A Mobile Life

Fiordland National Park, New Zealand. 4/30. 8:34pm

Ahhh, heat. I am starting to warm up. Man is it cold outside. Thankfully our camp ground has a lounge where we can hang out until the last possible minute we can keep our eyes open. I’m sitting on a burgundy-colored loveseat that looks like it just came out of Art Van’s clearance section. Very 90s. Not attractive per say, but perfect scrap for a dorm room or a first apartment. As usual, Tyler is sitting next to me, but instead of reading the latest issue of TIME or Newsweek, he is deeply enthralled in his new David Sedaris book, titled Naked. It is a memoir and apparently a hilarious one. Every 15 seconds or so, Tyler tilts his head back, grabs his forehead, closes his eyes, and smiling ear to ear says, “oh god!” Then he laughs for about 10 seconds and goes back to reading. I am intrigued, so I’ve thought about reading it after he’s finished, but lately he’s been really into telling me each detail of the book and I like hearing it from him, so maybe I’ll skip the paperback version.

Today marks our 13^th day of living on the road. I would recommend this lifestyle to people who are looking for a no-nonsense way to travel. But don’t be mistaken, it isn’t the easiest way. You really have to be low maintenance, for starters. I’ve been thinking about the many people out there who may be inspired to take to the road and live in the back of a van themselves. For them and anyone who knows someone who would be interested in partaking in such an adventure, I have some words of advice.

1.  Make sure to choose your travel buddy wisely

This is key. You want to make sure you can live with this person 24/7. You should like them more often than you dislike them. Having a similar sense of humor helps too. This has been a bit difficult for us. I tend to believe my jokes are fall-on-the-floor hilarious and have the tendency to laugh at them all the time. After being together for quite a while, Tyler has either given up hope that my jokes will ever improve or has actually started to find them equally hilarious (I am hoping the ladder). So now for the most part we both laugh at my jokes—which helps when you are in the car together for long periods of time. Having the ability to be complete and utter dorks together is a bonus too. For example, the other day we were driving down the road and came upon a gas station a strange name. Challenge! Yep, Challenge! is actually the name of the station. With the exclamation point. I’ve never seen a gas station name with punctuation. Interesting. Turns out it is a chain. So every time we pass one of these stations, I can’t help myself but to shout out “Challenge!” I really exclaim it, just like the punctuation suggests. Even if we are deep in conversation. Like, “did you hear Barack Obama got a dog?” “Oh yeah, he is a cute little thing, I saw a picture in last week’s TIME.” “I wonder how they pick the president’s dog. Do you think CHALLENGE! they have a special breeder?” (I later found out it is a rescue dog, further confirming my love for Obama.)

“Hey, did you see that Challenge!?” I would ask, laughing. I look over at Tyler, who laughing and nodding. We’ve both gotten into shouting the name out whenever we pass a station. It is great fun.

We also find tremendous enjoyment in scaring sheep when we stop on the side of the road. We’ve learned that sheep are naturally quite, well, sheepish (hee hee) and don’t like human attention one bit. But they are everywhere and we’ve recently learned that there are 15 sheep per resident of New Zealand. Can you believe that? There are only 4 million residents here, but 15 sheep per person? When you drive down the road, it isn’t all that surprising of a statistic. They really are on every square meter of this country. Either that or cows. Oh, and there are even deer farms. Odd. But back to the sheep. We like to take photos of them but whenever we stop the car on the side of the road, they all run away. This is the fun part because we get stare at their butts, which sway back and forth really rapidly for about 10 seconds or so. This is the funny part. Then they usually turn around to make sure we aren’t following them. Then they pose for a photo. Sheep are so amusing.

2. Pay attention to bathrooms

There are really only 2 ways to sleep in a van in New Zealand. Legally or illegally. For the real risk-takers, you can find a little spot in the woods and set up shop for free. This is if you don’t get caught by the police. As we understand, getting caught can result in some hefty fines. Or you can honker down in a parking lot with a restroom nearby (a.k.a. a rest stop). These are a little safer because if you get there late at night at least you can brush your teeth and as long you leave at the butt crack of dawn you might miss the trolling police and get off scot-free. We see people doing this all the time. Just parking on the side of the road or in an unattended lot, hoping not to get a ticket.

Since a ticket would do nothing but shatter our already swiftly-detonating budget we’ve decided to go the legal route. So every afternoon after a hike and some sightseeing, we start searching for campgrounds that take campervans. This usually isn’t too difficult and for anywhere from $25-$36 a night we have a parking space (always on grass, surrounded by trees or a picnic table), and are usually within decent walking distance to the public toilets and showers. Not too shabby if you are ok with public toilets. In my opinion, the bathrooms are the most important part of the equation when choosing a campground.

