{"id":23,"date":"2022-05-20T12:52:58","date_gmt":"2022-05-20T11:52:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.confessionsofhervanlife.co.uk\/?p=23"},"modified":"2022-06-08T20:53:31","modified_gmt":"2022-06-08T19:53:31","slug":"who-lives-in-a-van-like-this","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.confessionsofhervanlife.co.uk\/?p=23","title":{"rendered":"Who lives in a van like this?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>Hi, I&#8217;m Vicki. Originally from the very rural north Cotswolds, since I left there nearly 20 years ago I haven&#8217;t stopped moving (26 house moves in 20 years to be precise&#8230;..!) I moved into Phoenix my camper van on April 13th 2022 with Marley my beautiful canine companion.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<div id=\"firstpostever\" class=\"wp-block-image\"><figure class=\"alignleft size-medium\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"300\" height=\"225\" src=\"https:\/\/www.confessionsofhervanlife.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/05\/1E312EF2-5A78-4F0B-A3F8-DBCF1298E562-300x225.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-29\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.confessionsofhervanlife.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/05\/1E312EF2-5A78-4F0B-A3F8-DBCF1298E562-300x225.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.confessionsofhervanlife.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/05\/1E312EF2-5A78-4F0B-A3F8-DBCF1298E562-1024x768.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/www.confessionsofhervanlife.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/05\/1E312EF2-5A78-4F0B-A3F8-DBCF1298E562-768x576.jpg 768w, https:\/\/www.confessionsofhervanlife.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/05\/1E312EF2-5A78-4F0B-A3F8-DBCF1298E562-1536x1152.jpg 1536w, https:\/\/www.confessionsofhervanlife.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/05\/1E312EF2-5A78-4F0B-A3F8-DBCF1298E562-2048x1536.jpg 2048w, https:\/\/www.confessionsofhervanlife.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/05\/1E312EF2-5A78-4F0B-A3F8-DBCF1298E562-80x60.jpg 80w, https:\/\/www.confessionsofhervanlife.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/05\/1E312EF2-5A78-4F0B-A3F8-DBCF1298E562-600x450.jpg 600w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n<p>I went through some interesting thoughts and experiences on my transition into van life &#8211; and have had a damn sight more since taking the leap haha! Having noticed some rather embellished accounts of the van lifestyle I wanted to come here and share with you; the good, the bad and of course the ugly. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Sadly, I didn&#8217;t convert Phoenix though I&#8217;ve spent some time making her my own; fitting new storage, putting in some new wiring and fitting a new fridge and of course making her all homely with some art and compulsory cushions! Having been in the van for a short time I already know I want to venture into self build territory but thats for later in the year&#8230;. There&#8217;s much summer fun to be had first.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>How did I end up on this path?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Well, without really realising and only now with hindsight I have been side stepping inside living for most of my 30&#8217;s. On any annual leave I had I always sought out eco camps, havens of peace &#8211; often off grid to get away from it all. Submersing myself in nature and being around like minded people (or no people at all!) was where I found myself at maximum happiness. I hadn&#8217;t really considered that actually I could make that my full time lifestyle until more recently, when I started crossing paths and developing friendships in my new home of Devon with people that lived the off grid life. Fast forward to a heavily emotionally charged relationship breakdown at the beginning of the year and the loss of my ex partner turned best friend to cancer last year &#8211;  I was forced to sit and take a long hard look at myself, who I am and where I want to be.  I could also go on a rant about society, how it is intentionally designed, how much I value my freedom and how I feel about the current social climate &#8211; but I will save that for another post \ud83d\ude09 But from there on in the decision to embark on van life was born&#8230;..!<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Obviously this stirred up so many questions and uncertainties, for someone who has a very active mind it made for some sleepless nights. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Where will I sleep?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Where will I shower?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>What will people think of me?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Where will I go?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>What van do I want?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Where will I get water?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>What happens if I get ill?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>What I do pack in my van?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>What if it doesn&#8217;t work?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>But on the flip side of that I was full of excitement to meet new people, travel to new locations, be outside of my comfort zone, learn new things and get some of those all important &#8220;waking up in a beautiful place&#8221; moments. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Many of those questions that came up prior to moving into Phoenix have been answered &#8211; I&#8217;ll cover more of that another time. But for now, in a nutshell thats me in the context of van life.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Peace \ud83d\ude42<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Hi, I&#8217;m Vicki. Originally from the very rural north Cotswolds, since I left there nearly 20 years ago I haven&#8217;t stopped moving (26 house moves in 20 years to be precise&#8230;..!) I moved into Phoenix my camper van on April 13th 2022 with Marley my beautiful canine companion. I went through some interesting thoughts and &hellip; <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":51,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-23","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-van-life"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.confessionsofhervanlife.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.confessionsofhervanlife.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.confessionsofhervanlife.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.confessionsofhervanlife.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.confessionsofhervanlife.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=23"}],"version-history":[{"count":12,"href":"https:\/\/www.confessionsofhervanlife.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":65,"href":"https:\/\/www.confessionsofhervanlife.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23\/revisions\/65"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.confessionsofhervanlife.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/51"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.confessionsofhervanlife.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=23"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.confessionsofhervanlife.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=23"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.confessionsofhervanlife.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=23"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}