Tuesday’s Views: I Love This Life. I Just Wish It Were Always a Choice

A few days ago, I was actually getting excited about spending another winter in my

car.

I was thinking about Quartzsite—the people, the events, the desert, the Women’s Rubber Tramp Rendezvous, and the fact that this year I’m going to be speaking there. I was starting to think about reorganizing the car and getting everything ready for another season of desert living.

Then someone told me about a park model for sale.

It was $10,000.

That’s not exactly pocket change to me, but it was close enough to possible that, for about 24 hours, I let myself believe I might be able to do it.

The owners were even willing to work with me. If I could come up with $5,500, I could potentially make payments on the rest.

Suddenly, I wasn’t thinking about Quartzsite anymore.

I was polishing my resume.

I announced on LinkedIn that I was looking for work. I started applying for jobs. I calculated income and expenses. I looked at loans. I started imagining where I would put things.

For 24 hours, I wasn’t preparing for another winter in my car.

I was trying to figure out how to get out of it.

And that realization bothered me.

When Did This Become Something I Needed to Escape?

That’s the uncomfortable part of this story.

There are people who absolutely love vehicle living. They worked toward it. They built their rigs, sold their houses, hit the road and never looked back.

There are people living in vehicles because conventional housing became financially impossible.

There are people doing it temporarily.

There are people who started because they had no other choice and eventually fell in love with the freedom.

And there are probably a whole lot of us who don’t fit neatly into any of those categories.

I love this life some days.

Other days, I wish I had a choice.

I can love waking up in the desert and still be tired of hauling water.

I can love the freedom of the road and still want a shower whenever I feel like taking one.

I can look forward to Quartzsite and the incredible community that gathers there while simultaneously dreading another winter of watching my batteries, managing solar power, finding places to shower and figuring out all the little logistics that come with making a vehicle function as a home.

Those things aren’t contradictions.

They’re reality.

Then Someone Showed Me a Door

The strangest part is that I hadn’t been sitting around dreaming about buying a house.

I was making plans.

Then somebody essentially said, What if you could live here?

And suddenly I wanted something I hadn’t realized I wanted.

A home.

Not necessarily a traditional house with a mortgage and a lawn. Honestly, a little park model in an RV resort sounds pretty wonderful to me.

A bathroom.

A kitchen.

Reliable electricity.

Running water.

A bed that doesn’t also have to serve as storage space.

And perhaps most importantly, a place where I could close the door and know I could stay.

For about 24 hours, that possibility felt close enough to touch.

Then reality started creeping back in.

The numbers didn’t work.

At least not right now.

Someone made an innocent comment during all of this about how many people save their whole lives to be able to live in a place like this.

It wasn’t meant to hurt me.

But it did.

Because I wasn’t asking for a mansion.

I was trying to figure out how to afford a small used park model.

And suddenly the bigger issue wasn’t whether I could buy this particular home.

It was realizing how far away even modest housing can feel when your income doesn’t keep pace with the cost of having a permanent roof over your head.

Vehicle Living Isn’t One Story

This is something I think we need to talk about more.

Vehicle residents aren’t one kind of person.

Some are retirees traveling the country in beautiful RVs.

Some are workers sleeping in vans because rent near their jobs is impossible.

Some are adventurous nomads.

Some are people rebuilding after divorce, illness, job loss or financial disaster.

Some live in $150,000 rigs.

Some sleep in twenty-year-old cars.

Some desperately want conventional housing.

Some would consider being tied to one address their worst nightmare.

And some of us can feel differently about it depending on what day you ask.

That’s why I don’t want to describe conventional housing as escaping vehicle life.

There is nothing inherently shameful about living in a vehicle, and there is nothing inherently superior about living in a house.

But there is something important about choice.

Maybe That’s What Freedom Really Means

We talk a lot about freedom in the nomadic community.

Freedom from rent.

Freedom to travel.

Freedom to wake up somewhere new.

Freedom from accumulating things we don’t need.

Those freedoms are real.

But there’s another kind of freedom that doesn’t get discussed nearly as much:

The freedom to choose where and how you live.

If you live in your vehicle because you genuinely want to, that’s freedom.

If you decide you’re tired of the road and can move into a little home somewhere, that’s freedom too.

If you have to live in a vehicle because every other housing option has been priced beyond your reach, that’s something different.

And acknowledging that doesn’t insult the vehicle-living community.

I think pretending otherwise does.

So What Happens Now?

I’m probably not buying that park model.

And that’s okay.

What those 24 hours gave me was something I wasn’t expecting: information about myself.

Apparently, part of me would really like a little place to call home again.

I didn’t know that before.

Now I do.

That doesn’t mean I’m abandoning Road Life Hub. It doesn’t mean I suddenly hate vehicle living. And it certainly doesn’t mean I believe everyone living this way should be trying to get out.

Quite the opposite.

It reminds me why Road Life Hub matters.

People living in vehicles deserve practical information, community, resources and respect whether they’re doing it for adventure, economics, necessity, simplicity—or some complicated combination of all four.

And if someday I do end up sitting inside my own little park model writing Road Life Hub from behind a real desk?

I’ll still care about the person trying to get enough solar to charge their power station.

I’ll still care about the woman trying to find a safe place to sleep tonight.

I’ll still care about the retiree wondering whether they can afford another rent increase.

I’ll still care about the person who just bought a van and can’t wait to hit the road.

Because Road Life Hub was never supposed to be about convincing people that vehicle living is good or bad.

It’s about the people living it.

Maybe I’ll spend this winter in Quartzsite.

Maybe eventually I’ll find my little home.

Maybe life will surprise me with something I haven’t even considered yet.

But this week taught me something I think I’ll carry with me for a long time:

A vehicle can be a home. A park model can be a home. A house can be a home.

Freedom isn’t proving that you don’t need any of them.

Freedom is having a choice.

Let’s build bridges, not barriers.