Man Quits Investment Banking to Travel the World in His Van
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Jeff didn't really know what he wanted to do by the time he was old enough to go to college. He had a pretty convenient upbringing, and ended up going to school where he got interested in investment banking. He found himself wearing light-colored polo shirts and suits every day and kind of spiraled a little bit out of control. He was doing more investing online on his own than going to school. He didn't have any passions or anything like that, he was literally just trying to make as much money as he could, and he got fat and he got really depressed. He realized that he didn’t want to spend his rest of his twenties in a suit, so he bailed.
He sold everything, put it in one bank account, deleted Facebook and email, dropped off the grid and moved to Costa Rica. He applied for a visa in Australia and moved to Australia on his own. What was initially going to be three months to make some more money and keep traveling became five years. It was here that he got his first taste of vanlife for a few months. When he lived in Australia, he found he was always moving around so much anyways, it didn’t make sense to pay rent in one spot and then a car rental on top of it. So when he moved back he decided that he wanted to start a business where he would be able to work remotely and have a cheap way to travel around and surf.
He ended up buying a cargo van that he named Lucy. She's a 2014 40-250 ex U-Haul van with 65,000 kilometers on the odometer. For electricity, he has two 100 watt solar panels up top. They feed 185 amp hours of battery and an inverter which allows him to have conventional 120v electricity in the back. This system also powers a water pump, charges laptops, phone cameras, the whole deal. For him, it seems to be more than enough electricity.
He has roof racks on top that he was able to get for free. They were old ladder racks that came off a Tradie van. He grinded off all the attachments for the ladders and unhooked them, which left a whole bunch of holes in the top of the roof rack, so when he’s driving down the highway it would whistle in a high-pitched scream, so he had to caulk all of the holes and then just spray painted them all black. For the back windows he took inspiration from a sailboat which is Jeff wants to end up moving into one day. Because of this, he decided to put portholes in the back windows.
One of Jeff's favourite hacks is a changing towel. His sister bought it for him, and it's literally just a giant towel with the hood on it. It makes it easy for him to stay decent when getting in and out of his wetsuit. He also has a Camelbak, which he considers another essential for hiking in the country. He installed a light switch on the wall which powers the pot lights that he installed in the ceiling. The setup is remote controllable, and it allows to have a little bit of mood lighting for guests.
For food storage Jeff has an electric cooler that runs off of the batteries as well. Works super well for him, and if it's sunny out it'll run it all day. On cloudy days when there isn’t enough charge to keep up with it, he will buy ice. He ended up building a partition to divide the cab from the rest of the living space, as he knew he was gonna be spending a lot of time in cities. He wanted it to be as stealthy as possible, so doing this allows him to stay discrete. He hooked up both of his batteries to the alternator and then put a switch in the dashboard so when he’s driving he can switch it on. He originally had a double bed in his van, but the more he traveled the more he realized that he didn't need a double bed and it was way better to have floor space that made it easier to move around, so ditched it. There was a piece that went down and flipped up into a couch, but now he just has a single bed.
Under the bed is just all storage so both his surfboards go underneath there. He left one end open which was awesome as it keeps the space underneath super accessible and allows for maximum storage potential. The more he travelled, the more he realized every single inch of space was valuable, so left this open and that's where he keeps all his fresh water.
He also put shoes underneath there, just anything that he doesn't want to clutter up more space or get stuff dirty: fins, mask, wetsuits keep them under the bed so they don't stink up the van. In the roof he installed a normal roof vent without a fan, which in hindsight he considers a mistake. The best setups he’s seen, which if he did it all over again he would do, is have two roof vents. One in the back and one in the front with alternating fans. A setup like that provides great air circulation and basically acts like air conditioning.
He went with a salad bowl sink, which is a popular and cheap solution that a lot of vandwellers go with. He doesn't have to wash dishes outside anymore, which he considers a massive upgrade. Underneath he has a dirty water storage tank, as well as storage for camping stuff: chairs, any big stuff, camera gear, that sort of stuff.
A lot of people hit him up with questions about how to get into the lifestyle. He thinks the biggest thing that he'd say from the outset is always like, "what's your motivation? Why why are you doing this?" If you're just running from a problem, if it's an escape, then maybe that's not the right answer. If it's a desire, then definitely pursue it. Try it out first. Rent a van. Do it for a few weeks. Make sure you can hack it. All these beautiful Instagram posts out the back doors and girls and bikinis, yeah there's some of that, but there's also crapping in the woods and not having running water, freezing your ass off when it's cold out. There's a lot of things that you know don't get posted on social media that are real struggles. It's well worth the freedom for sure. Life's pretty precious and it can be taken away at any time and he wouldn't be able to live where he has the last ten years. He likes to think that if he died tomorrow I'd be happy with how he lives his life today.
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