WE LIVED IN A VAN FOR AN ENTIRE YEAR

we just realized a couple weeks ago that we were coming up on one year of van life and we just kind of wanted to do something to commemorate that but also make sure the full story was told we've been hearing the rumors online karen they don't really like van life it was true and at some points that was true every good roller coaster starts with that first big drop before we go any further we want to say a big thank you to j.crew for sponsoring this video and getting our wardrobe summer ready here we have cara modeling her favorite new linen jumpsuit which she's accessorized with a wide brim packable hat next up is nate looking fine as usual he's paired his khaki stretch chino dog short with this irish linen button down in ink kara is back with a new outfit on top she's rocking the linen relaxed captain's shirt which can also double as a swimsuit cover-up to tie it all together she's carrying the giant canvas tote nate has one more outfit for us he's wearing the six-inch printed swim trunk ooh getting a little crazy with the white irish linen top wow what a hunk we decided to have a little fun with our new j crew clothes but in all seriousness i love all of our new stuff especially this jogger set and i can even mix and match it with my white outfit and these doc shorts they'll be my go-to shorts this summer because not only do they look good but they're also super comfy they have a stretchy waistband so you don't have to wear a belt to check out all of j crews options in their summer collection just click the link in the description below or go to jcrew.com to shop all of the latest styles if you're new here we're karen we spent four years traveling to 100 countries and building this youtube channel around our international travel adventures we had all intentions of continuing our international escapades until our flight leaves in an hour and [Music] it is seriously a miracle after spending one of the weirdest months of our lives in a hotel in singapore we realized this coveted thing wasn't going away anytime soon so we made our way back to the us and we are back in nashville where we found ourselves quarantined and a cabin in the woods going crazy having no clue what to do as travel youtubers during a pandemic if we weren't able to get on an airplane again for the rest of the year what would you want to watch us do instead so we put our life up for a vote on instagram by van the internet said so that's exactly what we did we are driving to georgia to buy our van in may of 2020 when the world was filled with uncertainty it's ours and our bank account is a lot lighter we bought a converted spurner van and that's where a year van life began [Music] one of the best parts about transitioning from international travel to van life is that we get to drink great coffee every morning this might not seem like a big deal to most people but moving into the van was the first time we've owned a coffee maker in over four years it's so great [Music] it is may of 2021 which means that it has been an entire year since we bought this van and if you've been following along with our journey it's no secret that the past year has been full of ups and downs so without further ado we present to you the van life roller coaster van life started way up here we were pumped we had just spent two months in a dark cabin in the woods quarantining and we bought the van in atlanta drove it back to nashville all right here we go and it just felt surreal we've never owned a home together we haven't bought cars since we've been married and for the last four years we've been homeless and carless but today we're buying our home and our car at the same time we were so excited we spent a whole month doing renovations just making it more hours and as we were doing the renovations the anticipation just kept building more and more we were just so excited to get on the road and be traveling again and then literally before we pulled out of the driveway our fridge broke oh it's attached yeah that was dumb so our first stop on this vanlife adventure was to the manufacturing facility of the fridge company in kentucky strong start then from there there was just a steep learning curve moving into van life we quickly learned that when you have your home on wheels and everything bumps and rattles around things are bound to break and that's exactly what they did our ceiling lights broke then a rock chipped the windshield one of our tires went flat our shore power quit working our solar panels quit charging drawer latches broke i feel like those first few weeks like we had a good attitude we didn't really let it bother us at the beginning we remember this very differently all i wanted to do was get out there and travel and start making travel videos again for this channel and we couldn't do that because we were just living in a constant construction zone so after getting the fridge fixed the electrical from like day one was a headache i did not think that was gonna happen i knew nothing about solar or electricity or batteries anything with the cord on it so it felt like for the first few months we were just battling keeping this van powered and that became extremely frustrating we're just gonna pretend like everything's fine until we have coffee and then there was navigating the whole compost toilet situation it was really more like the whole liquid situation our toilet our sink liquids were created where do you dump these liquids big time messed up oh i need your help okay put the camera down i need your help i think we thought we would figure it out a lot more quickly than we did oh there's p there's p the world's not built for vans we have to physically lift our pee and take it somewhere just pour it down the shower drain right there gross and then the the gray water that's created by the sink depending on what you read online and who you listen to some people are like sure dump it in the grass open it up on the interstate what somebody told us we ultimately ended up going with okay if everybody did what we were doing today would this still work just how much would it infect in fact probably how much would it affect the environment and others if everybody did this and that's kind of how we ended up making decisions like everybody just dumped their pee in the grass how gross would that be then there was the whole propane fiasco it's leaky i've made smarter decisions in my life previous to van life we slept in a different bed every two days every three days and i kind of pride myself in being able to sleep really well in any environment on any surface but the bed in the van is just plain old uncomfortable plain old uncomfortable we've been in mississippi too long we weren't sleeping well for a long time and i think that affected our attitude a lot also once we hit the road we discovered that the hot water in the van didn't work oh it's not hot it's not hot which meant that we were stuck taking cold showers which really meant that we just didn't shower