Amanda Montel (2:34)

Have you just gone through a breakup? Did Covid fuck up your college or career plans? What if you could start over and reject mainstream society and like live on nothing but a sprinter van and your husky I'm in.

Bella Jansen (2:49)

At the end of the day, it's all about trusting your gut and just being really smart. If you don't trust your gut and if you are not thinking about how you can get out of a situation, you can get yourself in some really shitty situations.

Amanda Montel (3:01)

This is Sounds like a Cult, A show about the modern day cults we all follow. I'm your host, Amanda Montel. And I'm an author.

Reese Oliver (3:08)

And I'm Reese Oliver, your co host and sounds like a cult's resident rhetoric scholar.

Amanda Montel (3:14)

Every week on this show we discuss a different fanatical fringe group or guru from the cultural zeitgeist. From cruise ships to Christian pop music. Today we're addressing the cult of van life to try and answer the big question.

Reese Oliver (3:27)

This group sounds like a cult. But is it really? And if so, which of our cult categories does it fall into? A live your life, watch your back, or get the fuck out. After all, in 2025, cultishness is in the eye of the beholder. And not every culty looking group these days is equally bad.

Amanda Montel (3:52)

The point of this show is to.

Reese Oliver (3:54)

Analyze how culty behaviors show up in everyday life, including places you might not think to look. Cultish behavior has a funny way of finding you, no matter how far off into the open road you gallivant. In fact, sometimes it's waiting for you right off the only exit for miles once you realize you've trekked too far from home to turn back.

Amanda Montel (4:12)

Wow. Vibey, Moody. Spooky. But not as spooky, some members of today's cult might argue, as the stifling, static existence of traditional homeownership or apartment rentership, that mainstream imprisoning lifestyle. Those carpet walkers don't know what that means.

Reese Oliver (4:34)

You will.

Amanda Montel (4:35)

You're gonna find out. Let's not mince words. And to be clear, we recognize we come from a very privileged place when we say this. Rhys and I are both tucked cozily into our homes. But most of us living in America in 2025 can probably agree that the cost of living is not exactly affordable, humane. We're not getting our bang for our buck these days. Amidst all this angst emerges a cult of sorts, an alternative, a transcendent opportunity to leave the ills, the false promises of boring suburban life behind you and hop inside the world of Van Life. To remodel a Sprinter van into a millennial pink and Pinterest plant green utopia. To buzz around from the redwood forest to the Gulf stream waters. Because this land was made for you and me and share it all online.

Reese Oliver (5:32)

I don't know. We're talking about fucking vampire.

Amanda Montel (5:36)

Exactly. Exactly.

Reese Oliver (5:37)

Nothing beats a jet to holiday except a Sprinter road trip.

Bella Jansen (5:41)

Question mark.

Amanda Montel (5:43)

There is a cult for everybody these days, and Van Life could have been the cult for me. I mean, we're talking about this emergent population of mostly young people, but not always a lot of retirees too, who decide to trade in the classic American dream for a life on the road. And this lifestyle has been popularized by social media. It blew up especially during COVID when people were really reimagining what their life could look like. Rhys, what is your relationship to Van Life? Do you follow any Van Life Lifers online?

Reese Oliver (6:16)

I follow a couple of them from very much a place of, like, I want to see if you'll turn into a trad wife in five years or not, because it's really anybody's guess. But for now, I'm loving the peel and stick tile in the van. I think it looks really cute.

Amanda Montel (6:31)

Oh, my God. That is such a relatable perspective. One of my eyes is like, earnestly seated and tuned in for the Sprinter Van Reno. And the other eye is like, when is this person going to publicly renounce vaccinations?

Reese Oliver (6:46)

Exactly. It's very much like a part of me is jealous of it, and then a part of me is like, I don't think you're getting out of this what you're supposed to be getting out of this. In part, I think that feeling might be because of the social media of it all.

Amanda Montel (7:00)

Yeah. So I think what makes Van Life culty out of the gate for me is exactly what you're saying. This juxtaposition of this ultra romanticized boho paradise that it looks like on Instagram or YouTube. That's where I discovered van lifers on YouTube. In contrast with the ugly, dirty, brutal nastiness of having to clean a compost toilet and avoid getting lost in the middle of the wilderness because you're just a girl.

Reese Oliver (7:32)

Yeah, I think there's a lot of really harsh contrast going on in Van Life, especially the way that it's presented to us. And there's a little bit of a spoiler for later, but in writing prompts for the Would you rather game? I kind of felt myself having a little bit of a critical thought moment because a lot of the scenarios where I was like, what's something really bad that you could endure living in your van? It just turns into, like, oh, these are ways that a lot of people live and realities that a lot of people live with. Not for funsies, because it's a fun travel thing they can post on their Instagram. Like, some people really only shower at gyms because that's their reality.

Amanda Montel (8:13)

Okay. Yes. It reminds me a little bit of our Burning man episode. And I remember some listeners yelling at me for this, I think, because they were, like, defensive of camping and, like, I like to camp, too. But there's just something a little bit culty about people who have nice setups in life foregoing it, like, for the.

Reese Oliver (8:35)

Adrenaline rush of living a lifestyle that they can opt in and out of.

Amanda Montel (8:40)

Exactly. I think a lot of people living in 2025 crave an aesthetic simplicity. Like, we want to go back to a time before iPhones, but we also want iPhones.

Reese Oliver (8:54)

The convenience. We want all of the convenience, but all of the benefits of living in a world without convenience. It's very ironic.

Amanda Montel (9:02)

And I think Van Life's promise, the cultish promise of Van Life. Of Van Life. Who is Van Life?

Reese Oliver (9:10)

Vana Life. Who's that drag queen? Van Life. That is funny. I know that queen.

Amanda Montel (9:15)

She's, like, dressed like Vanna White, but in palazzo pants.

Reese Oliver (9:19)

Paisley.

Bella Jansen (9:20)

She's a camelback.

Amanda Montel (9:21)

She knows the difference between diesel and regular fuel. So what were you saying? Oh, yeah. The promise of Vanna Life is that you are going to connect with the earth, but you're also going to become a famous influencer, but you're going to.

Reese Oliver (9:33)

Be really comfortable the whole time. And it's going to be a really great photo op everywhere you go. And it's going to cost, like, no money because you're not paying for anywhere you're living. And all the locals everywhere you go are going to love you and all the food you eat is going to be great.

Amanda Montel (9:47)

Look, and I can't lie, I eat this shit up. In the pandemic, when a lot of us were questioning what the future might be and why we cared about some of the capitalistic things we seem to care so much about and have returned to caring about, I guess. But during this brief moment when we were doing all that questioning, my YouTube algorithm was serving me the most cottage cor ass content, including tiny housers and homesteaders and Van Lifers. And I followed this Van Life couple who then settled down and started renovating a cabin in Canada where they're from. Eamon and Beck, they're going to come up in our interview, but they are sort of leaders in the YouTuber van life world. They were this incredibly aspirational couple that I found who seemed like they were just living this really healthy, wholesome, super together life. They were like Renaissance people. They could whip up a gorgeous vegan meal and renovate their own van themselves. And I was really in that headspace during the pandemic. So that's how I got interested in this world.

Reese Oliver (10:51)

It does very much give you, like all of the slices of life, but if you're willing to do everything in a way that's a little bit smaller, which I think we're all craving right now, is for the world to feel a little smaller, then it'll all be okay and you can have your cake and eat it too and whatnot. And I do very much understand the impulse. I think with COVID especially, it's like, let me get out of my current apartment and just completely start over. And if I'm starting over, then, like, why does it even really matter where I go? And like, everyone's working from home anyway. And I hate where I am. And everything feels so transient that committing to the transience almost feels like the best thing you can do.

Amanda Montel (11:31)

Like, you have more agency. Right. It makes you feel like, okay, the world around me is chaos. If I embrace the chaos, then it can't hurt me. And Van Life, I think, was one of those modern day cults that really found its legs or found its wheels during COVID alongside more destructive ones like Qanon and lighter hearted ones like, I don't know, Love island reality TV fandoms. Exactly. But Van Life did not start during the pandemic. It has a longer history. So before we get into a sim analysis and ultimately our interview, let's rewind a little bit. Put your van in reverse, because we're going back to the 1950s.

Reese Oliver (12:19)

So when you think van life. When you think 1950s, I know, I think Volkswagen. She was the mother of. In trying to define a leader of this cult, I think Mother Wagon could very much be a contender here.

Amanda Montel (12:34)

Why are we coming up with so many amazing drag Personas during this episode? Vanna White, Mother Wagon. She's like, carries around dildos and a little red wagon behind her and she.

Bella Jansen (12:45)

Has a German accent.

Amanda Montel (12:46)

Mother Wagen.

