About Sean

I’m about to mark my one year anniversary of living in a van, on and off the road. I took off the day after Christmas of 2024 and minus a couple of stops back home in Oklahoma City, I’ve only slept on the twin bed in the back of my converted 2023 RAM ProMaster.

Before I get into the meat of this post, let me say one thing: all the posts you see on Instagram of this insanely glamorous and adventurous life on the road are complete crap. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not knocking van life but what you see on social media is either the cream of the crop influencer getting paid through YouTube and sponsorships or they are picking and choosing the perfect moments to show to the world. That being said…..let’s get started.

I started van life in Las Vegas in January of 2025. While parked at a Planet Fitness on the west side of the city, near Red Rocks casino and far away from the nightmare of the strip, I was one of 16 vans parked in that lot the first night.

One morning I walked into the gym with another van lifer and we started chatting. I asked him how long he’d been on the road. His response was five years. He then asked me how long I had been out. My response was about five days!

“Oh god, you are new. Well, the first two months are absolute hell. Then you get your feet under you and it gets better.”

My god was he right. I can’t even describe the emotions I felt those first few months. The thought of “what in the hell did I do to my life” swirled through my thoughts constantly. I went through every emotion possible those first months; from depression to elation, madness to sadness. But when the times were good, they were really good. And that’s what keeps me going.

I love travel and I’m getting to the point of asking myself if I ever want this to end. I follow a YouTuber named Nikki Delventhal. Her last video spoke about this mental state. She has been living in a vehicle for about seven years. She started in a freakin Prius and now owns a $100k Sprinter. She’s in her late 30s and mentioned that she can’t see herself wanting out of this lifestyle for a very long time.

But why?

The only way I can describe the feeling is absolute freedom. I’ve had days where I didn’t like what was happening in a certain city and I had the absolute freedom of just turning on the engine and heading elsewhere. Not a lot of people can say they have that opportunity in life.

Unfortunately, my only issue is that my company won’t allow me to work outside the U.S. so I’m stuck here until I can find a new job that will allow me to leave. I’m dying to head to Baja for a winter.

What is life really like?

I work east coast hours. Meaning the further west I go, the earlier I have to wake up. That’s tough for some but after so many years in the military, my internal clock has changed and I love waking up early and getting off work early. In summer months I can enjoy the daylight more than a 9-5 job in a set location.

I prepare the coffee maker before I go to bed each night so all I have to do is hit the on button the next morning when I wake up.

I crawl out of bed and throw on a hoodie and sweats, do my morning business while the coffee is brewing and turn on my computer for work.

I have a desk with mounts for my monitor and laptop and a Starlink satellite on the roof. This is all powered by an Ecoflow Delta 2 Max power bank and recharged by 400 watts of solar on top. If I’m lucky enough to be around a spot where I can plug in, the solar isn’t even a factor.

The east coast is a difficult location for van life. With literally no BLM (Bureau of Land Management) land out here, my life is relegated to WalMart, Planet Fitness, or anywhere I can squeeze in where I won’t get a knock in the middle of the night to move. Thankfully that hasn’t happened so far.

I’ve spent the night behind Jiffy Lube’s or parked in a crummy Cracker Barrel parking lot next to the highway. This week I’m in Easton, MD and I’m stealth camping in hotel parking lots next to a main thoroughfare. It’s insanely loud all night long. Tonight I will be searching out a different place to sleep because of the noise.

After work, depending on my location, I will just sit in the van and watch movies or TV on my iPad or mess with some of the crafts I’ve picked up like drawing and bracelet making: coming to Etsy soon! 🙂

If I’m in a great location with something to see or do, I’ll head out around town to explore. Last weekend I was in Cape May, NJ just driving around looking for lunch when I hit a closed off road near the ocean. I parked and walked into a restaurant/bar where a Polish Oktoberfest was going on. I met so many locals I couldn’t keep up with them all. I had a great time. Unfortunately I also had too much to drink, not wanting to leave because of the spectacular atmosphere. We watched football and the MLB playoffs all night as ocean waves crashed the shore not 100 feet away. Part of the bar was set up like a beach with umbrellas and sand. I spent the last couple of hours that evening with my shoes off, toes in the sand, watching the Phillies game.

