SAN DIEGO – As the pandemic drags on, more and more Americans who can work remotely are making a fundamental change in their lifestyle.
The growing culture known as “vanlife” has exploded during the pandemic as people trade houses, apartments and offices for life on the street.
What you need to know
- The growing culture known as “vanlife” has exploded during the pandemic as people trade houses, apartments and offices for life on the street.
- Vanly is an app that helps people find safe parking spaces overnight
- Self-contained travel is there to stay. Outdoorsy says 91% of respondents say they are planning a road trip in 2022
- Popular vacation travel destinations include Los Angeles, San Diego, Dallas, Phoenix, Houston, Austin, San Francisco, Miami, and Las Vegas
Lane Reisig has lived in his RV for about two years, a lifestyle he was especially grateful for during the worst of the pandemic.
“Because I had my RV, I could still be alone and safely quarantined and travel around a bit,” he said. “And that made it really easy to keep my wits about the first few months of quarantine when things were really crazy.”
Giulio Colleluori saw the trend rise shortly before the outbreak of the pandemic and developed the Vanly app with the aim of protecting Vanlifer.
“We’ve definitely seen a huge surge in vanlife and van rentals,” said Colleluori. “In any case, there were a lot more people who adopted this lifestyle during the pandemic.”
Vanly’s mission is to provide secure parking spaces for the night that allow for beautiful experiences, meaningful connections and sustainable world changes. The app was launched in December 2019 and Colleluori believes the need for secure parking overnight will only increase.
“I think vanlife was already a very fast accelerating trend, but the pandemic acted as a catalyst somehow,” he said.
Colleluori is also part of the data; he started living in his van about five months ago.
“I’m one of those people,” he laughed. “It was amazing, honestly.”
Independent travel is here to stay, according to a Travel Trends report from Outdoorsy.
Ninety-one percent of respondents say they are planning a road trip in 2022, with 83% of travelers saying they would either be more or very likely to vacation with an RV or RV if there were COVID spikes in 2022.
“We always know what we hear from travelers and what has been further confirmed by our internal data,” said Jeff Cavins, Co-Founder and CEO of Outdoorsys. “The withdrawal of leisure travel in 2020 and 2021 has created a slinging effect, a revenge travel effect, if you will, that we will bring to life in spring 2022.
Thanksgiving crowned Christmas and New Year’s holiday weekend with most RV rentals this season. Some of the most popular vacation travel destinations include: Los Angeles, San Diego, Dallas, Phoenix, Houston, Austin, San Francisco, Miami, and Las Vegas.
Seasoned vanlifers say the lifestyle is not without its own expense and newbies still need to be on a budget.
“We have a lot of friends who worked in offices and now work from home,” said Reisig. “But if I want I can just pack up and go and go to another city and that’s a beauty that I really enjoy.”
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