Episode of My First Million with Sam Parr and Shaan Puri.
Transcript
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Kind: captions Language: en the way it’s working is that some states are choosing to close like the developed campsites and their national forests and then others are actually keeping them open so you really have to go forest by forest and look to see what’s going on [Music] everybody this is Nick De Santis from the hustle welcome to another episode of behind the hustle the show where we take you behind the scenes to tell you a little bit more about some of the stories that were working on and I’m really excited about today’s episode because we’re here to talk about van life and this is a trend that you may have heard of on Instagram or on social media people who essentially live life from the road and we actually about a week ago we wrote a story about this in our daily email and it was not something that I obviously had heard the Instagram hashtag and has read a little bit about this trend but didn’t know a ton about it but luckily we have a contributor who writes for us out in San Francisco her name is MIA Sullivan and it turns out that she is actually planning as soon as the shelter and place orders list to hit the road and live a little bit of the van life herself so I wanted to invite her in to talk a little bit about where the idea came from and and what she was planning so thanks a lot Mia for joining us I really appreciate it yeah of course hey everyone so you know now he’s kind of feels like a strange time to choose to move into a van but me and my fiance planning on doing that in the summer so we’re we’re hoping to still go and just a little bit of background on how the idea came about for us we were really interested in taking a year off and and traveling living a more simple life and we’re big backpackers so we thought we’d be pretty good candidates to move into a small space and we have a big dog who’s gonna be traveling with us so we’re designing our van with him and kind of our our lifestyle in mind yeah one of the things that you had called out in the story that you wrote for us a couple days ago was the fact that there’s sort of a wide variety of vans and there are certain people who sort of do a more low-tech version of it and then there are other people who have fans that use sort of called kind of mini bunkers so you sent me a couple pictures of the van that you’re actually like building out it looks like tell us a little bit about what that looks like yeah so it is a 2015 Mercedes Sprinter van it is it has a 170 inch wheelbase so it’s it’s one of the longer ones there’s like a shorter one than a bit of a longer one I would say our build out is gonna be more definitely more like the bugger than bare-bones so we’ll have running water we’ll have heat we won’t have a full bathroom but we will have a toilet and we’ll have a like an outdoor shower situations so it will be pretty pretty contained we won’t have to rely on gyms or you know bathrooms and in random random town so I’m feeling pretty good about that especially now and we were gonna get a smaller water tank but we’re opting for the bigger 35 gallon tank given the pandemics so how how how’s the renovation going like you sent me some photos has it been challenging have you run into headaches I’m curious about sort of how what that process has been like yeah so it’s going well it is very challenging for me my fiance is the Builder out of the two of us so he’s been the one who is figuring out you know like what to do and what to buy and then I am the assistant so the other week we cut out a window in our van we’ve it’s the third window that we’ve installed and he was the one who was doing all the cutting and the planning and the measuring but I was basically you know helping him handing him things cleaning so it’s going well but there are certain things coming up like the electrical wiring that I know he’s pretty nervous about you know cutting a window into a man is nerve-racking and I think he handled it well so so far so good good I mean it certainly looks it was I was surprised at how big the man was it’s but it certainly looks like things are going well yeah it’s it’s pretty big I think that um you know with our with the two of us and our dog it will probably be a good size and probably won’t feel very big we have no it’s just an empty box with insulation and a few windows so tell us a little bit about like your your plans one of the other things that you had written about last week was sort of where people are allowed to go and how there’s national park land and national forests where maybe some of those sort of more common camping facilities in those places are shut down to visitors but you know there’s sort of more wide-open spaces that are very people can go so I’m curious like what does your route look like are there particular landmarks or places where you want to go yeah so um we were planning on doing more of a we’re gonna start going up the west coast so I live in San Francisco we are gonna go up the west coast and hit Oregon and Washington State however much of the land right now is closed in Oregon and because we’re starting a month later than we wanted to we’re gonna actually skip that for now and do that on the back end of our trip so we’re gonna head to Montana Idaho and Montana first and hit national forests it’s pretty confusing it’s not like oh all national forests are closed right now um the way it’s working is that some states are choosing to close like the developed campsites and their national forests and then others are actually keeping them open so you really have to go forest by forest and look to see what’s going on what I have found is that most national forests are open to dispersed camping so that means you can just drive your van somewhere on this huge piece of land and encamped and be alone and so that is what our trip is going to look like especially in the beginning you know there might be I think that you know there are some states that are reopening maybe they’ll be like small towns in Montana that we can check out