I’ve been to my fair share of campsites in the U.S. and one thing is consistent: the bathrooms are quite disappointing. For starters, the sinks are usually lined with rust and there is always at least one tissue with some kind of vile-looking goo on it wadded up into a ball inevitably wedged into the space next to the faucet you need to turn, causing you to awkwardly contort your arm as not to touch it and still turn the water on. Then, when your hands are clean you are forced to go through the ordeal of figuring out how to touch the nozzle again without brushing the piece of biohazard material. Ug. And that is just the sinks. The toilet stalls are far worse. It seems that many people don’t know how to use a toilet at campgrounds. Most toilets are plugged with things too disgusting to explain and tissues are strewn all over the floor, causing you to tip-toe around the carnage while attempting to hover, squat and make it in the hole that you really don’t want to look at to see if you aimed correctly. Then the showers. I hope to god that everyone who goes camping (or ever uses a public shower) wears sandals to protect themselves from man-eating foot funguses. Because who knows what is on those floors. I can only guess at the microscopic contents, but the visible ones are enough to make my stomach turn. Clumpy hair piled into corners not to mention the drain and stains of all colors on the walls. The key is to go in, don’t touch the wall, make sure your feet only touch your sandals, wash up and get out. Hopefully you succeed without picking up some flesh-eating disease.

But to my complete surprise and delight, New Zealand campsite bathrooms are quite the opposite. Not all of them, but most. Of the 13 nights we’ve been living on four wheels, we’ve been to a few lemons. Some hair in the drain, a few tissues, but not all bad. The other day we parked at a campsite that looked bright and inviting. It had well-tended gardens sprouting colorful roses and our site even had a bright pink painted picnic table. Neat. Festive. I was already in a good mood when I went to the bathroom. I was completely shocked! The toilet paper wasn’t the standard campground fare (cardboard). It was Downy. Light, fluffy, soft. I wanted to make a bed out of it and sleep in its pillowy goodness. I felt like that cute little bear in the Downy commercials that floats from cloud to cloud and coos with delight. I ran back to our van to tell Tyler the great news.

“Dude! You are not going to believe this!” I called to him from the opening of the sliding glass door. He was inside trying to put our bed together. He stopped immediately, turning around to look at me with wide eyes. “What? What is it?” he asked. “This is the best campground ever. Ever. You have to go to the bathroom immediately. They have incredible toilet paper. It is amazing. I am so happy,” I said, beaming. “Toilet paper? Are you serious?” he said, turning back around and continuing to fix the bed. “Yes, it is unreal. It is Downy. D-o-w-n-y. Super soft,” I said. “Well, that is great. I am happy for you,” he said.

I was happy for the rest of the night. The next day we were driving along and I brought up the Downy again. “So, didn’t that campground have the best toilet paper? I really respect a campground that invests in its customer satisfaction in such an intimate way. It shows how much they appreciate our business,” I said. Tyler laughed and then said, “I’ll have to take your word for it; I never had to use it.” Bummer. Well, at least I have the memories.

Moving on with bathrooms. Last night was the best. Not in the toilet paper department (back to the cardboard), but otherwise. We parked in Te Anau (pronounced tay-uh-now), a very small town near the magnificent Doubtful Sound in the South Island’s southwestern region. After going for a hike around the town’s picturesque lake and saying hello to some socialable cows that came within 10 feet of us to check us out, we turned in for the night. I got my toothbrush and toothpaste out of the van and headed for the bathroom. Upon opening the door, my breath caught. I was transported into a Westin hotel. No joke. There in front of me was the nicest bathroom I had seen in months. Everything was granite. Slate walls with sculptures of seahorses attached. A vanity mirror with a hairdryer for public use. The toilets were state-of-the-art with super shiny flushers. I peeked into the showers. Beautiful and spotless. I was in heaven. I came back to the car and told Tyler all about it, but he didn’t seem as impressed. Humph. I promised myself I’d take a photo of it before leaving, but I forgot. Oh well. I will remember it in my heart forever.

Moral of the story: check out the bathrooms before setting up camp. They can make or break your experience.