Reese Oliver (12:48)

Mother Wagen, yes. According to cultsurfing.com History of Van Life, a look back into time. The 1950s brought along the Volkswagen T1, known as the Splitty to the public, which made larger scale road travel seem more achievable for the layman at this point, cars were still new, but just kind of the thing you drove to work and got around in. They weren't really like a legitimate means of larger scale travel. I'll read a quote from this article. Post war Europe was ready for something new. And the T1 came in clutch as a symbol of hope and the spirit of exploration. Its simple, reliable design made it easy to customize, which sparked movement. Surfers in France, free spirits in Spain, and artists cruising through Germany found freedom in a van that could take them anywhere they wanted to go. Wow.

Amanda Montel (13:34)

Oh, okay. Technological advancement often lends itself to new ways of culting.

Reese Oliver (13:41)

It's like, oh, wow, we have a van and we can turn the seats sideways on it. There's a room for lots of cultishness in here.

Amanda Montel (13:48)

Oh yeah, we could have a seance in here.

Reese Oliver (13:50)

You could have a seance, you could have an orgy. You could. Drugs like, the cultish possibilities with the T1 were truly endless.

Amanda Montel (13:57)

All you had to do was turn the seats to the side.

Reese Oliver (13:59)

Van life is so prime for members of other cults or people looking to join a cult because you can be very broke, and as long as everyone together can afford the payment on the T1, you're fine.

Amanda Montel (14:09)

So true.

Reese Oliver (14:10)

So for a long time it was just some hippie freaks living in a van. And then the Internet living in a van became VanLife in 2011. I had to Google to verify this because I was like, 2011, that's a long ass time ago. No way hashtags were a thing in 2011. The first hashtag was used in 2007. Guys, wow. I was through the Internet right here.

Amanda Montel (14:37)

Old don't tell me that the birth.

Reese Oliver (14:40)

Of a hashtag and the death of a subculture, as it just becomes like a thing to look like, becomes an aesthetic choice. Posers participate. So there was obviously a huge upswing in van life at this point, and it kind of steadily increases throughout the 2000 teens. And then another big swing in our cultural zeitgeist, the pandemic. We all know and hater from Yahoo.

Bella Jansen (15:07)

Finance.

Reese Oliver (15:07)

Van dwellers in the United States have nearly doubled since 2020, from 1.9 million at the start of the pandemic to 3.1 million in 2022. For context, that's more Americans living in their cars than the populations of Wyoming, Vermont, Alaska and North Dakota combined. Obviously, we acknowledge not all of these are van lifers, or not all of them do it by choice or for the glamour of it all. But I do think that the massive uptick is at least in part thanks.

Amanda Montel (15:39)

To Ms. Van Life and the pandemic.

Reese Oliver (15:42)

Wanderlust that has onset upon our society.

Amanda Montel (15:45)

To some, especially those whose YouTube algorithms look like mine, living in a van suddenly seems very, very attractive. But I can't imagine that's true for everyone who is not up to date on these gorgeous Pinterest worthy venos. So it begs the question, who exactly is partaking in van life and leaving it all behind to live on the road? Well, according to Christian Shaffer, who is one of the largest faces of the Van Life movement, if you look her up on Instagram, she's got like 300 something thousand followers. White, skinny blonde, wears a big white hat. Seems like someone you would love to jump in a lake with. Maybe. She spoke to the New York Times, talked about how she's been living this van life lifestyle since 2019, and said that the demographics of van lifers is made up of the following. Trust fund babies with money to burn, some remote workers with nothing to lose, and then some people who were displaced by endlessly rising rents. And then I also think, as we learn from our guests later, and as I know from other content I consume, there's also a population of like retirees who decide to live the van life after they've worked so hard their whole life. So Covid was a real turning point for the hashtag vanlifeculture and the business. Of course, not only were aspiring influencers emerging on YouTube, Instagram and TikTok by the bajillions, companies and startups were erecting to meet that demand. For example, Seattle's Cabana, founded by the former head of the Seattle Department of Transportation, attempted to rent out these tricked out vans for around $200 a night. Before the company's demise in 2023, there were so many businesses for renting out snazzy, expensive, tricked out vans so that people wouldn't have to do their own remodels. It was definitely a booming business and some sort of like OG hippie. Van lifers weren't necessarily too thrilled about all of this 2020s media hype slash adventure porn. There was a New York Times piece titled How Veterans of Van Life Feel about All the Newbies. And some of the veterans were expressing a little bit of saltiness, particularly on the heels of that movie Nomadland, which came out in 2020, the perfect year for this film, which was nominated for six Academy Awards, including Best Picture and Best Director.

Reese Oliver (18:22)

And then everybody started loving a thing and everybody started doing the thing and van life got a little too cool. And then, as happens with all trends, the only thing that we love better than pointlessly hyping up a lifestyle choice that's probably not as one size fits all as we might like it to seem, is tearing people down for choosing to listen to all of the hype and go with said lifestyle choice. So now we're de influencing the hashtag vanlife. And a lot of van life content that I'm seeing nowadays is about how the hashtag vanlife is not really what it is all cracked up to be. And I don't want to say we're getting gatekeepy, but we're definitely making sure that the followers know what they're getting into because there are people who have invested thousands into lifestyles that didn't end up being sustainable for them, such as Jake Fru, who has lived in a van since 2018. And he's still living in a van, so it's somewhat sustainable for him. But he is behind a very popular video called Van Life is Overrated, which warns a lot of followers of like potential missteps and things that they might not foresee. All of the harsh realities of living in a van. And a lot of hashtag vanlife content nowadays is also more about the renovation of the van. I've noticed it's splintered into different factions of van life content, which we'll talk a little bit more about later. But I feel like in that way that's a version of it. Deep, saturating as well.

Amanda Montel (19:45)

Yeah, true. It is funny though, because I definitely, when I watch van lifer videos, I was definitely the most interested in the very, very beginning of people's van life journey and not the follow through or the harsh realities. And I think that bubble has kind of burst a little bit, especially after the murder of Gabby Petito and the media frenzy surrounding that, which definitely cast a dark shadow on the van life lifesty. I mean, I'm sure most people remember this true crime story, but Gabby Petito was this like pretty white, young, aspiring van life influencer who like took out on the road with her boyfriend and then he killed her. And I think it showed this dark side of van life that you can romanticize it in the image of the influencers that you love all you want, but at the end of the day, like it is not actually going to fix your problems. That was like an extreme story. And Portrayal of that culty promise or culty bait and switch. But now when I think of Van Life, yes, I think about being in the pandemic and imagining what that lifestyle might be like. But I also quickly think of how I don't want to shit in wood chips.

Reese Oliver (21:03)

Yeah, Just about the reality of it. Because I do feel like a lot of Van Life content is what a lot of travel content is, which is almost a very survivor ish. I'm making myself uncomfortable in all of these ways that you won't to obtain this reward that you can maybe vicariously taste some of by watching me.

Amanda Montel (21:22)

Oh yeah, it's aspirational, but it's also a slight holier than thou vibe.

Reese Oliver (21:28)

It's a little masochistic.

Amanda Montel (21:29)

Yeah, masochistic too. It's like, look how little I need. Oh, it reminds me of the cult of minimalism.

Reese Oliver (21:36)

That's what I was going to say. It's very minimalist.

Amanda Montel (21:38)

Yeah, it is. So one of those cults that like would sucker me in for a few months.

Reese Oliver (21:45)

Yeah. But like it's such a dramatic lifestyle change that that's not really something that you can kind of just back out of. And to be fair, I think that's why there's a lot of lower commitment, trendier options like the rentals popping up. Some of the Van lifers, that New York Times piece said, are a little bit upset by what they refer to as those weekend warriors. But for the most part, the OG Van Lifers aren't really that worried about oversaturation because they think that like the more foot traffic, the better. A quote from Christian Shaffer. She says Van lifers could become an asset for small towns as the movement grows, suggesting business opportunities like parking lots with toilet and shower facilities, gyms with week long passes, or amenities that are hard to find for those spacious houses or yards like wood shop rentals.

Amanda Montel (22:30)

So like gentrification for a good cause supposedly. I guess. Honestly, like, we'll get into it with our guests and we'll learn more. But my first impression, my like gut instinct of this cult is that it's one of those groups that we cover here and there where like at first it seems really fringy and extreme and also really annoying because it comes with like the influencer side of things. There's that dishonest aspect to it where you're just like, yeah, yeah, yeah, this is like totally a modern day cult, but not in a dangerous way. I actually don't know if that's true though. Like, I don't really know what it's really, really, really, really like. Which is why we're excited to hear from our guest. But before we get into that, we were curious about what some Van life horror stories might be, because there has to be something in between, like living your best boho life and literally getting murdered.

