Sold the van today. Sad emoji. I’ve had two vans setup for road trips, camping and general outdoor exploration. Pre-Covid it was a Chrysler Pacifica minivan. Must have visited 15 National Parks in her. Then just as Covid started I decided to get a high roof Ram Promaster, because after crawling around in the minivan I wanted to stand. MPG dropped significantly, as did drivability–it’s a cargo work van afterall. But so much space. And of course, the ability to fully stand upright was a game changer. It was really like having a personal little hotel room with you at all times.

But the last couple of years I’ve been using it less and less. It was just sitting there collecting literal cobwebs. I had already visited most of the places in the western US that interested me. The last 2 years it’s exclusively been used for Lake Tahoe trips, but I’m starting to get bored of Tahoe as well.

It became a bit of chore to have. As my friend Tyler once said, “the things you own end up owning you.” Besides the insurance and maintenance cost, there was just this constant background stress about keeping the van. Would someone break-in? What’s the nearest tire center that could service a high roof van if I got a flat tire? Just a constant low grade worry about things that could go wrong.

Then there’s parking. I’ve been lucky enough to have a second parking spot. But my neighbor is taking the parking spot back. Street parking is out of the question (see above about break-ins). I could park the errand car on the street, but that just seems too much hassle to deal with street parking. I could get rid of the errand car and exclusively Waymo/Uber, but that’s cost prohibitive.

Ultimately, it just made sense to sell the camper van. Closing the hashtag vanlife chapter, for now. It was an adventure and got me to see great places I would have never seen otherwise. But books have chapters, and this chapter is over.