3. Watch what you eat

This one is of utmost importance. Specifically when it comes to foods that might give you an upset stomach. This is very important when living in a vehicle. You want to make sure that the only gas emitted is through the exhaust pipe. This isn’t much of a problem when you are staying in a hotel room and you most likely have enough room to air yourself out and not burn the nose hairs off the other person. But when you are living in a van, things are a bit different. Correction: a lot different.  When you are sleeping in the back of a van, you are basically encased in an airtight bubble that lets very little air out. That means it is probably not the best idea to go eating, lets say, a boat-load of Thai food. Recently we went to a Thai food restaurant. Never again.  I have about 2 nose hairs left. In these situations, you may find yourself catapulting your head and ½ your torso out the van’s sliding door at lightning speed as you heave in and out, struggling for fume-free air. This sight most definitely will give your campground neighbors a reason to stare, but at that moment clean oxygen will probably be most important objective on your mind and until the air is cleared, it won’t matter who stares. Unfortunately, Thai food isn’t the only stomach-irritating food. We’ve found that pizza, burgers, soup, Indian food (there’s a shocker), and salad are also likely culprits. In lieu of these revelations, we’ve decided that Subway sandwiches are the only safe option. So today is our 10^th straight day of Subway. I kid you not.

4. Stay clean

We started this journey with a devil-may-care attitude. Shower? No way! Wash our clothes? Who cares! Being dirty is great! We are living on the road, man; it’s cool to have greasy hair and clothes you haven’t washed for days on end. Well, that attitude changed faster than we thought. We learned the hard way that there is merit in being clean.

By day #4 of our trip we were driving down the road in the same clothes we’d left Christchurch in and loving it. We hadn’t showered and each day would just get up and go in the same clothes. We didn’t care. This all changed when we woke up on our fourth day, went out to breakfast (I shudder to think of what the other patrons thought at the sight of us) and came back to the car. We got into our seats and were about to drive off when we both looked at each other in disgust.

“Do you smell that?” I asked Tyler. “Ohmygod, what is that? It is awful! It really stinks in here!” he said.

Although we hadn’t changed our pants and shirts, we’d had the decency to change our underwear and socks during the 4 days. We looked back at the pile we’d made of our dirty clothes and then at each other. We knew what we had to do.

That night we showered. I couldn’t remember ever feeling so clean. It was fantastic. My hair actually felt like real hair, not matted-down dirt-filled straw. I could run my hands through it. Tyler emerged from the bathroom with a massive smile on his face. “I feel so great! I had an awesome shower,” he told me. “Me too. Maybe we should shower more often,” I said.

It took us a few more days to wash our clothes. By that time our van stunk so badly the stench could have killed insects. But once we washed them, it was livable again. Since then, we wash both our clothes and ourselves every few days or so. Staying stink-free is a new objective for us.

5. Memorize the van’s dimensions

By this I mean the height of van’s ceiling and the size of its doors. Also, figure out the best and most efficient way of setting up your bed in the least amount of time. These tips will help anyone who decides van living is the way to go.

Our first day on the road I learned the hard way that the passenger door dosen’t stay open when I want it to. So when I was moving about and transporting things from the back of the van to the front, the door had a tendency to gravitate to my behind in a violent, slamming manner. I now prop it open with my leg when moving things about.

The ceiling is another issue. When you are sitting on the bed in the back, it isn’t a good idea to ever sit up straight. If you do the ceiling will surely knock you back to size. I can almost sit up straight, but have the bumps on my head to prove that in fact, I cannot. Tyler, on the other hand, has a very short memory for such measurements and hits his head nightly.

6. No makeup, no problem

This one is for the ladies. As I mentioned earlier, it is best if you are low maintenance. Seriously low maintenance. Unlike hotels where you might get your own vanity mirror and area to put on your makeup, things are a bit different in a van. My cosmetics cabinet is the little pocket on the bottom of the door where maps usually go. This pocket seems to fit all that I need: my contact case, dental floss, toothbrush, toothpaste, and face wash. Each night after going to the bathroom to brush my teeth and wash my face, I grab my face lotion, close the sliding door and use the window as my vanity mirror as I put on my lotion. It works. I only wear makeup on the most special of occasions (maybe twice a year), so makeup isn’t in the equation for me. But if you are one that feels better with a little blush, van windows works quite well.

More important than any of these tid-bits, the main requirement to successful van living is a sense of adventure. This is something Tyler and I have mastered. We are enjoying New Zealand so much. Right now we are in Fiordland National Park, the darling of New Zealand. It is a large area in the southwest of the South Island where the Milford Sound is. As I write this, I am sitting only about ¼ mile from the Milford Sound. Tomorrow is a day we’ve been waiting for and one of the main reasons I wanted to come to this country. We are going to see the Sound. At 9:15am we will board a boat and cruise the Sound for 2.5 hours. We cannot wait. The beauty of the Sound isn’t something that can be described in words. It can only be seen. For an idea of its beauty, check out photos on the following links:

http://travel.nationalgeographic.com/places/gallery/newzealand_glassy-water.html

http://www.trekearth.com/gallery/Oceania/New_Zealand/South_Island/Fiordland/Milford_Sound/

Onward!

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