Reese Oliver (23:25)

Murdered.

Bella Jansen (23:25)

Right.

Reese Oliver (23:26)

Like what's, what's just like a Tuesday morning. You know what's like a mild inconvenience that we might not know about or even consider something we might have to deal with as the carpet walkers. Carpet steppers. Carpet walkers.

Amanda Montel (23:38)

Carpet walker.

Reese Oliver (23:39)

Carpet walkers. Yeah, we are.

Amanda Montel (23:41)

And I think it's important to share some of these horror stories because van life is not just an aesthetic answer to all of your life's woes. It gets very fucking real out there.

Reese Oliver (23:53)

So, yes, I visited Reddit and the users had some stories. One user got stuck in the Mojave Desert. They were fine where they originally parked, and then they stayed for a few days and couldn't get out. So make sure you park on solid ground that isn't sand.

Amanda Montel (24:09)

Oh my God, I've made that mistake. What are some other horror stories here?

Reese Oliver (24:14)

Female solo. Great start. Locked myself in my vehicle alone, surrounded by forest, locked in by a drunk man's vehicle while he stalked around outside and tried to see in for nearly half an hour yelling about how much he likes a challenge.

Bella Jansen (24:29)

Oh.

Amanda Montel (24:30)

Oh, that is so, so scary.

Reese Oliver (24:33)

Honestly, the whole six months I had work along the east coast, but more specifically August in Baltimore, my van has no ac. Once you shut off the engine for the night, it was 80% humidity, 90 degree in the day, and I doubt it dropped below even 75 at night. I would find places outside the city, cheap hotels, every other night to shower, but I was so hot in the and sticky, I could barely sleep.

Bella Jansen (24:55)

Sleeping warm.

Reese Oliver (24:56)

I wouldn't wish it on my worst enemy. It's terrible.

Amanda Montel (24:59)

Honestly, now that I have central ac, I feel like I've reached nirvana and thus no cult could get me.

Reese Oliver (25:07)

Central AC is one of those things that, like, I truly think is an evolution in humanity. I don't think we have felt as burden lifting an aid to our biological incapabilities since glasses.

Amanda Montel (25:22)

Literally. It's like the invention of fire. Boring. Central ac. Let's hear a couple other horror stories before we get into our interview.

Reese Oliver (25:30)

Had my generator stolen out the side of mine while I was at work and insurance refused to cover it. I still don't have a replacement generator.

Amanda Montel (25:37)

And it sucks, but how are you supposed to van without the life?

Reese Oliver (25:41)

Okay, we got one more for y'. All My friend slept out of his van going on a cross country road trip. He left the windows open and parked up behind a dumpster near Yellowstone, fell asleep to wake up to scratching outside his vehicle. He opened his eyes to see a bull elk with its head stuck through the window eating his granola bars.

Bella Jansen (25:58)

Aww.

Reese Oliver (25:59)

If there's any lesson from this, roll up your windows.

Amanda Montel (26:02)

Listen to me. See, the reality is I would not love for an elk to be in my van eating my granola bars, but I think that that would be this like cottage core snow white fantasy and that's what this cult is. So I feel like to demystify the reality of van life, we've got to get into our guest interview. So we would love to introduce Van Lifer and the content creator behind AT the Lone Soul, Isabella Jansen, who has been living this hashtag van life for most of her life. After the break, we'll talk to Bella.

Bella Jansen (26:45)

Welcome to Only Murders in the Building the Official Podcast.

Reese Oliver (26:48)

Join me, Michael Ciro Creighton as we go behind the scenes with some of the amazing actors, writers and crew from Season five.

Bella Jansen (26:55)

The audience should never stop suspecting anything. How can you not be funny crawling around on a coffin? Yeah, that's true.

Reese Oliver (27:03)

Catch Only Murders in the Building Official Podcast now streaming wherever you get your podcasts and watch Only Murders in the Building streaming on Hulu and Hulu on Disney for bundle subscribers terms apply.

Amanda Montel (27:14)

This podcast is brought to you by Squarespace. Squarespace is the all in one website platform to help entrepreneurs, artists, podcasters stand out and succeed online. Whether you're just starting out or managing a growing brand, Squarespace helps you build a beautiful website, connect with your audience, and sell absolutely anything from products to content to even your valuable time. I've been a Squarespace user for years. I actually am in the process of building a new Squarespace website. I have not gotten any tech savvier since the last time I tried to do this, which is completely fine because Squarespace makes even novices feel like web developers and that's thanks to their incredible features including their design intelligence which combines two decades of industry leading design expertise with cutting edge AI technology to help you unlock your creative potential. Squarespace Payments is also great if you're trying to sell things on your website either as a one time purchase or a subscription model. And I also think it's really cool that Squarespace makes it to create a fundraiser online. So if you're in your charity era trying to do good things for the world, you can absolutely use Squarespace to do that easily and Effectively, head to squarespace.com for a free trial. And when you're ready to Launch, go to squarespace.com cult to save 10% on your first purchase to save 10% off your first purchase of a website or domain. Bella, thank you so much for joining this episode on the cult of Van life.

Reese Oliver (28:40)

Hello.

Bella Jansen (28:40)

Thank you guys for having me. I'm so excited to be here.

Amanda Montel (28:43)

We are just jazzed to take this bumpy little journey with you. First, could you just introduce yourself and your work and your lifestyle to our listeners?

Bella Jansen (28:53)

My name is Bella, or as a lot of people know me on Instagram and TikTok the lone soul. I am a full time van lifer and content creator. Have been for the last year and a half and see myself doing it for many more.

Reese Oliver (29:08)

Love it. Give us a little taste of your origin story. How did you find Van life? Or how did van life find you?

Bella Jansen (29:15)

I love how you phrase how did van life find you? Because that's very prevalent in my life. So my family, when I was three years old got on the road and they moved into RVs when I was three. And so as one could say, they were like the original Van Lifers RV, living on the road, super hippie. And so I grew up living in RVs, living in trailers, living in vans, and I did that for 10 years. My parents eventually settled down and lived in houses. It was kind of me that made them get off of the road. I was a really angsty teenager and for a while I actually hated van life. I hated living in RVs because it was what I did for my entire childhood. And I was just like, I want nothing to do with this. This sucks. Living on the road, no stability, being in new places every other week. This sucks.

Amanda Montel (29:59)

I love how your version of rebellion was like, I want a stable, steady lifestyle. Mom and dad, literally, they blame me.

Bella Jansen (30:07)

For them getting off the road. I was like, I want to go to school, I want to have homework. I wanted to have friends. I had a lot of friends living in RVs growing up, but I was like, I want to have stable friends. And so when I was like 14, they got off the road and we were stationary for a long time. And then when I was 17, 18 was when the spark came alive again and I started seeing more of the aesthetic Van life stuff that was happening on Instagram and I was following YouTubers and I was like, oh, I did this when I was younger, maybe I could do this now. This looks really fun again. And so at 19, I bought my van. And I converted it with my dad and just kind of got on the road. I fully sent it off the deep end, going back to my roots.

Amanda Montel (30:46)

Okay, so you were, like, sort of born into this cult, like a kid who grows up on a compound.

Bella Jansen (30:51)

Pretty much, yeah.

Amanda Montel (30:53)

And then you rebelled against it and had to rediscover it on your own through the Paris filter, is what I'm hearing. Pretty much.

Bella Jansen (31:02)

Pretty much, yeah. Born into the cult. I really was, like, I was indoctrinated in there.

Amanda Montel (31:08)

Okay, so obviously we're using the word cult cheekily here, but we're also genuinely trying to understand the contours of this group, this ideology, this way of life. When we say the cult of van life, what aspects, rituals, us versus them, dynamics, what qualities for good and for ill come to mind for you?

Bella Jansen (31:31)

I feel like there's so many things because once you start van life or, like, become a nomad, as a lot of people in the community will say, like, not a lot of people will call themselves van lifers. They'll call themselves nomads, which I guess is something that maybe not a lot of people know. Once you start, there is no stopping. You have this, like, awakening. You're like, oh, my word, I can go anywhere. I can do anything. I can travel to any location I want. I can make friends with anybody I want. Your eyes are really open to a lot of possibilities that I don't think you can have whenever you're living in an apartment or, like, living in a house. And I think a lot of van lifers and people in the nomadic community begin to have that ingrained in them, that just, like, sense of, oh, shoot, I can do whatever I want to. There's nothing holding me back, which is cool, and also maybe a little dangerous.

