The Latest from the VLOG
Hello!
We’re so stoked that you’re here! That’s me on the left, my name is Amanda, and next to me is my boyfriend, Zach. Together, we split our time between our house on the beach in North Carolina, and living together in an 86 square foot apartment on wheels that we built ourselves.
We met for the first time at the surf shop I’ve been working at on and off since 2012, but didn’t start talking until Zach found me on instagram and replied to one of my stories. We bonded over peanut butter and sushi and if that’s not a solid base for a relationship, what is? When we met it was April, and I was planning to move to Colorado in September. That changed pretty quickly, ’cause I guess when you find something that clicks this good you don’t just up and move across the country. After dating for about 2 months something came up about living in a van and we both realized that we somehow both had the same dream of living minimally. Basically from there we spent a month looking at vans obsessively and just went for it. 8 months of full time van living, and we still want to live in a van together, so I reckon that’s a pretty great feat.
We spent the last year living in our van going as far south as Sayulita in mainland Mexico to surf, then spending the winter living, working and snowboarding full time in South Lake Tahoe, California. Unfortunately, COVID-19 cut our winter and our travels short, but luckily coming home meant we got to spend the summer surfing a whole lot. This winter we are planning to save up enough to spend 3 months traveling and snowboarding as much as humanely possible – and we’re taking you with us through our vlog.
I spent a solid month trying to come up with a name for this blog that embodies everything about us and what our goals are in life… and I failed. Miserably. So, after a month of super lame names that didn’t feel right I finally started to realize that I was looking for something to label ourselves with when that is exactly what we’re trying to avoid. We decided on a van not only because we want to travel (obviously that plays a huge part), but because we don’t believe that to be happy in life you have to follow a certain path. Every single human on this planet is unique – so why should everyone follow the same rules and guidelines with what brings them joy? For us, we want to spend as much of our lives as possible outside doing the things that set our souls on fire and we don’t want to wait for the weekend to do it. In the end it won’t be about the things that we’ve accumulated or how far up the corporate ladder we’ve made it. What we’re going to sit by the fire talking about are all the things we’ve experienced and seen and royally failed at together.
Living without walls is not only about living physically unconventionally (in a 2006 Mercedes Sprinter to be exact), but also about living without all the expectations that we put on ourselves to do and be what we’re “supposed” to. It’s about breaking down those barriers and living for something we believe in.https://youtu.be/u1tB2Lr_t9E