Starting your vanlife dreams can be rather intimidating, if not down right scary. We spent ages researching and pondering if this was the right step for us. Something that would have greatly helped us figure it all out and actually start living in a van is a step-by-step guide on how to get started. So that’s what we’ve tried to do for you here!
This is our simplified step-by-step approach to making your vanlife dreams come true. From figuring out what exactly your vanlife dreams look like to actually grabbing your new keys and hitting the road with your van. This would have made our lives so much easier, so here’s hoping it helps you to reach your vanlife goals a little earlier than we did.
Be sure to check out our Instagram to see our vanlife dreams unfolding!
What’s Your Why?
Foremost, why do you want to live in a van? Are you wanting a change of pace, do you want to see more of the world, are you just jumping on the trend?
Figure out your why before committing.
This will make a big difference in lasting at vanlife or giving up at the first hurdle. Believe us when we say vanlife isn’t for everyone, you will be judged for your choices and if you don’t have full conviction in this lifestyle that judgement will get to you. Not only that you’ll be living in a small space, be away from normal routines and from family and friends for extended periods of time too. It’s cramped, you won’t shower every day, and your washing builds up. If the thought of all that is turning you off already, then you may want to reconsider if full-time vanlife is really something for you.
We’ve had plenty of friends stay with us over our time in Vandalf and not many of them would be able to do it full-time. Perhaps your vanlife dreams will be more of a part-time lifestyle than a full-time one. Just make sure you have a bit of an idea of what your vanlife dreams are before packing it all up and hitting the road. Sure, you can just decide it’s not for you and head back to your before life any time you like, but it’s a lot easier to figure that out before you start, than a week or two into full-time vanlife.
If you are still unsure, then why not rent a van for a week or two and give vanlife a try!
What’s Your Travel Plans?
We’ll get you started with our reasons for vanlife and what our travel plans looked like. We wanted to travel long term around Aotearoa, New Zealand. Working locum and odd jobs here and there whilst getting to hike and wander around this beautiful country.
We wanted to be free with our itinerary and really take life on a day by day basis as much as we could. Not having solid plans for when we’d be in a town or national park meant we needed to have a way of sleeping somewhere every night on short notice. Queue our discovery of vanlife and freedom camping in New Zealand! We knew it was a thing, but we didn’t realise how big of a thing it is over here.
So what about our travel plans?
We get asked this a lot, and honestly it’s not easy to answer. We really don’t have much in the way of travel plans. We have lists of cool things we want to see and do and the desire to not have to back track and waste precious fuel. So we take things slow, see an entire area thoroughly before moving on to the next closest town.
We’ve been travelling around the country this way for the last 3 years. Having very loose to no plans means we’ve taken longer to see things than we anticipated (we originally only planned to be here for 2 years) but it’s given us the flexibility to wait for good weather to do a hike instead of having to do it in the rain or miss out completely. It’s given us time to make friends when we’ve stayed longer at jobs than planned, and it’s helped us to relax and really lean into slow travel. Freedom camping, staying at national parks (Department of Conservation campsites) and the odd proper camp ground is how we’ve made this work for us.
If your vanlife dreams are in a different country, this will look a little different. Just be sure to have a few apps to show you where the freedom camps and cheap camp grounds are and at least a rough plan of where you want to go, and you’ll be fine. Vanlife is all about going with the flow and seeing where the road takes you. If a full on itinerary is your thing that works too, just try to work in some room for flexibility. It’s great to be able to stay a little longer at the spots you love and leave a little quicker from the ones you don’t.
Get Inspiration
If you are still a little unsure of what exactly your vanlife dream looks like, that’s completely ok. It took us ages to figure out what we wanted and in the end our van let us down, and we had to start over with Vandalf, our current home on wheels.
To help us get started on the vanlife journey, we scoured the internet for inspiration. We watched YouTube videos of people living in vans, we followed van lifers on Instagram (I’ve heard @theroadlesswritten are pretty awesome inspo ;)) and Tiff made a heap of different vision and inspiration boards on Pinterest. Jumping into the world of vanlife if only from your couch is a great way to test out if it’s for you, and then to figure out what your vanlife could look like.
Check out our Pinterest for all the boards and blog posts we used and created to help make our vanlife dreams come true!
Budget Budget Budget
Now that you know why you want to become a van lifer and what type of vanlife you want to embrace, you can start to plan out how much it will cost. This needs to include the cost to buy/build your dream van and what your costs of living on the road will look like.
