Hashtag Van Life

So let’s get back to talking about planning! Ooooo, I love planning. We haven’t really explained very much about our actual travel plans, yet, so I wanted to take a moment to bring you up to speed on that aspect of the weddingmoon!

First, a little backstory…

…about my love affair with living and traveling in small spaces. I spent the first half of my twenties touring the country with my pop-punk band, during that golden age post-Fugazi where everyone thought all you had to do was live in a van and eventually you’d get famous. My first DIY tour was in a cargo van that we built out and then crammed four people into, with no seatbelts, no air conditioning, and no money — for a full U.S. tour. It was terrible. And glorious. I think of those days often!

Here’s the only photo I have of my first band van. My favorite memory of traveling in this van is driving through New Mexico at sunset for the very first time. It was a spiritual experience for me. (That could have also been heat exhaustion and dehydration, but hey, who’s counting?)

I got really good at van life during those years. I learned how to take “bird baths” in truck stop bathrooms, how to prepare food in a moving vehicle, and how important it is to keep a small living space clean and organized. I had a spot for everything in the van. I got really good at “van tetris” — a skill I still utilize regularly to this day — and I got really, really good at making a small space feel functional, organized, and even cozy!

Here are a couple more gems from my band van days. Yes, I also learned how to put my prescription glasses OVER my non-prescription truck stop sunglasses so I could see while driving during the day! Real survival skills, I’m telling you. (Also, that hair!)

I spent the second half of my twenties touring the country in tour buses each summer working for the Warped Tour. This was the lap of luxury compared to living in a van, but it was also a much smaller space to call my own, having to share the common areas with so many more people. I had my one little bunk space, and I created all kinds of systems for keeping that tiny coffin organized!

Then I decided to go back to road life as a musician, this time a solo musician, which meant touring in cars. This took my small-space-maximizing and tetris-packing skills to all new levels! It was my dream at the time to buy a teardrop camper and just live full-time on the road, but I could never afford it, so that went on my bucket list.

I finally put my road dog days behind me when I moved to Nashville, but I still managed to find reasons to drive solo across the country at least once a year for a few years. When I stopped being able to do that, I bought myself a 625 square foot bungalow that’s practically a tiny house, where I could put all my tiny-space-organizing skills to good use, even if I was (for the first time in my life) staying put.

When the pandemic hit earlier this year, my longing to get in the van and hit the road came out with a vengeance — as it seems to have for almost everyone I know. So when Jeremy and I started talking about ideas for eloping during quarantine, I knew exactly what I wanted to do: Hashtag van life! And let’s get a teardrop camper!

Meet the Van & Camper

It just so happens that there is a white 12-passenger band van parked in our driveway. It belongs to Jeremy’s a cappella group, Street Corner Symphony, and they have graciously agreed to let us take it on our weddingmoon adventure. Jeremy’s been hard at work getting the van tuned up and ready to haul the teardrop camper (!!!) that we rented for the trip.

He replaced the battery, took her in for a tune-up, removed one of the back seats to build a platform for storage and easy access, and added some kind of doohickey for powering the camper trailer while driving.

Yes, the camper! We haven’t seen it in real life yet, but here are some photos from the web of what we’ll be sleeping and cooking in on our 16-day adventure. Look how cute!

We just placed our big order of camping and van-organizing supplies, and I can’t wait to get everything set up before we hit the road. You better believe I have a hand-drawn plan for where everything is going to go, and systems for how it’s all going to get packed and unpacked each day. Thankfully, Jeremy lets me run with the organizing and planning most of the time, even though he brings his own experience with touring, traveling, backpacking, and tetris-ing to this relationship. It’s definitely a team effort, but organizing is nearly a compulsion for me, so it’s usually best just to leave me to it. 😅

I’ll have to do a little video tour when everything is set up. And I will definitely be sharing some sweet “van tetris” photos along the way!

❤️ Sarah