Warning: this is a bit of a “rant” post. As I’ve been reflecting on going back into the workforce after my career break during difficult employment times, I’m feeling the frustrations of inflation and how the rich in our country keep getting richer while the rest of us struggle. If that triggers you in any way, I’d prefer if you’d skip this post as I feel unapologetic about my opinion and frustration for so many people suffering right now.

For the past nine months, I have been fortunate enough to be taking a well-needed career break. After burning myself out in the public health field for the past six years (a rant for another time), I decided to take a career break to process trauma from both my personal and professional life, learn to regulate my nervous system, and figure out what’s next. While my career break has been a challenge in various ways (figuring out how not to burn through my savings while starting a business, for example), it’s also been transformative in figuring out who I am, what I value, and how I’ve been living my life misaligned. For me, I know I want to build and live a life around nature and spend less time indoors than the average American.

Which led me two months into my career break to spontaneously buy a used campervan…But more on that in a bit.

A few months before quitting my job, as I became unsure of whether my company would survive into 2026, I began exploring concepts of alternative housing and lifestyles. My hopes were to make life more affordable in case I needed to go back into working in hospitality or the community mental health field, which notoriously pays poorly. When work was becoming catastrophic and stressful, I would escape by scrolling through used campervan listings (I don’t currently have social media, so this essentially became my replacement at this time of my life). It was then I realized how expensive used campervans are and how difficult it is to find one for under $50k that didn’t have over 100k miles on it.

I also floated the idea of buying a tiny home with some land, as I had just sold my condo with my ex-husband and thought about using it to buy another, more affordable home where I’d only have to pay utilities. Then it became a bit of a shock to see how expensive tiny homes were being sold for…some over $100k, not to mention the land and oftentimes additional costs to zone the property to set up utilities. 

Instead, I ended up quitting my job, giving up my apartment, and moving to suburban Colorado where my partner lives and owns his own home.

This is where I could not let an opportunity pass me by when I saw Escape Campervans, a campervan rental company whom I discovered during Outside Festival, ended up going bankrupt and sold all of their used vehicles on eBay. I had never bought anything off eBay before and it was a bit of an intense bidding war with these vans being listed at a minimum for $5k. At the very last second, I was able to be the winning bidder at $13k, not bad in my opinion after six months of window shopping.

At 143,000 miles, my campervan, Journey is a colorful and simple van with a couch turned foldout bed, a kitchen, table, some storage drawers, and seats to fit a family of five (not that I need that of course, but the back seat bench works great as a place for additional storage). She doesn’t have a bathroom which can make for some interesting situations, and she has her quirks like any campervan, but overall she’s been fun to “escape” in.

As I’ve been currently using her on a very part-time lifestyle for one time overnights or weekend warrior adventures, I’ve quickly realized how surprisingly expensive this lifestyle can still be. If you choose to live more nomadically and want the comfort of amenities, the average cost of campgrounds per night are $45-80/night (at least in Colorado anyway). Several cities and towns across the country have cracked down on boondocking and there are several laws now where you can’t boondock or even live in an RV on your own land (I know these laws are true in Wilmington, NC where I lived for a bit and was hoping to live there as affordably as I could without living in an apartment). Not to mention the insane rise in gas prices. Just for some local exploring and one weekend traveling to Great Sand Dunes National Park and Northern New Mexico, it cost me nearly $400 in gas this month.

When did living an alternative lifestyle become so expensive? There has been an increase in the wealth gap as described in NBC’s “Unaffordable America” series. The rich keep getting richer while others who were considered “middle class” are struggling to make ends meet. And while you may not be dealing with as many physical items to own or space living in a campervan, there are often several other costs, such as maintenance and essential items to make living in the van more comfortable. For example, I’m looking at buying stealth windows for my van, as the curtains are lackluster and don’t help with climate control, but for my van these will easily cost me $600.

Perhaps I’ll become a “slow-mad” bouncing off living public lands, chasing warmer months, teaching yoga and professionally reading tarot in the parks.