Amanda Montel (32:19)

Well, it feels like a sort of almost aesthetic libertarian mentality of, like, I want to stick it to the man. And who doesn't want to, like, opt out of all the ego ills of society and be unencumbered? I think a lot of us, even those of us who don't have actual wilderness skills or the ability to strike out on our own, do romanticize what it could feel like to be free the way that our hunter gatherer ancestors were once free, picking up and, like, putting their whole life on their back and moving to a new place. So I, like, totally understand that promise. And we'll want to understand some of the ways in which that promise is not fulfilled. Maybe later in the conversation, but I totally get the pitch. So you grew up with kind of hippie parents. Like, that was their mentality. How did they come to it?

Bella Jansen (33:12)

It's kind of interesting. So they grew up in the Midwest. My mom's from Iowa, my dad's from Minnesota. Never had heard of living in RVs or being nomadic or honestly, any of the more like, crunchy habits that a lot of people have today. Like, my mom was discovering cloth diapers. She was going raw food. She was, like, composting. She was discovering all of this in 2007. Right. Whenever a lot of it was bubbling up, I think in society. I was three years old. She was exploring different things, like how to be a good mom, how to, like, raise kids, homeschooling, unschooling, like, all these different things. And she stumbled upon RV life and living in RVs and traveling around, and it just piqued her attention. She brought to my dad, and he was like, sure, why not? So they bought a little VW bus, traveled around in it for like, three months on the occasional trip. They still had a house at this point. They were kind of testing it out, and they're like, we love this, but we're going to need something bigger. So they bought their first rv, downsized everything, sold everything, and moved into an RV full time. The craziest thing about this RV is that it fully ran off of veggie oil from fast food restaurants. And their first, like, tour around the US was teaching people how the RV ran off veggie oil. They were like, original broke RV people. They slept in people's driveways for free. Reached out to just random people. My mom had a blog where she was sharing all of this, like, or dirt cheap in the beginning, and they just made it work and then the rest is history. They just kept buying RVs and just couldn't get off the road. They were inducted into the cult.

Amanda Montel (34:47)

So I'm wondering today, who do you think are some of the questions core leaders driving the cult of van life? Are they influencers? Are they brand founders? Like, who are these people?

Bella Jansen (34:59)

I think each individual has someone that sparked the interest for them. For me, There are these YouTubers. Their names are Eamon and Beck. I don't know if you've ever heard of them, but they.

Amanda Montel (35:10)

Those are the van lifers.

Bella Jansen (35:11)

I followed Eamon and Beck like, they ran my life for so many years. Like, everything they did, I wanted to do. They are one of the reasons why I bought a sprinter van. I loved their van. I loved how they were living their life. So for me, it's Eamon and Beck. I think for different people, it's different creators, different YouTubers. There's a couple other OG ones, like Cara and Nate are another really big Van Life couple that's mostly on YouTube. I will say it's mostly the YouTubers that started in, like, 2014 that really built up the hype around Van Life. And now all of the influencers who are doing Van Life content creation now are just piggybacking off of the movement that they kind of started, like, the next movement of Van Life.

Amanda Montel (35:53)

I don't even know what Nomad lifestyle or Van Van Lifeing would be without YouTube. Like, you need YouTube A, to learn how to do it and B, to be inspired.

Bella Jansen (36:02)

I agree with you. I feel like YouTube, even in the content creation world, like, that is the baseline. That is where everybody started and then eventually, like, moved over to Instagram and TikTok and whatever new app is coming out. So I agree with you. YouTube is that base. I feel like if you can look at anybody as a leader, it would be the bigger, like, Van Life YouTubers. Van Life.

Reese Oliver (36:24)

To me, it kind of feels like the YouTube intersection between, like, the family vlogger and the more masculine travel content. It's kind of for people who aren't really into either of those but still want something escapist they can, like, project onto. Because I think a lot of the time the intimacy of the Van Life content is a big part of it too, where it's like, oh, just me and my partner will go run away and frolic somewhere tropical. That looks nothing like where I live. And, like, it'll be beautiful and we'll vlog it and eat fruits and, like, I remember what I saw. The big come up of it was also watching a lot of the, like, raw fruit vegan movement and, like, all of these different crunchy cults overlapped. And I think it really illustrates the horseshoe that we see time and time again on. Sounds like a cult of, like, where the crunchy gets conservative. And I feel like Van Life really tackles all of it.

Amanda Montel (37:10)

Oh, my God. Yeah. Oh. I feel like I've teetered up against so many of these YouTube corners that make me feel paranoid about potentially accidentally supporting someone who's like, like, low key, a conspiracialist, and not even know it. Like, I went vegan for four years because of YouTube. I was this close to buying a tiny house in the pandemic because of YouTube.

Reese Oliver (37:31)

That would be so cute for you.

Amanda Montel (37:33)

I know. Honestly, though, like, I still might do it. I love tiny house, tiny girl, tiny commune. Hello. Let's do it. But I feel like Van Life was the perfect cult for me to watch from afar because it is escapist, it is rugged. But ultimately, at the end of the day, it was about simplicity. It was about asking questions like, what are my values? What actually do I want out of life? Like, these are the existential, culty questions that Van Life specifically asked a lot of its viewers to answer. I want to ask you, Bella, what, like, existential questions do you think the cult of Van Life was helping you answer and is helping you answer?

Bella Jansen (38:19)

When I personally started Van Life, it was right after a breakup. And I do think with a lot of people, this is a theme that I see. It's either someone has a breakup or they get out of the military, have a divorce, lose their job. Like there is something that has been lost in their life that they're trying to find through travel, through van life, through living on the road, however you want to say it. And that is the common theme I have found with a lot of people I have met. It's like they lost something and they went to find it. And the answer for them was Van Life. That was their catalyst to find what they're looking for. Whether that is closure, whether it's adventure, whether it's experience, friendships, all of the above, they went searching for that. For me, it's interesting because even though I had a breakup and then bought my van, so that kind of played into it. Living in a van for me was more of coming home. So, like, that was my purpose. It was kind of a homecoming rather than this big thing happened. I need to run away and find something new and get out of my old habits and routines. Moving into a van was. I want to go back to what I knew as a kid. And it was a very comfortable thing. I integrated into Van Life way easier than a lot of my friends did because I knew how it worked. I knew the stresses of van life, the mentality I had to have going into van life. And also you just have to have a specific fire to like, maintain Van Life. And I feel like I was lucky enough to go into it with said, like, fire in my. In my soul.

Amanda Montel (39:54)

This reminds me of, like, a slightly fringier version of like the wave of middle aged women who wanted to, like, go to a yoga retreat after reading Eat, Pray, Love or like the Cheryl Strayed Wild Thing. I feel like there are certain super, super mainstream pieces of media that will inspire like, like the average, everyday, restless, ennui, saturated, suburban mom to like, want to go have an adventure. Have you just gone through a breakup? Did Covid, like, up your college or career plans? You know what if you could start over and reject mainstream society and, like, live on nothing but a sprinter van and your husky and some, like, baggy pants you made yourself?

Reese Oliver (40:39)

I'm in.

Amanda Montel (40:40)

I know. I think that is, like, such a compelling idea. And to your point, I think there are probably a lot of people who can't handle it when they actually get into it.

Reese Oliver (40:50)

We do want to ask some questions about the insidery clique of van life and about how that might contribute to its cultivates.

Bella Jansen (40:59)

Of course.

Reese Oliver (41:00)

You gave us a great one off the top with Nomad. Can you give us some other particularly culty lingo or vocab that you have have picked up in your travels?

Bella Jansen (41:10)

The only other two I can think of. The first one is a carpet walker. This is my personal favorite. This is someone who lives in an apartment or is a van lifer that has moved into a house. You're a carpet walker.

Reese Oliver (41:22)

Now, that sounds Scientology. Coded as. Because it's like, let me take a really normal thing and inflect such terribleness onto it.

Amanda Montel (41:32)

Turn it into a slur.

Bella Jansen (41:33)

Yeah.

Reese Oliver (41:34)

Phrases like that are what? Like, okay, this is a cult. I'm gonna highlight a cult that some of my friends are in. The barefoot shoes cult. This is a cult that really intrigues me. I feel like this is part of that.

Amanda Montel (41:44)

Oh, my God, that's so good. I mean, it's us versus them terminology meant to shame defectors, Right?

Bella Jansen (41:49)

Exactly. No, literally. I mean, people move into apartments, leave van life. We're immediately just like, oh, my word.

Amanda Montel (41:55)

You carpet walker. You carpet walker.

Reese Oliver (41:59)

It sounds dirty.

Amanda Montel (42:00)

It does. Well, because it sounds like another carpet theme.

Bella Jansen (42:04)

That's one I can think of. And then one that I personally had as a kid because I grew up in RV parks. We were in RV parks for weeks on end. And then you'd have people come in on the weekends and make everything rowdy and be annoying, and it would get busy. And so we just call them weekenders. We'd be like, oh, the weekenders are here. Mint is still $15 a month for premium wireless. And if you haven't made the switch yet, here are 15 reasons why you should. One, it's $15 a month. Two, seriously, it's $15 a month. Three, no big contracts. Four, I use it. Five, my mom uses it.