and just you know be really really careful but especially in the beginning with the pandemic still you know kind of raging we’re gonna be in mostly like isolated we might even stay in a knot in one National Forest for like two weeks and then kind of continue on and just you know hike and and explore have you thought about if you do run into other people on the road how you’ll handle that given all the concerns about social distancing that aren’t gonna be going away anytime soon yeah so we bought we bought cool masks with with mask filters so we’re definitely gonna be wearing those yeah we’ll have gloves and you know we’ll just kind of keep our distance from people I think that it actually we’re gonna be interacting with a lot fewer people then we kind of happen to interact with now just going to the grocery store and like being in a city so you know I’m I think that aisle if antibody tests if and when antibody tests are available that’s up you know obviously something that will be interested in in doing so we can you know feel more safe meeting people but I think for the beginning you know it’s gonna be like masks keep our distance but another thing thinking about is it’ll be interesting we might go to certain places where no one’s wearing a mask you know we might be in a small town in Montana and like people will look at us like we’re crazy well I’m really interested in how all of those dynamics will play out and are you planning to document your travels in any way I think one thing that we had talked a little bit about is you were maybe hoping to write some stories from the road or I’m curious about like are you gonna be trying to tell any stories of people who are in who are dealing with the pandemic and I’m curious about like are you are you gonna try to document this trip in any way oh yeah so yeah as a journalist it will my aspiration is for it to be incredibly documented so the main thing I’m doing is is a podcast it’s called places it will launch in June and it’s gonna be about it’s gonna be stories about like small towns across the US that was my original plan for it and I’m already a few episodes deep just on on the background from from kind of how we’re planning to go about the trip however I do think that with the Krone of our situation the focus may change a little bit that’s that’s still to be determined from my end but yeah the podcast will also weave through our experiences traveling on the road so that’s one yeah that’s one thing I’m doing and then yeah I would I am planning to collect stories on the trip and yeah want to write about like what it’s like what kind of like how people are living in smaller towns because I think that the view that I’m getting is this is how people are living in cities and I think that’s a lot what’s being reported on but like how are people approaching it in in small towns are they afraid of it are they like this is ridiculous so I’m really interested in that and kind of the rural urban divide of fear in the crisis in maybe some places that haven’t been quite so hard as it hit as places like San Francisco or DC where I am yeah I’m also curious like as you talk to friends and family about your plans are there misconceptions that come up or things that you where you have to sort of people try to talk you out of it or they have concerns that they raise I’m curious you know what is the reaction when you tell other people about your plans have they been supportive or there are the things that you have to sort of explain what is some of those conversations look like yes so in like before the pandemic I think everyone was extremely supportive even to a point that it really surprised me that people are so supportive um but at the same time I think that you know a lot of the people I was telling know me very well and it’s the type of thing that’s like oh that makes sense that you would want to do that maybe like they wouldn’t want to do that but it makes sense for you so yeah I felt really lucky for people to be supportive I think now honestly it’s surprising but no one has said oh I think that you should postpone this trip I don’t think it’s a good idea to do it you know this year anytime soon but I wonder if people kind of think that but they don’t want to burst our bubble but it but some people some people have said oh well you know we just want to make sure you have a great experience and we don’t want you to like not be able to to go to the places that you wanted to go and do the things that you wanted to do and so that I get that but the other people say oh well that seems like the most socially distance thing you could do right now like live in a van just with your you know partner and boyfriend and Mike hiked around in places that there aren’t people so as if you’re getting on a bunch of airplanes yeah so I don’t know I mean no one’s come out and no one’s come out and said I think this is a horrible idea yet you’re like most looking forward to obviously circumstances are different now but you know what’s the thing that you’re most excited about so I think a combination between like a slower pace of life and being able to connect with people and tell stories about places that are foreign to me I think the connecting with people part is one thing I am anxious about what that’s a huge part of the trip and if we can’t like interact with that many people I think it will be very unfortunate but I’m optimistic that we can figure out creative ways to still connect cool that’s really good well thanks for taking some time to tell us about it obviously with you know there’s the you’re still sort of waiting on the green light I think but we’re going to be excited to to follow some of your trip and I’m sure we’ll we’ll talk more and and I think you had said the other day that we might when the van has finished get a little bit of a visual tour so I’m looking forward to that as well yeah absolutely yeah I’d love to show everyone around it should be done at the end of June so well good luck with the rest of the renovations I hope everything goes well and I’ll talk more soon thanks Nick thanks bye everybody you