very often nope i know we're complaining a lot here but this is the downward slide of the roller coaster last but not least was the constant struggle for internet as youtubers we needed to be able to upload big files and to find internet good enough for that in the van was a constant challenge it seemed like we were just on one big scavenger hunt for good internet i do feel like every time we found ourselves in one of those picturesque places where we're just living in the van with a beautiful sunset mountain view we get parked pull out our phone no one in it oh always great so that was like sad you have this vision of like living and working on the road but it took us a while to figure out how to really do that just to be completely transparent we didn't show everything and show all of the frustrations because because of how we sound right now really remember last year was 20 20. it was a weird year people had their own struggles and we didn't feel like we needed to put more of ours out into the world i just realized every good roller coaster like you always board the seat from the ground level that's where we were in the cabin in the woods lowest point crank up slow crank it was like oh we're gonna live in a van okay but we didn't know we were on a roller coaster yet we were going up and up and up and then every good roller coaster starts with that first big drop but it always has to go back up are there any roller coasters that just go down and don't go anywhere else that's a water slot but then we started to get the hang of things we were figuring out where to camp we discovered harvest hosts which let us camp for free at wineries and breweries and that was pretty sweet harvest house was a game changer we were out west the weather was beautiful we were with friends and then there was a bike trip which for me was a highlight of 2020. this is beautiful oh gosh it rocky and the only reason that we were able to pull that off was because the van enabled it man the bike trip was nuts i rode 500 miles without going to the hospital so things were really looking up and then we finished the bike trip well i got it apart boom back to reality with all this stuff again so i got this phone call from the national park service saying that we were getting a hefty fine and we were no longer allowed to film in national parks two days later i got a call from the faa telling me that i was no longer allowed to fly my drone neither one of those things have anything to do with van life it was just this frustration that we've been filming internationally for four years and then we get to the us and there's all this red tape national parks are the most beautiful parts of the entire country and that was taken away from us we were just like what are we supposed to do now and then things started breaking again the backup camera went out so we went to get that fixed and then we learned that our van was about to catch on fire because of some faulty wiring so we had to get that fixed all these cables and your fuse sizes are not even close to correct the weather started getting cold we had some more power issues we had spent about a week living in a mechanics garage and we had just decided let's get it all fixed by a professional and that's what we did it was this reset we were so excited we spent every day living in that garage planning the most epic road trip down the pacific coast highway and we couldn't wait everything was working i'm so warm and happy we're like this is it we're gonna end the year doing what i've always wanted to do we are heading north to officially start the pacific coast highway from the very top cancelled that was a low moment for me we definitely had some really good times in the van in 2020 but if we're being completely honest here when our pch trip was cancelled i was so done with the van i think i've been trying to stay positive and work through it for so long and i just got to this point where i thought this isn't worth it anymore and so we just decided that we were gonna turn the van around and drive straight back home for the holidays when we pulled into my parents driveway for thanksgiving i honestly thought we would never be back in the van if our van mysteriously fell off a cliff i was going to be excited about it it turned out that a whole month at home with friends and family far away from the van was the reset that we didn't know that we needed it's true distance really does make the heart grow fonder we are officially moving back into the van we're gonna make some much-needed upgrades and then we're heading off on a big adventure so not only do we decide to give van life a second chance in 2021 but we also publicly committed to visiting all 50 states but not before we fixed our three most annoying things about van life we figured if we were doing this we were gonna do it right first thing on our list was the bed and nate bought this giant trifold mattress and then did this car that i was very skeptical about i am very happy to report that this bed has been a game changer it is six solid inches of memory foam and i seriously don't know what we ever did without it we have been sleeping so well this year underneath the bed we have these cushions that turn into couches and a table right here but we hardly ever convert this anymore because the bed does kind of add an extra step and make it a little more annoying but now when we do want to sit back here i put this blanket on here so it looks a little nicer you just laying back on it like this and it's super comfy it pretty much feels like you're sitting on a couch with your feet propped up and we're ready to go to sleep we just pull it back out and the bed's already made so my master plan to increase the toilet capacity didn't exactly work out that's uh it's gonna hold a lot of pee which is good as long as it fits but of the three things on the list this was probably the least important drumroll please and the biggest game changer of 2021 is our professional rv friends gave us this hot spot and it has been absolutely life-changing instead of having to get a hotel once a week to be able to upload video or work in parking lots because cities are the places that have good internet we've been working from places like yellowstone and badlands national park we've been actually camping in the van it's crazy right it's a beautiful thing it's the best thing and it's unlimited it changes everything also we started the season of van life in february almost four months have gone by and i have yet to open the electrical cabinet i used to be underneath this cushion trying to fix something like every other day our power has worked flawlessly getting the alternator charger that charges the batteries while we drive installed last year has been a game changer that and uh i'm a little embarrassed to admit that i learned that if you turn the inverter off when you're not using it it saves a lot of power hey better late than never now this year hasn't been completely perfect both our faucet and our