That night I slept in the Cape May Ferry parking lot because I was heading across the bay to Lewes, Delaware early the next morning. A word of advice, do not get on a rolling ferry while hungover.

West of the Mississippi is where the majority of BLM land scatters the landscape. Colorado and Utah are easily the best spots for van life because of the ease of parking for multiple days and weeks at a time.

In Moab, UT, I can park just a couple of miles north of town in gorgeous scenery and still have easy access to services in town if need be.

Moving from place to place

The first thing I do before heading to a new place it get on iOverlander.com and search for somewhere to sleep. It’s usually a WalMart since I’m on the east coast but I also search out a place to work. I do not work and sleep in the same location in a city. This is a sure fire way to get the knock in the middle of the night. If business owners see your van parked when they leave work at night then see it in the morning again, they are usually not happy.

So I find a big space like a mall parking lot to work from so I kind of get lost in the crowd.

BLM land is the exception and I’m really ready to get back to the west so I don’t have to work so hard to find a place to work and sleep.

I rarely travel during the week but sometimes I just need to. If I don’t feel safe or I get to a location to find out it’s not as nice as Google street view has portrayed, I will keep moving. I haven’t had to do this a lot but there have been several times where I just started driving at night to get out of a city that gave me the creeps. Rehoboth Beach, Delaware is a perfect example. That is a pure tourist city and the parking opportunities are sparse. I took off late in the afternoon to head to the eastern shore of Maryland where there were more opportunities to park and work.

The Dirty Stuff

I get a lot of questions about personal hygiene and bathrooms. The basics are that I potty in the van and shower at Planet Fitness or a rec center.

I purchased a plastic toilet on Amazon and use horse bedding pellets to control the odor. This works exponentially better than cat litter. I have to empty the bag about every three days but at the moment that’s my system. At first I was very freaked out. I have a bad gag reflex when it comes to poop. But after a week or so I just got used to it and covering up the poop isn’t a problem now.

I bought a cat litter container that I emptied out to use as a urine container. You have to keep your pee and poop separate or there will be a smell.

Cleaning the van is almost a daily task. Living in 75 square feet gets dirty very quickly. I’m constantly wiping the kitchen counter or cleaning up those bedding pellets from the floor.

I have a kitchen I purchased at IKEA with a sink drain that I built from plumbing parts you’d use in your house. Two five gallon water containers provide my fresh and waste water.

The faucet is a rechargeable unit I purchased on Amazon. I have gone through three of them this year alone but I believe I finally figured out what was killing the first two. I had attached a magnet to the bottom so it would hold on the metal kitchen. I believe that magnet was messing with the electronics inside the unit and making it die quickly. I have removed the magnet on this last unit and it’s working perfectly.

Under the kitchen is a “trucker’s” fridge that I absolutely hate but I don’t have the funds to spend another $1500 on an upright 12v fridge to replace it.

The fridge is connected to a 12v lithium LifePo4 battery with a Renogy solar charge controller and a 100w solar panel on the roof. The battery and 100w solar panel’s only job is to keep that fridge cold 24 hours a day and it has worked like a charm so far.

What’s next?

I will be heading back to Oklahoma City by November 2nd where I will spend two months finishing some of the van projects I can’t do on the road as well as helping my ex-wife with recovery from a scheduled medical procedure.

I’m hoping to leave the day after Christmas again but I will have to see how she recovers first. If I’m needed, I will stay until she is healthy.

Once I leave, I will head straight back to Quartzite, AZ for the winter until things warm up a little in the north. The first stop will be back to Moab, UT to see my friends Leah and Ben. Leah’s last name is Bear and my van is named after her.

From there I will head to the Bonneville Salt Flats and Lake Tahoe before the weather heats up in those two areas.

I hope to hit Northern California in the spring and then to Oregon for at least a month before trekking to the Seattle area and western Washington where I have several friends I’d like to visit.

Then it’s on to Idaho and back to Montana. If the weather really starts to heat up, I’ll head to higher elevations to get out of it. I do not stay in locations that rise above 85 degrees Fahrenheit and I believe Washington and Oregon will be able to help me stay cool this summer.

There might be a portable AC in my future for any hot days but that’s a topic for another post.

Until next time, please feel free to ask any questions….oh wait, I turned off the comments because of spam.

Feel free to contact me on Instagram at @aboutsean.