Amanda Montel (42:41)

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Reese Oliver (42:41)

Are you playing me off?

Bella Jansen (42:42)

That's what's happening, right? Okay, give it a try. @mintmobile.com Switch upfront payment of $45 for.

Amanda Montel (42:49)

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Bella Jansen (43:58)

I would say Van Life is as freeing as it is made out to be on social media for the people that know how to handle the struggles that come with Van Life. Van Life comes with a very specific set of issues, if you want to call it or struggles that you have in your day to day life. One of them being you really don't turn off. Your brain is always going, you can't just go back to your apartment that you know you can be in that has air conditioning and is nice and is a safe space. You are always thinking of where you're going to sleep. You're always thinking about if you're running out of something, propane, water, gas. What do I need next to survive? Quote unquote. Your space gets dirty quickly. You need to find places to throw out trash. There are so many questions in your day to day life that are not stressful to the person that can handle them, but are stressful to the person that is not prepared to handle those things. So they go into it with the perspective that Van Life is this like perfect butterflies and rainbows and you're always going to be camping with your back doors open to the mountains and you can camp anywhere and like everything is easy to find and it's so stress free because you don't have to deal with an apartment or a car or a job or whatever, but it comes with its own set of struggles and rules. Like there are A lot of rules, like as a van life or even just with the law, like you think of living in a van and it. When I first moved into my van, I was so unaware of even just local laws and rules that come with sleeping in your vehicle. It is illegal in a lot of places to sleep in your vehicle if people don't know this. Like, you're getting knocked on, you're getting tickets, and it just comes with knowing where you're at. Because you can obviously avoid those issues if you know these things. But if an outsider comes into van life and is just moving into their rig, they're not going to know any of these things. And it's stuff you have to learn over time. But I also think it's stuff that it's good to be prepared to know about, which is why I try and talk about this is what van life is actually like on my own social media and stuff. And lean away from the super aesthetic side because there's a lot of people that show it's super aesthetic and freeing. But you also have to be aware that it comes with challenges as well. Like anything, for sure.

Reese Oliver (46:11)

I'm thinking about how earlier you said that you, because you were kind of indoctrinated at birth, had a much easier time working your way back into modern van life lifestyle than maybe some people who found it via Pinterest or just through the modern online days. I'm wondering about that gap between the kind of person who sees it and wants it and like, what actually gives someone that fire you were talking about earlier and makes someone like a good candidate for this to be a sustainable lifestyle. So beyond just like preparation, do you think there are any specific qualities or predispositions that make someone more apt for van life?

Bella Jansen (46:50)

I would say naturally someone who's going to go into van life is going to be quite independent and have ambition and also drive. If you don't have independence and you don't have ambition, van life is probably going to come to a halt. Because everybody who lives in a van and has moved into a van has had to go through the stage of what if I live in a van, I could potentially do this. What are the action steps to do this? Okay, I'm going to fully commit. And then they committed to it. And they had enough independence and belief in themselves that they were able to jump into that. And they also had enough drive and ambition that they were able to pull the trigger and actually buy a van or actually move into their car or actually take the road trip that they were Talking about van life doesn't just happen on its own. It's something you really have to work towards and put into motion on your own. Especially for, like, a person coming from the background of lived in a suburban neighborhood for 20 years of their life, went to school, went to college, and is looking at van life. They're not going to have the same fire that I do, but their drive is going to be different in the way that maybe they're sick of school. They don't want to work in the job that they're working in. They don't want the life that their parents gave them when they were a kid. They want more adventure. Everybody has different motivators, and I think it just depends on how driven that specific person is to get on the road.

Amanda Montel (48:09)

Yeah, I want to talk a little bit more about the pressure that one might feel to live up to this, like, super aesthetic van lifer identity. Could you talk about that a little bit?

Bella Jansen (48:21)

I think the pressure to be aesthetic only exists on Instagram. You get into the actual communities of van life, and that completely disappears. Being aesthetic doesn't belong in the van life community at all because you have so many different characters, so many weirdos, so many different people coming together and living their life that at the end of the day, no one truly matters what rig you're living in, how it looks, how nice it is, if it's perfectly clean. If you are in a $100,000 Sprinter van or a 500 minivan, nobody cares. I was just in Bend, Oregon, surrounded by probably 50 other van lifers and nomads. And the rigs ranged from a box truck to a composite truck camper to a trailer to a Minivan, to a 2007 diesel Sprinter to my Sprinter with, which is like $60,000 to a Promaster that cost 30,000. Like, everybody's rig is different. Everybody's story is different. And one of the reasons I love the van life community is because judgment doesn't exist. And if judgment does exist, it's for the right purposes. Like, it's for the purposes who leave a trace. It's for the people that don't clean up after themselves and are leaving their shit everywhere. Those are the people we judge. It's the people that are, like, geotagging locations to their hundreds of thousands of followers and blasting places that can't handle, like, thousands of people coming to them and camping. I think that is one thing with the community as well that I love. It's like we aren't gatekeeping. We are protecting in a way because it's like, I never share locations on my Instagram. Maybe if someone DMs me is like, yo, where was this hike? Or like, this campsite's cool. Give general locations or the name of the hike. But it's like, you only get judged if you are hurting the natural habitat or hurting other van lifers. Two very extreme things. But, like, when it comes to aesthetic or like, how things look or how much money you have, it doesn't matter whatsoever.

Amanda Montel (50:16)

Have you seen people show up and break those rules and cause harm because they got a certain impression of the van lifer lifestyle online and then they, like, didn't actually know how to be?

Bella Jansen (50:29)

I know stories. I had some friends who were stuck in the mud and had to dig out, like, trenches in this road to get out a truck, and they didn't fill the trenches back up. And so you're just left with these huge holes in the middle of the road when you could have just filled them back up. Like, it's stuff like that. Not even, like, leaving trash. It's just being conscious of the people that are coming next and also just the natural habitat. Because, like, we do drive giant rigs. I would say being conscious of being on established roads as well. I have seen people who will just drive off of the established road and go into really fragile environments that are not meant to be driven on whatsoever. That's when you'll find judgment. I think the difference is, like, if they know that that is wrong or if they're ignorant to that being wrong. And I always believe that, like, people can be taught and people can learn to be good stewards of the land that we technically get to live on. Because, like, as van lifers, like, public land and wild land in general is 90% of where we live. So, like, we want to. We want to be kind to it, you know?

Amanda Montel (51:31)

Of course.

Bella Jansen (51:32)

Of course.

Reese Oliver (51:32)

Okay. So admittedly, I'm not on the super the Van life side of YouTube. Most of where I do see the Van Life content is Instagram. The more aesthetic side of Van Life because I see the more HGTV side of it. The, like, I'm creating my van or flipping this school bus or whatever to begin my nomad journey. And it is such an interesting cult to me because there are a lot of. Of entry costs that don't necessarily exist in a lot of cults, although they are ultimately an investment in their future because as you said, you're not paying for an apartment. But then I do think about how much more dangerous or I guess how much less stable. I mean, duh, that makes it when you do want to opt out later if you decide, hey, this isn't for me and this is nothing like it looked on Instagram. So could you talk a little bit about the entry and exit costs associated with van life?

Bella Jansen (52:26)

Life. I think gauging exact entry cost for van life is difficult because like I've said before, there's so many different ways to do it. For me, my entry cost was really high. My entry cost was a $27,000 loan on a old Amazon cargo van that I wanted to buy a Sprinter, and then another roughly 30,000 that I put into the build because I knew for a fact I wanted to live in it for years. That's my own personal story. Because I grew up on the road, I know I want to do this for five years. It made sense to invest in a rig that costed more, that wasn't going to break down, that had all the amenities I wanted. Like, I have an oven, I have a big fridge, I have a toilet, I have tons of batteries that can keep me off grid for days.

Reese Oliver (53:09)

She's glamping.

Bella Jansen (53:10)

I'm not roughing it in here by any means, and I didn't want to. I think for the average person that is thinking about getting on the road, they can make their entry car cost so much lower by doing some trial and error. Like, if you have a car, you can put your seats down, you can buy a sleeping pad, you can put a pillow in there, get a couple twinkle lights, get some bins with your clothes, a little propane stove that you can cook on outside, and take a weekend camping trip, like, see if you enjoy it, and then that's when you can gauge how much you want to spend. So if you want to spend $5,000 on a little junker van that might break down and cost you $10,000 in repairs down the road, you can, or you can choose to say a more expensive rig that may not break down, but is going to last you for a longer period of time. Entry cost is high, but for anything, I think taking small steps is mandatory, especially for the people that don't know if they want to do it. So if you're not 100% certain, maybe don't go and take out a giant loan on a van. Like, it may not be wise, just small steps. Use the car that you already have and take a road trip. Like, I know so many people living out of their car and it is far more doable than people think. Think it's Another reason why I love social media, because there are so many people living out of their cars. Like, maybe on the side of social media that you guys are on, it's more so like, big vans and expensive Sprinters and build outs. With a lot of my friends, though, it's like they're living out of cars and they're making it work, and they're working seasonal jobs, and they're doing it for a short period of time and saving and being really smart financially. And so I definitely think you can get on that side of Van Life Instagram and Road Life Instagram and be more inspired in that way to keep calling costs low if that's more realistic for you.

