This is van life. At least the unfiltered version of it. Photo: Alustine Conteh
Foster Huntington killed van life. He didn’t mean to. It was an accident, honestly, and it took him three years. He bound the lifestyle in hardcover, documented it on 125 pages, and formatted into an 11” x 11” casket. Of course, van life is not entirely dead. But what was cool and authentic about it is.
Anyone who cares to see vestiges of that community can purchase a window into the lifestyle for $65.00, plus $10.00 for shipping if residing in the United States. For those with shallower pockets, just search his ubiquitous hashtag on Instagram. There are more than 1.2 million posts connected to those seven letters and his book helped propel that glorified homelessness into mainstream media, where anything fringe, core, or counter to typical culture becomes a commodity before its eventual slaughter at the hands of trend-seeking teenagers. Good for him. He escaped New York City, invested his money into a dream, made it a reality, and turned it into a career. Then he moved on while others tagged along.
There is a significant reason why Foster turned his profits into property; when you don’t live in a home you’re techincally homeless. For the romantics hunkered down at a truck stop while grape-sized pieces of hail hammer away at the watertight roof overhead, the customized van that encases you does not qualify as “roughing it.” When the water is done boiling on your MSR WhisperLite – wait, you have an actual propane stove? Anyway, while you’ve got a warm cup of Turmeric Tonic between your organic cotton fingerless gloves and are about to crack open a copy of Radical Simplicity by Dan Price, there is a person outside in that parking lot or a nearby overpass. They are freezing, soaked to the bone, literally starving, and shivering, to stay awake as not to die of hypothermia. They too are homeless, only they didn’t choose that lifestyle, and they certainly aren’t documenting their night’s stay at the Pine Street Inn with a caption that reads, “Take Me Back.” It sucks that the weather turned sour and prevented you and your sweetheart from making it to the Blue Ridge Mountains for sunset. Think of all the hashtags that would have matched a photograph of your feet dancing in front of the back doors with twinkly lights illuminating freshly painted toenails as The General plays out of a wireless speaker synced to your iPhone 7. It still blows that they broke up, man. I mean Phish was one thing, but Dispatch. Stop. Just stop. It’s sad.
OK. You saved up, learned how to retrofit a panel van to fit your newly found DIY aesthetic, worked on it late into the night, figured out the difference between a TIG and a MIG welder, and even engineered a sink with a grey bucket for waste and a white bucket for fresh water. Congratulations, you have benefited exactly one person. Yourself. It’s a wonderful contribution to society. Truly remarkable. You broke away from the rat race, ditched the desk for the dunes, found a new sense of freedom – finally did something for yourself. Scrimped, squirreled, stashed, stowed. Every penny that didn’t go to the grocer went to your getaway, because that’s all it is. It’s an escape. Remember when you read Into the Wild and realized that Chris McCandless didn’t even have a fucking map? That sucked. For everyone. Who didn’t want to believe in his cause? Who didn’t want to drop the plot, stick a thumb out, and get fucking lost? In his defense he was twenty-three and gave up all his material possessions to seek out a new perspective. That’s pretty fucking punk. He still should have brought a map, though.
For many of you “Van Lifers,” you’re past the mark of acceptable wanderlust. Get over it.
As you wipe the organic avocado guts on your crisp yellow Carhartts – don’t worry they’ll break in when you’re done driving around aimlessly – think about that great carbon footprint you’ve impressed upon Arches National Park. Hold up. Yeah “brother,” that van will probably emit somewhere around 2.04 metric tons of Carbon Dioxide in just 3,000 miles. Hallelujah. Holy Shit. You have a solar panel on your roof? That’s genius. Except the average American household consumes one metric ton of CO2 a month. Shit. Your house on wheels is not a house, but your coast-to-coast trip still contributed double that of a home in the same amount of time, and you couldn’t even be guaranteed a place to sleep. Don’t believe it? Trust the EPA, they know that 103 gallons of gasoline creates one metric ton of CO2. Now that you have the facts, do the math yourself. Hell, you figured out how to hardwire a dimmer switch into your dashboard to get the lighting just right for those acai breakfast bowl snaps when the dew is on the windows, you must be able to calculate how great a job you’re doing at fueling climate change. You don’t have any other form of gainful employment so you might as well fuck up the environment for everyone else who’s trying to enjoy it after work and during the weekends. Where do you recycle those boxes of Kashi?
At least you’re out there getting it. Yeah. Good for you, man. You packed it all in, gave up the security of health care – hopefully you don’t snap your leg rock climbing in Yosemite – quit that shitty job where you paid your shitty taxes that help fund Welfare, WIC programs, and Planned Parenthood so that you could be free.
Fuck you, bro. That life you live is selfish, one-sided, and self-serving – not to mention trite. You’re not the first, and you’re not the last. Right now someone is searching around Instagram, gleaning images of bearded men splitting kindling, or sinewy women sitting on their Asanas at sunrise, a Mexican blanket made with child labor serving as their yoga mat. What good are you doing for humanity by driving around living out some fantasy?
Editor’s Note: This piece was originally published in Analog Companion, a twenty-page DIY zine driven by surf, skateboard, and snowboard travel, with a majority of its photographs taken on film.
