There is a huge learning curve to living on the road. Learn from our mistake and make sure to get these 10 Vanlife essentials we can’t believe we didn’t have from the start!
By Bekah Whitney & Sawyer Lane
When we started vanlife / nomadic living in 2019, we only purchased what we believed were the necessities and we quickly learned we didn’t actually know what that meant when it came to living on the road.
The list below includes everything we wish we would’ve purchased from the very start if we could do it over again.
Vanlife is a way of living a nomadic lifestyle on the road. Vanlifers don’t have to live in vans and can be in anything from a small vehicles to a large RV.
Although vanlife means means a variety of different things to different people, everyone can agree on the freedom that vanlife provides one’s lifestyle. Wheather it’s physical freedom or financial freedom, vanlifers live in a wide
There is a lot of controversy on what is needed to make vanlife work and while you can live off the bare minimum, we suggest doing a little extra! In this post we share with you 10 things that aren’t bare essentials, but we still count as necessities to be comfortable!
Because we have a budget build, we cannot run any “large appliances”. And yes, a coffee maker made the list of “large appliance” according to our batteries and solar system.
I decided this was the perfect excuse to cut back on my caffeine habit. There was one major flaw in this thinking though: I LOVE coffee. I love the smell of it brewing in the morning, I love the array of fun creamers I can add to it, and I love that it gives me something to look forward to right when I wake up. I quickly found that instead of kicking my caffeine habit, I was spending lots of money on it at Starbucks and similar expensive establishments. That’s when I purchased this wonderful Pour Over Coffee Maker. We use our propane stove to heat the water and boom! Coffee without electricity.
As you may have guessed, instead of thinking of ways to work around the “large appliance” problem, we just said “who needs that?” I don’t care how clean you are, living out of a van, camper, rv, or whatever mobile home, it is going to get dirty way faster than you thought it would. The free vacuums at the gas station just aren’t going to cut it. Do yourself a favor and buy a little one!
In our dream of living on the road, there were no bugs (or work or rain). We opened up the doors, breathed in the fresh air and were living our best lives.
Reality came knocking on the door when we travelled to the eastern part of the country. We realized that if we were going to have our doors open we were always going to have bugs. Enter these wonderful magnetic screen doors. Fresh air, no bugs. They have made living in a camper trailer much more enjoyable since we installed them. Fair warning , though, your cat or dog or a team of both will work quickly to destroy it, so don’t be too heartbroken when you see the first hole.
If you live in a van this one isn’t going to help you, but everyone with a truck or extra vehicle listen up! Before we had the truck tank, the whole trailer was coming into town when we needed to refill water. Now Sawyer fills up the truck tank and pumps water into our sink’s tank. Got to the trailhead and forgot to fill the water bottles? Truck tank. Finished mountain biking and you’re all covered in mud? Truck tank. No planet fitness nearby? Truck tank, if it’s warm enough. If it isn’t, boil a pot of water and add it to the tank. It’s better than no shower.
This is probably the one that always surprises people the most when they hear we didn’t have one from the start. But hey, we were never anywhere very hot until we decided to hit the East Coast. If you are wondering if you need one or not in your build, you do. Just get it. It pulls cooking steam out, it pulls bathroom aromas out, and it pulls hot air out. Win, win, win.
For two years we just had a regular cooler that we bought ice for. We both loved camping and saw no problem with using a cooler for full-time living. The problem came when all the ice melted and we forgot to grab more. The food would go bad and keeping items, such as butter, were especially annoying because anything without a full on seal got nasty cooler water in it. At only 15W of power usage on eco mode, it is well worth it.
We actually tried to use those bluetooth key trackers that ring and show you where they are from the app, but those didn’t work well. I’m assuming that even though they said “great for pets,” they didn’t do product testing on a nomadic cat. Sawyer saw a pet tracker and thought, “why not try again?” This thing is awesome. It’s more of a hot and cold game than giving you an exact location, but we’ve always found the cat and it’s pretty darn awesome for a $13 dollar tracker without having to pay any monthly fees!
When Sawyer found Boondockers Welcome, it opened a whole new world to us. If you aren’t familiar, this is a community of mostly RV’ers that allow you to park on their land for a few days out of the kindness of their hearts. It has been a real game changer as to where we can travel and we have met some amazing people through it. An absolute must for the East coast.
We love food. Sawyer loves to cook and we both love to eat. The fact that it took us so long to get a tiny grill still surprises me. Tasty grilled meats, pineapples, squash and sweet potatoes without washing any pots or pans! You can grill to your heart’s desire without lugging a huge grill around, which brings me to my next item.
Update: In California, a bear actually tried to get into our grill and couldn’t figure it out. It can defeienlty handle some abuse!
Do you use those little green bottles of propane? Maybe for your Tiny Grill or if you have a little propane heater? Do yourself a favor and stop spending money (and wasting materials) buying new bottles every time. Just keep two and refill them! There is a label that says you shouldn’t refill the Coleman ones, but we’ve never exploded. (Disclaimer: We are not responsible for any injury if that should occur from refilling)
Hi! I’m Bekah, but you can call me Beks, all my friends do! I travel full-time in a tiny home on wheels that my partner, Sawyer, and I built from a cargo trailer shell in 2019. We started out in beautiful Colorado and have been all over the United States over the years. This space is designed to inspire and guide the nature obsessed nomad, weekend warrior, and future roadlifer. I’m so excited you’re here!
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Everyone goes through wishing they upgraded or bought something sooner, but all the things on this list would have saved us money and/or time that we wish we would have started with them. If there is something on this list that shocked you or you hadn’t thought of leave us a comment below! Let us know if you waited too long to purchase something that you wish you had from the beginning of your journey.
We wanted a watercraft for a long time, but didn’t quite know what to pull the trigger on. We wanted something that was durable and folded up nice and small. After watching videos of a jeep driving over the kayak and hit it with a hammer, we knew it was the one for us!
If you don’t already have a hammock, you really need to get on it! The Eno is a lightweight, packable, and durable hammock perfect for anyone living on the road. We have a single nest because neither of us seem to want to be in the hammock at the same time, but they do make a Double Nest if you are looking to cuddle up with your significant other in it.
Listen, everyone with photos of their van door wide open has flies. Adding a screen door was an absolute game-changer for us, plus it is attached through velcro so that you can easily remove it when you are ready to take those idyllic photos. If you haven’t hit the road yet, just get one. If you already have, this is the answer to your fly problem, you’re welcome.
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