My First nights In The Van

My first night in the van was pretty exiting tbf. I'd just packed everything up and had left my grandparents place and was now on the road to explore the peninsula of Akaroa.

I arrived at this first pull-over spot here where I parked up right on the water (later I learned was a terrible idea) and set up my van for its first night.

As night fell, the midges came. Now I had no idea that midges even existed, so when they came and absolutely covered half my van, I thought I was being swarmed by mosquitoes!

Not nice. I was on ChatGPT trying to figure out what was going on and found out what had happened..

All these guys come out during the night or right after sunset and bc my van was right on their border, they all got attracted to the heat / light and just coverd half my van :( disgusting 0/10 wouldnt recommend.

I'd 100% love to come back to this lake w a kyak or summin, but I wouldn't camp here.

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My second night / parkup was way wayy nicer. No bugs at all, it was a cove 1.5hrs drive from that other spot, I wont say where it is bc its a goated spot and I don't wanna ruin it bc I wanna come back here one day.

There were no bugs AT ALL 🎉 and it was in a super quiet farmy spot too!

Photos below 👇👇👇

oh yh I think my second din dins in the van was bake bean nachos. #1 top 10 meal of all time 🙏

FYI about this time.

It's very easy to look at what I was doing here and see the dream life. And yes, there were plenty of moments that were genuinely amazing, peaceful, all sunshine and rainbows. But underneath all of it was constant fear. A chronic fight-or-flight response that stopped me sleeping or ever really calming down. I was in an uncontrollable dive toward broke, with no income security, no solid plan, and limited water, food, and power.

Something you'll pick up quickly during this van series: I was constantly starving and rationing everything. Food, fuel, energy. Always conserving, conserving, conserving. My water supply was limited or gone entirely, and before I got my solar and genny I had barely any power. For the first two months I was offline most of the time out camping, running just an Ecoflow River 2.

So despite all the bliss in these photos, the truth is I was mostly having a really bad time, and I'd never want to go back and do it again. I'd love to convert and build my own van and head out exploring from a proper base one day. But living out there full-time? That was horrible. Honestly, part of me wishes I'd never done it at all.