Cooking outside the van and still waking up to a space that smells like last night’s fish tacos is one of those things nobody really prepares you for. The assumption is clean, logical even: move the heat source outside, keep the windows closed, problem solved. You cook, the smell stays out there, you come back … Read more
The first few months I lived on the road, I ate like I was perpetually one meal away from running out of options. Every time I needed protein, I reached for eggs or chicken, both of them sitting in a small cooler that drained more battery than I’d like to admit, leaked all over my … Read more
Somewhere in northern Spain, standing in a Lidl with a canvas tote bag and about eight liters of storage space to fill, I finally admitted that the pantry spreadsheet I’d built during the van conversion was completely useless. It had arborio rice on it. And capers. And a specific brand of miso paste I was … Read more
The result surprised me more than I expected it to. Not in a good way necessarily, but not entirely in a bad way either. That’s the honest summary before we get into any of it. I’d gone into this assuming meal subscription boxes would be completely useless for van life. Moving vehicle, no fixed address, … Read more
The first long stretch I did without a supermarket nearby taught me a lot. About four months into full-time van life, I’d stocked up before heading into a remote stretch of coastal Portugal, grabbed everything I thought I needed, felt very prepared, and drove away feeling smug. A week in, I was eating plain rice … Read more
The assumption I kept seeing in van life groups, forums, road trip threads: farmers markets are a weekend leisure activity. A nice thing to do when you have time and no distance to cover. Not a practical stop for someone cooking in 60 square feet of living space who needs to move on by midday. … Read more
$200. One month. All your food. I know what you’re picturing because I pictured the same thing the first time I heard this was possible on the road. Instant noodles three nights a week. Gas station snacks that pass for breakfast. Eating cheap in a way that means eating badly and feeling vaguely terrible by … Read more
My first month on the road, I spent $38 on a bulk bag of jasmine rice from a warehouse club. I had no fridge, a two-burner stove, and a storage space roughly the size of a carry-on bag. The rice sat mostly untouched for six weeks, got into everything, and eventually landed in a campground … Read more
Last spring, somewhere outside Moab, I sat down and actually did the math on my coffee spending. Not because I was worried about money exactly, just because I’d started noticing the number on my card statement looked wrong. It was not wrong. I had spent $284 in thirty days on coffee stops. One person. Thirty … Read more
The first time I sat down and tracked every dollar I spent on food for a full month on the road, the number surprised me. Not because it was horrifying. Because it was specific. Twenty-three dollars on a Tuesday afternoon at a petrol station convenience store I’d stopped at without really thinking. Forty-one dollars on … Read more