Amanda Montel (54:53)

Oh, my God, totally. Now that you're saying that, I realized my YouTube algorithm at some point changed to people who are living much more bare bones out of their car. And it was not, like, aesthetic and covered in, like, Pinterest plants. It was super, super utilitarian. And I think that's an important aspect of the algorithm to tap into too, because remodeling an Airstream or a. A school bus and, like, living in Big Sur just sounds like a recipe for a money pit that never goes anywhere to me, at least, I guess, more sort of cerebrally. I want to ask if you think the transient nature of van life contributes to or dilutes the culty vibes at all? Because on one hand, I'm thinking, like, okay, a classic cult is a commune where a bunch of people are constantly together and you forget where you end and another person begin. Whereas van life is a lot of time alone, but wherever you go, there you are. So I guess I'm just wondering if, like, the parapatetic traveling adventure vibes, how that overlaps with cultishness, in your opinion.

Bella Jansen (56:03)

Van Life forces you to confront a lot of your problems, which I think is interesting. I feel like if you're, quote, unquote, joining a cult, like we were talking about earlier, it's like you're going because something broke down in your life, or you're running away from something, or you're trying to make a big change to discover this fate fix. But I've always said that Van Life will by no means get rid of your problems. They will amplify them because you are so much more emotional in a van. You are so much more overwhelmed in a van. Everything, I will be honest, is like, twice as hard in a rig because of just the nature of it. And so I think van Life doesn't dilute anything in your life. I think it makes you confront the issues that you've potentially had and. And honestly work through them. I've had to work through a lot of stuff, getting on the road, and am now even working on being alone. This is an interesting one because you said, like, van life is being alone a lot of the time. For me, I'm the complete opposite. I have barely spent any time alone because I immediately sought out community. I stalked people on Instagram, I found meetups, I went on Facebook, I went up to van lifers and parking lots. Like, I wanted community so bad, and I wasn't allowing myself to be alone. And over the last probably month, I've realized that's my thing I need to confront. Like, the thing I need to confront is the fact that I struggle to be alone in a way which I think is interesting because many people assume that van lifers, you're getting on the road to be alone. You're going to be isolated in nature and, like, not talk to anyone, which is a very real part of van life. I will be honest. Like, you can go drive your van into the middle of nowhere and not talk to people for weeks. I never did that. I don't do that. And so I'm learning to be alone while living in my van because. Because it gets lonely. All you have is, like, 70 square feet and half of that is your bed. You have nowhere to go. Like, you can go outside, but sometimes it just, like, you physically can't think of anything to do. And so dealing with that loneliness is actually something I've been working through, which has been interesting.

Amanda Montel (58:04)

Yeah. Oh, my God. Yeah. There are way fewer distractions away from.

Reese Oliver (58:08)

Oh, yeah, your angst.

Bella Jansen (58:10)

There's zero distractions. You are so forced to just. Just confront all of it. And for me, like, my work is my life. And so, like, I can't go to work and forget about my issues and distract myself. My work is so embedded in who I am and, like, what I'm doing living in a van that I have to confront them every day. And I'm like, oh, my word. Sometimes I wish I could just escape.

Reese Oliver (58:33)

Okay, we've talked a lot about all of the wonderful things that van life can offer you and all of the ways in which it's kind of similar to other cults and what it borrows from other cults and also a lot of ways in that it's very unique. If you had to sum up one key thing that van life can teach you that you can't find in any other cult, what do you think that would be.

Bella Jansen (58:53)

I feel like van life teaches you resilience and the art of adapting. Like, adapting to certain situations is probably the biggest thing I have learned living in a van. When I lived in my apartment or when I was living at home, like. Like I would have something happen to me, my situation would change, emotional stuff would happen, and it was just like an immediate breakdown, and I was, like, allowed to break down. But in a van, you have to very quickly adapt to the situation, look at what's going on in your life, look at what's going on in your van and be like, all right, what is the most reasonable thing I can do right now? Because I have to maintain a level head. Like, it is very hard to completely be breaking down while you're in a van. And, like, having a super hard life lesson. Because, like I said, you always have to be on. Like, you can't just shut off. So, like, you have different things. Like, whether it's breakdowns or loneliness or whatever you're feeling, like you can feel those things, but you have to adapt to those emotions and just be like, okay. I am going to be like, okay. In this scenario. I also will say another lesson, and it may seem counterintuitive, but van life forces you to ground yourself in every scenario. People think of being grounded as like, okay, I am in one place. I am steady, I am stable. But that grounding comes from quite literally yourself. Like, you are the person that has to be grounded, and you keep yourself grounded when everything is going crazy because your house is on wheels, you don't know where you're sleeping, There might be a freak storm coming, like a breakdown is happening. You learn to ground yourself and to, like, fully be there and like I said, adapt to things. Van life. I'm gonna be honest, I'm realizing this is a very spiritual experience. It's quite interesting.

Amanda Montel (60:45)

Well, it's so interesting because it is so fudgeing real. Like, when I think about me joining the cult of veganism, whatever, and I again, I mean that with fondness. And I still do try to abide by a lot of those values, blah, blah, blah. Even though I eat cheese now, I wasn't uprooting my whole house. House to be vegan, you know, like, no, it's just wild because to follow a van lifer on YouTube or Instagram, you're just, like, looking at beautiful images. But to actually live that life, it gets so real so fast. And I can't necessarily think of another cult we've covered so far on this show where things get that real that fast when you start to go from a fan or a follower to a member or like a liver and breather?

Reese Oliver (61:29)

Well, I think a lot of culture cults, their interest is imparting their reality on other people and on their followers and spreading the ideology and evangelizing. Whereas the whole ideology behind van life is putting yourself in different situations and doing pretty much all of the traveling externally and therefore also internally. Whereas other more traditional cults gain a lot more from you being static in both of those ways.

Amanda Montel (61:54)

Yes. Oh my God. Okay, so go. Let's like speaking of things getting real really fast, my mind of course goes to some worst case scenarios with van life. I mean, I think of like Gabby Petito, you know, like it was like a domestic abuse, intimate partner violence nightmare. And then it also started a conversation about the missing white woman phenomenon in our society because everybody freaked out about when she went missing. And that happens to black and brown women all the time. And there's not the same media attention. So anyways, it's such a romanticized cult, but it gets so real so fast. What are some of the worst potential scenarios from that?

Bella Jansen (62:33)

I was almost in a worst case scenario. Nothing crazy, but like, my van wouldn't start in the middle of nowhere with no service and the closest town was an hour drive away and I got so lucky to have one of my friends there. But I just constantly think, like, I didn't have my Starlink, which is the WI fi that I use. Use. I can have WI fi anywhere with Starlink and no cell service. I was in the middle of nowhere. If I hadn't had my friend there with me, oh my God, I would have been walking to the side of the road. I would have been hitchhiking to try and get help. I would have been stranded. That is scary. Worst case scenario, which I think with a lot of worst case scenarios in van life, they are preventable if you take the right measures to be safe. So as a solo female, I have a Starlink, so I can have WI fi anywhere. And I leave it on if I need to call my mom, if I need to call 91 1, if I need to get a tow, like whatever it is, I have WI fi. I don't have to worry about being out of service, which I think is where a lot of like the worst case scenario things happen. Because if you don't have service, like, what are you going to do? You're in the middle of nowhere. Like, it is scary to think about. And also, like, I have heard of cases of like stalking as a influencer, content creator. That's one of like the things that scares me the most most is people stalking me. Because, like I have a recognizable van. I've been recognized out in public all by very sweet humans who I don't fear whatsoever.

Reese Oliver (63:55)

But like, when you live in public, that's scary.