water purifier froze and burst which means we were without running water for a very long time but i think our attitudes are just better this year so while it wasn't ideal we didn't let it detract from our happiness like past problems as hard as a rock and the icing on top is now we're starting to get some beautiful warm weather which means that finally after 12 months of living in the van van life is finally starting to live up to what we thought it would be from the very beginning we've been cold for so long we might just be slow learners but we feel like it's taken us this long to really get everything figured out so at a time when we thought we'd be so ready to get back on airplanes we're loving van life more than ever but don't get us wrong international travel will always be our first love and as soon as we're done with this 50 states goal we'll be back on airplanes flying to new countries but we're not in nearly as big of a rush as we were before we've actually been talking over the last couple days about how hard it's gonna be to go back to living in a suitcase we've gotten really spoiled in the van yeah like i don't know if i could keep up with my previous self you know when like your mom picks up a basketball for the first time in forever and like shoot and it's like oh i hurt my shoulder like i feel like that's going to be us traveling like we're going to be like running from the lounge being like i need a cart [Music] i feel like we were pretty negative about van life at the beginning of this video so let me give you our favorite ways our lives have changed since transitioning from international travel to the van so i pretty much went four years without cooking and i love going out to eat it's a huge part of travel for us but it's just been really nice to cook what i want to eat go to the grocery store stock up on my spice cabinet be able to have a fridge where we put our leftovers and reheat them the next day it's been a nice change and i think we're healthier because of it maybe not we absolutely love having our home with us all the time it doesn't get more convenient than this we did not know how much we loved this until we did a short road trip to cerro gordo earlier this year without the van and i didn't know what to do with myself anytime we're driving down the road it's like i'm hungry problem solved i'm thirsty problem solved have to go to the bathroom problem solved oh shoot we were supposed to be on a business call five minutes ago pull over we always have a dining room especially during the pandemic when dining rooms are closed and you have to eat in your car anyway right there in the parking lot when the food was still hot um that was a huge plus no more soggy fries for us most people have to get rid of stuff when they move into a van we on the other hand we lived out of a suitcase for four years i'm pretty sure the size of my suitcase is equivalent to one and a half of these drawers and now we have room for all kinds of stuff that we couldn't bring with us before like my essential oils diffuser my lap desk not one but two pairs of tennis shoes my massage gun way too many clothes i have at least three cardigans in here which is two more than i used to have exercise weight i actually just got these you get the point now more stuff isn't always better but it's been really nice to have all these little conveniences ow speaking of extra stuff not only do we have it but we don't have to pack it up every single time we want to move to a new location when we used to travel internationally we love cruises because it was the only way that we could get from one place to the next without having to unpack our suitcase now that's just our life we definitely miss flying on airplanes but we did not and will not ever miss packing and now every time we're getting ready to leave all we have to do is throw all the stuff in the sink and close all the windows we're ready to go we spend so much less in the van than we did traveling internationally after we got past the initial big purchase we pretty much just spent money on food and gas we'd probably spend in a month in the van what we used to spend in a week we'd been on the road for almost four months this year and we'd probably paid for five nights of camping probably our least favorite thing about international travel was how far we were from friends and family and how little we got to see them but this past year we've been very available especially if you have a driveway that we can park in for probably way longer than we were invited for and we've been able to invite people like nate's brother to come sleep on our floor we've had friends and family come travel with us in various places and that's all because we're not halfway across the globe and we can just drive our van wherever we want and by far our favorite part of van life versus international travel is the flexibility we have we just thought we were last minute planners before this year van life has taken it to a whole new level legitimately 50 plus percent of the mornings that we wake up we don't know where we're gonna sleep that night if we like where we are we stay if we don't like it we leave and we've just never had it that easy before if worse comes to worse we can always just take our bed to the walmart parking lot sleep there and figure it out the next day before we always had like a plane booked or a train booked or the airbnb wasn't available we couldn't just like spur the moment change plans very often it was expensive we had to set the 50 states goal because otherwise we just end up staying in the same place that's what happened last year we just love colorado so we never left we just stayed i know this video has been a little different but we just realized a couple weeks ago that we were coming up on one year of van life and we just kind of wanted to do something to commemorate that but also make sure the full story was told we had been hearing the rumors online karen they don't really like van life it was true and at some points that was true but now that we're enjoying our time in the van we didn't want people questioning as we're finishing out all 50 states if we were doing this because we felt like we had to or if we were doing it because we truly enjoyed it because right now we really are loving van life we admit it more than we want to without all the bad times we wouldn't appreciate these good times 100 you know like if it was easy from the beginning i don't think we would have this bond there's been times that i want to strangle them and now any day it works without breaking i'm just like ah me and you buddy and you the three of us just the three of us we can make it if we try just the things it's two isn't it i don't know it's like an old song that i obviously don't know too well have you ever heard of mississippi referred to as the sip no somebody on instagram was like welcome to the sip i like it just the two of us or three of us are four of us thanks again to j.crew for sponsoring this video