Money has always been front and centre in our concerns to starting vanlife so we needed to plan out our budget to make sure we could afford to live on the road. We really didn’t want to be stressing about money when living in our van, or working so much that we miss out on the travel side of things. Given the vanlife issues we faced, we have ended up working more and worrying about money more than we planned to. However, we are so glad we factored in safety nets and lots of savings in our budget, or we would have been working and worrying a lot more!
Once you know how much you want to spend on a van, you can start saving for your van. We spent a good year properly saving up for vanlife before we took the leap. Here is a complete breakdown of the cost of our first van and our first year living in Aotearoa so you can use it to help make your own budget.
How To Make Money On The Road
Whilst you can save until the cows come home, we do need to be realistic. If you want to start living full-time in a van, and you don’t have billionaire parents, you’re going to need some form of income whilst you live on the road.
Questions you need to ask yourself are will your current line of work convert to living on the road? If you are in healthcare like Tiff, then the chances are there is a locum position out there for you. Tiff uses a locum agency to find work on the road and pick up jobs for as little as 2 weeks to as long as months.
If your current line of work won’t convert well to vanlife think about your skill set and passions and see how they can help get you an income on the road. Other popular vanlife jobs include digital nomads, hospitality work, seasonal farm jobs or even selling crafts at market stalls whilst you travel. Whilst being a full-time travel blogger/Instagrammer is everyone’s dream, it isn’t easy to turn into a proper income.
We’d recommend having different income streams, pulling from all the above suggestions, to make sure you don’t get stuck. For a more in-depth look at making money on the road, check out our blog post here.
Downsize Time!
Now for the easy part! You’ve decided this is for you, you have the savings and ways to support yourself on the road, so let’s get rid of everything you’ll no longer need.
This was actually quite fun, if not time-consuming, for us. We went through our apartment and made a pile of things to sell, things to donate, and things to keep for our vanlife adventures. Given that we had a time limit on our vanlife in Aotearoa we wanted to lend some things out to friends and family so we didn’t have to start completely from scratch when we got back. Things like our furniture, our Le Crueset pot and other long term items have been lent to friends.
We also ended up with a storage locker to keep all Tiffs books and Nathan’s tools safe, as no one had room for these. Selling our stuff helped to fund our van and really helped to declutter our lives. It’s quite freeing to realise you don’t need 10 different fancy outfits or even 5 different shirts! We had a garage sale and sold a lot, but not nearly as much as we had hoped to. Everything that we didn’t get to sell, we ended up donating to charity shops. The very last thing we sold before hopping on a plane to Aotearoa New Zealand was our cars.
Time To Make The Leap
Honestly, this is the hardest step in the entire process. Actually buying yourself a van and then living in it full time is super scary! Let’s face it, not everyone will understand your choices, not everyone will be supportive and that makes it hard and intimidating to step outside of the status quo.
But once you make the leap you’ll wonder why it took so long to get here!
It’s like ripping a bandaid off or going for a cold swim, the slower you take to do it the harder it is, so leap on in. Realising that the worst that can happen is you don’t like the new change and you go back to how life was beforehand is key in making this leap. If that’s the worst that could happen it’s really not that bad. It’s time to hand in your notice to work, not renew your rental lease (or in our case ask to break lease), and buy your van!
For more info on what van to buy and how to avoid lemons in New Zealand check out our blog posts here.
Enjoy Your Freedom!
Don’t forget to enjoy it! Relish your freedom, having a new backyard every day, and living life how you want to. I feel like we often forget how badly we wanted something when we finally get it. Once we’ve achieved our dream we forget to bask in the glow of that achievement. You’ve worked hard to change your life so celebrate that! Get down to making memories in your new home and just enjoy the ride.
Make sure you have some slow parked-up days too. Our favourite parts of vanlife are often just relaxing in an epic remote location. It’s a slow life, embrace it!
Now What?
You’ve made it happen and you’re on the road! So now what? We have a load of resources to help you out on the road from easy and cheap recipe ideas to how to stay clean and how to be an eco-friendly vanlifer. Check them out if you need some extra help or just message us below or on Instagram with any questions you have! We love vanlife and talking about it is just as cool as living it, if we can help more people live out their vanlife dreams we’d be so happy!
Keen for more inspo? Be sure to check out:
- Common Vanlife Mistakes And How To Avoid Them
- Best New Zealand Freedom Camp Spots Close To Major Cities
- Navigating Aotearoa: Essential New Zealand Travel Apps and Websites