Bella Jansen (63:58)

Yeah. If someone sees me get in my van and is crazy and like wants to follow me, I'm like, what do I do in that scenario? You know? And obviously like if you see them following you, you drive to the police station. There are a lot of worst case scenarios, but at the end of the day, it's all about trusting your gut and just being really smart. Like, you can't be d and live in a van. Well, that's a lie. You can be dumb and live in a van, but like you want to try to not be dumb and live in a van really shouldn't be. If you don't trust your gut and if you are not thinking about how you can get out of a situation if this hap, like if something happened, if you're not constantly like thinking ahead or being wise, like you can get yourself in some really shitty situations. Like I've parked in places in San Diego at midnight, 1am in the morning, I've pulled up to park and I get there and I'm super sketched out and I'm like, I'm leaving. I don't trust the this. I don't know if someone's going to try and break into my van. I don't know if I'm going to get knocked on. I don't know what's going to happen. But my gut told me to leave. Like I've pulled up also to spots in the middle of nowhere where I've been like, I don't want to camp here. This feels wrong in my gut. So yeah, I think one of the biggest consequences is not listening to your gut. And I don't want to know what would have happened if in one of the like 50 scenarios where I felt unsafe, what would have happened if I didn't leave. You know, it's scary a little bit.

Reese Oliver (65:12)

Oh, fully.

Amanda Montel (65:14)

Oh my God. Yeah. I probably would feel so fucking terrified most of the time, personally.

Bella Jansen (65:20)

Yeah. Being solo on the road, like you take precautions.

Reese Oliver (65:23)

Yeah. And I'm intrigued to hear more about how social media interacts with that both in terms of like how you were talking about the lack of work life balance and the content creation aspect interferes with a more holistic connection with nature or the real Van life of some kind. But also from the angle of. I follow a lot of, like, solo female travelers right now. I'm watching a lot of backpackers and I see a lot of the time when they do document their, like, altercations or unsafe experiences they've had. And, like, they film like, this is how I got myself out of it. This is how I behaved in this situation a lot of the time, which is so routine for women on the Internet talking about anything. The comments are full of these women getting blamed for traveling by themselves or for however way they reacted, no matter what it is. And it's really such a shame because it's like, no, we should be able to travel and we should be able to document it. And like, yes, it's probably not the safest to go to the middle of nowhere as a woman alone, but I don't think that should always override my human desire to go frolic in nature, damn it. And, like, I don't want to be villainized for that. So I'm just curious to hear more your thoughts on that.

Bella Jansen (66:31)

Yeah, I think blaming the people that are the victims, it's like, like, you can't do that. If there's a, say, a guy also in the middle of nowhere that sees this solo female, like, why not blame him for going up to her and, like, making her feel unsafe? Like, it just goes back to trusting yourself. It's very safe to be in the middle of nowhere, honestly. Like, I feel safer being on public land in the middle of nowhere than I do being in a city because, like, city people are more dangerous. And, like, if someone's going to be also out in the middle of nowhere, I'm going to be honest. Like, I don't think they're going to be bothering me. If we're both out here, like, why would we want to talk to people, you know, much less kill them? I know.

Amanda Montel (67:10)

I think it's like, a lot of work.

Bella Jansen (67:13)

I will be honest. Also, you look at the statistics of women that get killed or kidnapped or whatever, and it is a far higher chance that's going to be someone that knows them. Like, it is very, very rare that it is a stranger that is attacking somebody. Like, there is always an intention and you. It's like a one in however many that a random person who is camping is going to get attacked by another person. You're more likely to get attacked by a bear. Like, you leave food out and a bear comes and, like, comes to your camp. You're like, oh, hello.

Reese Oliver (67:45)

Okay, I know.

Amanda Montel (67:47)

I Feel like we grow up hearing, like, stranger danger. And we remember it because it rhymes. But there needs to be a rhyming phrase like boyfriend, family friend danger.

Bella Jansen (67:57)

Yeah, literally, family friend danger.

Amanda Montel (67:59)

What rhymes with family friend? Those are the people. Family friend, shma amily. Don't do that.

Reese Oliver (68:11)

Family friend, relationship end. There you go.

Amanda Montel (68:14)

Yeah, yeah. Okay. I feel like we're coming to understand the shape, size, weight, make and model of this cult. We want to ask one more question and then we want to play a little game. What would you tell someone with zero experience audience who is thinking of starting their hashtag Van Life journey?

Bella Jansen (68:33)

The first thing that I would want this person to know is that Van Life is one of the most welcoming communities that I have ever had the privilege of being a part of. And that I think that people see social media and are immediately like, oh, man, it's all these influencers. They're just gonna gatekeep. Nobody wants to be friends with me. Like, I'm just this new person getting on the road. Biggest lie. Look yourself in the mirror, say your affirmation and be like, people in the Van Life community want to be my friend. We want to welcome people and we want people to get on the road. Like, we love, love seeing new people. There's so many different characters, there's so many different people. Like, you will find a spot within the community. The second thing which is more practical is, like I was saying earlier, is start small. Do not feel the pressure to get a super expensive van to put all your life savings into this, to do something crazy unless you want to. I am a huge advocate for the full send. I love it. Like, I love people who just dive into the deep end. But if you want to start and you're not sure, like, take small steps, take a weekend trip, go on a little road trip, take some time off, do some hiking, get out into nature, figure out what you want to do with it, and just release the pressure that you may feel seeing everybody on social media. I also think it's good to think about the fact that everyone you see on social media is in their step 20. You are at your step one, and it is unfair to you to compare yourself to someone who has gone through all of the steps that you still have to go through to get to where they're at. So you're at step one and everybody had a step one and you are going to get to where they're at. But you can't compare yourself yet because you're just starting just like they did. And you don't see that often. Like you don't see where they started, you just see where they're at and that's what you compare yourself to. So don't do that. Be kind to yourself.

Amanda Montel (70:14)

Actually something that you said just there reminded me of some of the comments you were making about like the lack of work life balance because your job is your life and your life is your job. Do you think people who are not only van lifers but also influencers, do you think that makes the barrier to exit higher? Because if you stop van lifeing people will think you like betrayed them.

Bella Jansen (70:38)

Man, I don't know if it's like betrayal but people just get sad. We love like we are such a close knit community that it's like if someone leaves van life like oh no, you're gonna live in a house and can't just come camp with us in the middle of nowhere for weeks on end. This is like so sad for us and for you, you, you're going to.

Amanda Montel (70:56)

Be a carpet walker.

Reese Oliver (70:57)

Carpet walker?

Bella Jansen (70:58)

No, I think there's a so much love in the community and like anytime we're like oh you moved into a house. There's an air of joking to it and also maybe a little bit of jealousy because I do think like all van lifers eventually want to live in a house, like want to have land. An end goal for a lot of van lifers is to have land, have a tiny house, to like have a place that you can call home. But it's like yeah, if someone leaves the road you're going to be sad, like you're going to miss them. We're kind of family, you know.

Amanda Montel (71:24)

I had never thought about that before that like people are inside of a cult. Whether it's a light hearted cult or a more destructive one. When people that they used to commune with leave, we think all the time about like the shame and the shunning. But I've actually never thought about how some people actually might be a little jealous because like everybody who throws their whole self into an extreme lifestyle, there's probably some part of them who's wondering like I wonder if I had different choice.

Reese Oliver (71:56)

What if I committed a little less hard.

Bella Jansen (71:58)

Yeah, I think, yeah, I think it's very, very like baseline jealousy because everybody who's on the road like loves being on the road. But there is like, I think for everybody there is that desire to have a place and to settle in and to be able to like call somewhere home. Like after living on the road for however many years, like I know people Who've lived on the road for four or five years and have gotten houses because they're just like, I loved my time living in a van. I love my time being on the road. But now it's time for stability. And like, that's totally okay. They had their time, they lived their life, and now they're going into a different season, and it's okay even if we're sad.

Amanda Montel (72:31)

So no one's really expected to do it forever and ever and ever?

Bella Jansen (72:35)

Yeah, no one's expected to do it forever. No.

Amanda Montel (72:37)

Okay, that's good to know.

Bella Jansen (72:38)

Yeah. It's something that I think once you start traveling, it's hard to get rid of the itch to continue to travel.

Reese Oliver (72:45)

Yeah.

Amanda Montel (72:52)

Okay. Before we let you go off on the rest of your life's adventure, we're gonna play a little game. It's just a classic. Would you rather. So we're gonna present some. Would you rather scenarios having to do with the cult of van life versus a few of the other modern day cults we've covered on the show. And you'll just have to say what you would rather choose.

Reese Oliver (73:14)

Would you rather spend your winter van lifing through Alaska with a broken heater because you committed to the trip or have to sell a small boutique's worth of Lularoe leggings?

Bella Jansen (73:25)

Oh, gosh, probably the leggings because I've done van life without a heater, and in Alaska, my rear wheel drive van wouldn't survive. I would get stuck and I would get frostbite. I would die.

Amanda Montel (73:38)

You would die.

Bella Jansen (73:38)

I would die.

Amanda Montel (73:39)

Yeah, you. Would you rather get quizzed on last night's new Love island episode every single morning or go on a road trip where you have to memorize your day's directions before leaving?

