Wheel Travel Far Podcast
Hey everyone, big news today.
I’m honored to be featured on the debut episode of the Wheel Travel Far podcast – a show that dives into the stories, motivations, and realities from people's time exploring the world by wheels… the genuine stuff behind the perfect Instagram photos. I was really nervous to listen to my interview (it’s :45 minutes, FYI), but I’m actually stoked with how it turned out. The show is all about the ups and downs and learnings I acquired on the road, and where all that leaves me today. For anyone pondering a slower, more connected life, I hope you can learn from my mistakes and process. It’s a deeper dive into my journey than I’ve been able to share in my writings thus far. Give it a listen (below) and let me know what you think.
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Topics of the podcast include the genesis of 63mph, how #vanlife was different before it was mainstream, social media support while on the road (& loss of support when I stopped), digital marketing opportunities and not selling out, loneliness when traveling solo, why boredom is so important for ambitious people, finding balance in an out of control world, lack of connectivity and how that changed me, why I stopped living on the road, Hawai’i as an evolution of my journey, and so much more.
Key Quotes / Too Long, Can't Listen to the Podcast
“I think another lie of vanlife is this concept that your problems aren't going to follow you onto the road. You know if you're frustrated with your job or don't know what you want to do with your life or maybe you have an issue with your family, that van life is going to magically fix that.”
“It's funny, people spend a lot of time thinking about branding these days, of course I do sometimes as well, like what Instagram handle you're going to take if you start a road trip, And this one, @63mph just came to me in a flash. I didn't even need to question it. It was obvious that's what it was going to be.”
“I wanted to share my journey to see if anyone cared. If anyone could gather any inspiration or learnings from it, or just to be along for the ride.”
“I would say the easiest way to describe what I was looking for in my travels was just a pure experience.”
“I really do think that everyone should experience traveling for an extended period of time with very little responsibility, and just taking it in and seeing how it affects them.”
“Traveling is supposed to be uncomfortable.”
“I think that ambition is great, but it can become too much sometimes and you can find yourself with ambition being busy for busy sake. That's how I think about it. And so I'm really thinking about this sense of a balance now and introducing more boredom into my life and seeing where that takes me.”
“A big part of balance starts with being less connected on technology because it's taken over so much mind share and it puts your brain in this rhythm of being ramped up all the time, because it's moving so fast. It's not natural to move that quickly as humans. That's been a big effort of mine is to try to get off my technology, my phone specifically, a little bit more.”
“When I first started living in my van – and granted I was solo so I was doing all this myself – but, it took me a good three months to even just get my systems down. Where am I, how do I find a camping spot? Where am I going to get water, how do I shop for food now that I have a cooler for my refrigerator? I was posting pretty pictures, but in the background I was really suffering to figure all this basic stuff out.”
“I read after I stopped living in my van full time that the sleep you get – if you switch places sleeping every night – is equivalent to losing two hours of sleep every night. I read that in some study, I can't tell you which one it was, but I was like wow, well that makes a lot of sense why I was so freaking tired all the time because I was pretty much picking a new campsite every night.”
“My trip was really connecting with the natural world in a different way. It’s so hard to explain it and it won't make sense if you haven't experienced it, but I felt totally connected to nature again in terms of talking to the animals and the trees and just feeling like I'm a part of this place as opposed to being separate from it, which is very much how we treat our modern world – separate from nature.”
“You know, it doesn't matter where you are or what you're doing, you can always tell a story.”
“I kind of got tired of eating my chocolate alone.”
“You have to really try to dig in on your motives. What is it that's interesting about this concept (living on the road) to you? Is it that you idolize someone you've seen with all these pretty pictures and you want to go emulate them? I'd say that's probably the wrong motivation. If you think the experience of living in a van is going to help the changes that you want to make in your life, great. Do it.”
“I think everyone has a moment of pause where they are like man, I'm really looking for this change. I feel really weird about how my life is going or this one aspect of it, or I'm too busy, or I don't want to live in this city the rest of my life and I need a hard stop. You know, great. Go travel. But make sure you get what you need out of it.”
“The van is packed full of people and dogs and food is cooking on the burners. The pop top is up, a big fire is roaring, a sunset is going down, everything's getting dirty and shit's just everywhere - those are the moments”
“I think that if anyone's listening who I've met along the way, families, friends who have taken me in and giving me a warm meal or a driveway to sleep and just thank you so much... if I haven't seen you lately, I will see you again one day... this van is definitely going to be back on the mainland someday.”
