ready to go.
We spend so much less in the van than we did traveling internationally. After we got past the initial big purchase, we pretty much just spend money on food and gas. We probably spend in a month in the van what we used to spend been in a week. We've been on the road for almost four months this year and we've probably paid for five nights of camping.
Probably our least favorite thing about international travel was how far we were from friends and family and how little we got to see them. But this past year we've been very available, especially if you have a driveway that we can park in for probably way longer than we were invited for. And we've been able to invite people like Nate's brother to come sleep on our floor. We've had friends and family come travel with us in various places and that's all because we're not halfway across the globe and we can just drive our van wherever we want. And by far our favorite part of van life versus international travel is the flexibility we have. We just thought we were last minute planners before. This year. Van life has taken it to a.
Whole new level legitimately. 50 plus percent of the mornings that we wake up, we don't know where we're going to sleep that night.
If we like where we are, we stay. If we don't like it, we leave. And we've just never had it that easy before.
If worse comes to worse, we can always just take our bed to the Walmart parking lot, sleep there and figure it out the next day.
Before, we always had like a plane booked or a train booked or the Airbnb wasn't available and we couldn't just like spur the moment, change plans very often.
It was expensive. We had to set the 50 states goal because otherwise we just end up staying in the same place.
That's what happened last year.
We just love Colorado.
So we never left, we just stayed.
I know this video has been a little different, but we just realized a couple weeks ago that we were coming up on one year of van life and we just kind of wanted to do something to commemorate that, but also make sure the full story was told. We had been hearing the rumors online.
Karen, Nate don't really like van life.
It was true though, and at some points that was true. But now that we're enjoying our time in the van, we didn't want people questioning as we're finishing out all 50 states. If we were doing this because we felt like we had to, or if we were doing it because we truly enjoyed it. Because right now, we really are loving van life. We admit it more than we want to.
Without all the bad times, we wouldn't appreciate these good times 100%. You know, like, if it was easy from the beginning, I don't think we would have this bond. We did that.
There have been times that I want to strangle them. And now any day it works without breaking. I'm just like me and you, buddy, and you the three of us Just the three of us we could make.
It if we tried Just the three.
Of us it's the two, isn't it? I don't know. It's like an old song that I obviously don't know too well either.
Have you ever heard of Mississippi referred to as the Sip?
No.
Somebody on Instagram was like, welcome to the Sip. I like it.
It's just the two of us. Or three of us. Or four of us. Or five of us.
Is that how you guys.
No. Ow. Ow.
Thanks again to J. Crew for sponsoring this video.