Bella Jansen (73:52)

Oh, my brain is already rotted from social media, so I'd probably just debrief Love Island. I am so directionally unaware. I would get on to the highway and I would not know where I'm going. I'm like, which exit was it again? Like, I have no clue.

Amanda Montel (74:07)

Oh, my God. Wait, how old are you, Bella?

Bella Jansen (74:09)

I'm 21.

Amanda Montel (74:10)

Reese just turned 22 yesterday. But neither of you have ever read a paper map?

Bella Jansen (74:15)

No.

Amanda Montel (74:16)

That's so guess.

Reese Oliver (74:17)

Do ones, like, on the wall count?

Amanda Montel (74:19)

Like, I haven't. No, I mean, like, used a map to navigate.

Bella Jansen (74:24)

No Disneyland maps.

Amanda Montel (74:26)

Anyone?

Bella Jansen (74:26)

I need one Disneyland map.

Amanda Montel (74:28)

Not to be that bitch. But I do think it is useful to learn how to read an analog paper map.

Reese Oliver (74:33)

Oh, obviously. I read my Google maps. Yeah, I Look at.

Bella Jansen (74:38)

I.

Reese Oliver (74:38)

Look at it.

Amanda Montel (74:38)

Okay, great. Yeah. Don't outsource your brain too much. Next.

Bella Jansen (74:43)

Would you rather either cook all of.

Reese Oliver (74:45)

Your meals for the next year via induction burner or buy all of your groceries from Erewhon?

Bella Jansen (74:52)

Oh, I'm already like a bougie grocery girl. Like, I spend so much money on groceries. I'm like, what's a couple more hundred dollars? You know, I would say Erewhon because I hate induction. That's my hot take is I hate induction stoves. I have a gas stove in my van. Hot. And yeah, I will never use induction.

Amanda Montel (75:11)

And you're entitled to that.

Bella Jansen (75:12)

Yeah, great.

Reese Oliver (75:14)

Only as hot a take as the induction burner gets, which is never hot enough. Am I right?

Amanda Montel (75:18)

I knew you were going to say that.

Reese Oliver (75:21)

Literally. Would you rather, for the rest of your days, live in a renovated school bus or at a boarding school?

Bella Jansen (75:31)

Probably the school bus. Schoolies are sick, like, Right?

Reese Oliver (75:35)

I see. A lot of those are cute.

Bella Jansen (75:37)

School buses are so cute. I would. The only thing is I'm six feet tall and so school buses are short.

Reese Oliver (75:45)

They are for children.

Bella Jansen (75:46)

That's true.

Reese Oliver (75:47)

I feel like that would present just a little bit of an issue. But, I mean, I feel like boarding school wouldn't be that much better because boarding schools are also child sized. Like, the twin bed would probably be.

Bella Jansen (75:55)

Yeah, no, I wouldn't do boarding school. At least if I was in a schoolie, I could still, like, move around.

Reese Oliver (76:00)

Would you rather address a leak in your compost toilet or only use rave porta Potties for a week?

Bella Jansen (76:07)

I've dealt with some nasty on my. In my compost toilet. So, like, I would address a leak. Also, like, my pee jug has overflowed into my van before and I had like, she's trapped. I had all over my floor the first week I lived in my van, so I think I could do it.

Reese Oliver (76:24)

I think I could.

Amanda Montel (76:25)

You are made of strong stuff. Bella, thank you so much for joining us for this conversation. If people want to keep up with you and your hashtag van life, hashtag juror, hashtag knee. Where can they do that?

Bella Jansen (76:39)

You can find me on Instagram, tick tock, and YouTube @thelone. Soul. Soul is SOL. But yeah, thank you guys so much for having me. I've been listening to this podcast for years. You DM'd me and no way. No, I'm. I'm. I'm dead ass. Like, you DM me. And I freaked out because I was like, I've been listening to this wild for so long.

Amanda Montel (77:02)

That's Amazing. Okay, well, we've had a lot of cults cozied up next to van life.

Bella Jansen (77:07)

Oh, yes. Oh, I love all of it.

Amanda Montel (77:10)

Thank you so much. Okay, Reese, out of these three cult categories, live your life, watch your back.

Reese Oliver (77:27)

And get the fuck out.

Amanda Montel (77:29)

What do you think the cult of vampire life falls into?

Reese Oliver (77:32)

This is a tricky one for me because it's one that, like, I think if you do it right, could be really good for you and is probably, like, builds a lot of character in ways that a lot of people really need. But I think you can be really screwed if you do it wrong. And I hope it's not a large proportion of people that rush into it unknowingly and unpreparedly and just because the experience can vary truly so much. And, like, you can van life at any level. Like, if you have a driver's license, you can find a way to do it. And I think it makes it both less and way more culty, because that's very dangerous. And I think for that reason, I'm going to go watch your back.

Amanda Montel (78:08)

Interesting. You know, I think that van life is risky, for sure, but not in a culty way. Like, I think the culty aspects of it, like the slight us versus them dynamics, like the true van lifers and veterans from the newcomers and weekenders and carpet walkers, the kind of, like, gentle fit, false aspirational promise of the social media van lifers who are like, this is going to be the greatest thing that ever happened to you is the greatest thing that ever happened to me. Whatever. Like, all of those culty aspects, I think are a live your life. But I do think, as we've learned, like, it can be dangerous, it can put you in harm's way, it can be a money pit, it can fail to live up to your expectations. But I don't think those risks are necessarily really culty. Does that make sense?

Reese Oliver (78:57)

It does. Yeah. Like, I think the exit cost of being, like, literal homelessness and like, not really knowing what you're doing with your life next is very scary.

Bella Jansen (79:07)

Yeah.

Amanda Montel (79:07)

But I do think, like, the fact.

Reese Oliver (79:09)

That it is so build your own adventure. I see your point. I think makes it slightly less culty.

Amanda Montel (79:16)

No. Maybe now I'm changing my mind because I think our guest went into it with a lot of awareness and experience. But I can imagine that some people, like, literally throw away their life to go all in on van life and it doesn't work out. And then what?

Reese Oliver (79:33)

That's kind of my thought is just like, it looks as easy as a few Ikea DIYs when you're watching an Instagram reel of it and then it's like the plumbing and what is functionally your house doesn't work. I think that's a bigger deal than people realize it is.

Amanda Montel (79:48)

I know. I think I'm, like, still brainwashed by the van lifers I've seen online. I'm like, how bad can it be? But, yeah, no, I think it's probably closer to a watcher back now that I'm thinking about it.

Reese Oliver (79:59)

Look in your rear view.

Bella Jansen (80:00)

I don't know.

Reese Oliver (80:00)

I liked what Bella said about go camping.

Amanda Montel (80:03)

Yeah. Like, test it out.

Reese Oliver (80:04)

Yeah.

Amanda Montel (80:05)

And I like that the community allows that. You know what I'm saying? Like, that's the green flag for me is that you're not so shamed for participating in it casually or for leaving that you have to go all in. You actually really don't. And I think that's cool.

Reese Oliver (80:22)

Yeah. Like, cars are ultimately something that people do usually own secondarily. So I think it is kind of, and especially because it rose during COVID a hobby to a lot of people. And I think that, like, even if it is your life, you can't really get mad at the people for whom it's just a hobby. Totally makes it less culty.

Amanda Montel (80:39)

I agree. Okay, so maybe it's like a light watcher back, but also literally watch your back. If you go out out there, just.

Reese Oliver (80:47)

Be, like, really sure you want to join this cult if you join this cult.

Amanda Montel (80:51)

Yeah, exactly. Right. Either dip one toe in or be so, so, so, so sure. Well, that is our show.

Reese Oliver (81:00)

Thank you so much for listening.

Amanda Montel (81:02)

We'll be back with a new cult next week, but in the meantime, stay culty but not too cult. Filthy Sounds like a Cult was created by Amanda Montel and edited by Jordan Moore of the Pod Cabin. This episode was hosted by Amanda Montel and Reese Oliver. This episode was produced by Reese Oliver. Our managing producer is Katie Epperson. Our theme music is by Casey Cole. If you enjoyed the show, we'd really appreciate it if you could leave a it five stars on Spotify or Apple Podcasts. It really helps the show a lot. And if you like this podcast, feel free to check out my book, Cultish the Language of Fanaticism, which inspired the show. You might also enjoy my other books, the Age of Magical Notes on Modern Irrationality and A Feminist Guide to Taking Back the English Language. Thanks as well to our network, Studio71. And be sure to follow the Sounds Like a Cult cult on Instagram for all the discourse. Sounds like a cult Pod or support us on Patreon to listen to the show ad free at patreon.com/sounds like a cult.

Bella Jansen (82:14)

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Amanda Montel (82:29)

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