How People Who Live In A Van Do Money

#Vanlife is all about that #sponcon.

Here is a look at some people who live in a van because of a few factors: “a renewed interest in the American road trip, a culture of hippie-inflected outdoorsiness, and a life free from the tyranny of a nine-to-five office job.”

#Vanlife, the Bohemian Social-Media Movement

#Vanlife, as described by Rachel Monroe in The New Yorker, sounds like minmalism’s hippie cousin, the one that makes their own edibles and as of late, has gotten really into reiki. Monroe profiles Emily King and Corey Smith, two conventionally attractive human beings who decided one day after travelling the world that they simply didn’t want to return to their jobs. Inspired by a man named Foster Huntington, arguably the father of the vanlife movement, King and Smith figured out that they could do what they loved while living in a van for cheap. King took a job that didn’t require her ot be in an office; this is how their journey began.

They now live in a 1987 Volkswagen Vanagon named Boscha. For the first year King worked at her job while Smith took little jobs here and there. In order for King to do her job, though, she had to be available which cut into hiking and yoga and waterfalls and whatnot. Thus began their journey into the wild and wooly world of sponsored Instagram posts and their futures as lifestyle content creators selling what sounds like an occasionally grueling hustle as a dream. Their first contract was with GoWesty, a company that specializes in repairs and parts for old VW vans and the rest is history.

On Where’s My Office Now, which serves as a hub for all of the content they create, they espouse a “wealth wheel” — a combination of words meant to communicate both their life philosophy and how they make money.

In the article, you’ll find some harrowing descriptions of how a perfectly composed Instagram shot gets made, as well as some valuable insight into the life of an Instagram influencer, and the kind of money you can get for, say, posting a picture of a HydroFlask water bottle on a table in a van that looks as if it smells slightly unclean. What’s most interesting to me is how the vanlifestyle is yet another repercussion of the 2008 recesion.

“We heard all these promises about what will happen after you go to college and get a degree,” Smith said. “We graduated at a time when all that turned out to be a bunch of bullshit.” The generation that’s fuelling the trend has significantly more student debt and lower rates of homeownership than previous cohorts. The rise of contract and temporary labor has further eroded young people’s financial stability. “I think there’s a sense of hopelessness in my generation, in terms of jobs,” Foster Huntington said. “And it’s cheap to live in a van.”

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