Channel: Kara and Nate

Views: 685,102

Rating: 4.9436178 out of 5

Keywords: #vanlife, couple vlog, kara and nate, kara and nate vlog, self converted sprinter van, sprinter van, tiny home, tiny home on wheels, tiny house, travel, travel couple vlog, travel vlog, usa travel, van life, van life couple, van life usa, van life vlog, van tour, vanlife, vlog, jcrew, van living, living in a van, women's dresses, women's shirts, fashion, women's pants, swim, van, #vanlife tour, self converted van tour, converted sprinter van tour, kara and nate latest vlog

Id: BW66Mlp5cAA

Length: 22min 32sec (1352 seconds)

Published: Sun May 16 2021

Reddit Comments

[u/AlphaNepali]

I wonder if K&N know about this subreddit. I remember quite a few rumors on here saying that K&N didn't like vanlife. They mentioned those rumors so maybe?

[u/nowheresville99]

They described the 6 bedroom mcmansion where they spent quarantine, that lists on airbnb for about $500 a night as a "dark cabin in the woods?"

[u/iwishihad10dogs]

STOP WITH THE CAPS LOCK

[u/hutter22]

I know I have commented this before but...

how can they be so proud of not having showers often...Jesus man

[u/irrealewunsche]

Why did they sometimes blur out their laptops?

[u/EpicWaves15555]

I like that they are enjoying the van more now but I hope that they don't get too caught up in it. I really enjoy the international travel. Hopefully they get back to it and re-kindle their love for it if things get better in a few months.

[u/TammyTermite]

I already hate the first minute of this video. They are getting way too commercial.

[u/Betsyis12]

Started watching then ended up fast-forwarding to the end. It had the same feel as tolerantly listening to friends who tell the same story every time you see them.

[u/Ro6t]

The channel is sustainable because of the ads and we get to see great content. Happy to watch the ads if it motivates them to continue filming and travelling.