Currently Living: New Orleans

We are living full-time in the belly of this van. We're currently in New Orleans, and then we'll head up the East Coast. The route is more than 9,000 miles around the states with no defined “end” (which we're trying to maintain for as long as possible). While in the West, we lived mostly on BLM/public land, which was incredible, but there's much less public land in the East.

Why did you decide to travel around in a van?

I have always been interested in the tiny house movement, but I never felt ready to settle into a place for good (I have a serious travel bug in me). Originally from Michigan, I graduated from school and spent a few years working in Boston and San Francisco as an experience strategist. I loved this crazy life but knew there were deeper connections to be had if I could take the time and space away. Donnie's interest was based more in the project we wanted to carry out while traveling in the van. But once he started to build the interior of the van, it also awoke in him a love for woodworking and power tools that he was unaware of. So Donnie and I quit our jobs at the end of last year to work on the project. That project is called A Place and All Its Creatures. It’s a multimedia exploration of how people connect with the natural world and with each other. We’re using film, photography, writing and illustration to express and share our observations, research and experiences.