The meaning of vanlife

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This 2019 documentary is a collaboration between Australian director Jim Lounsbury and creators of the Instagram account vanlifediaries Jonny Dustow and Jared Campbell. Vanlifediaries organises gatherings for vanlifers mainly in Australia and the US and aggregates content from other vanlifers on Instagram. Funding for the making of the film was secured by a Kickstarter campaign some years ago, and the names of those who contributed appear in the end credits.

Context

I first learned #vanlife was ‘a thing’ back in 2017 when I stumbled upon this New Yorker article. I had been obsessed with VW campers for a number of years by that stage so this was something that I decided to follow. I wasn’t a big Instagram user but I started following wheresmyofficenow, featured in the New Yorker article and this documentary and one of the first #vanlife ‘celebrities’. After following accounts like vanlifediaries I discovered many many more vanlifers to follow. It got to the point where I had to start curating my following list - being a van snob I unfollowed Sprinters and Hiaces and get it down to almost exclusively VW T2s and T3s for optimal viewing pleasure.

In early 2018 that I finally became the proud owner of a 1984 T3 camper. I’m not a real vanlifer because we only go on trips for holidays. A true vanlifer is a nomad. They live and work on the road, and deal with all the problematic toileting, dish-washing and laundry issues on a daily basis!

What is the meaning of vanlife?

There’s no narrator for this documentary, so the meaning of vanlife is told through the vanlifers’ stories. Basically social media platforms like Instagram have brought like-minded vanlifers together digitally and groups on Instagram like vanlifediaries organise gatherings to provide a means for them to connect at a deeper level, ie. face-to-face, IRL:

We’re using this social media platform to help people find their people. It’s not a club. It’s society working through the changing of technology. (We're) trying to use that to help people around us to find the people that make them happy.
Jonny, vanlifediaries

Gatherings are like decentralised, low-key festivals (although at one point Jared tried to dissociate gathering from festivals):

Gatherings are designed for our community to own it. It means that you bring anything you want to this space. If you play music and you want to share a song, there’s time for that. If you want to share a story, a poem, if you want to take people on a hike, if you want to do yoga, you just say ‘Oh tomorrow I’m keen to do this’ and you might have ten of us go and do it or five, it doesn’t matter. You might have all of us come and do it.
Jared, vanlifediaries

If #vanlife is something you’re interested in, I’d highly recommend you see this. There are a handful of #vanlife ‘celebrities’ featured (besides wheresmyofficenow) which kept me on my toes. The narrative moves between gatherings in different parts of the US, Canada, Germany and Australia. When the film ended I had to ask myself ‘What is the meaning of vanlife?’. Maybe the meaning of vanlife is to allow people the time to slow down, enjoy solitude and then satisfy the human need to connect with other humans from time-to-time and share the things that they love? Maybe.

More information

I tried to find out how people can watch this. I’m in Australia and was lucky enough to watch it on TV subscription service Stan. I believe it’s available on Amazon Prime (although don’t quote me on that) in the US. I searched in the iTunes store but it said it wasn’t available (it may be available in other countries though?). I also saw it on Vimeo On Demand but it also came up with a ‘not available in your region’ message. I’m sure there’s a way - you just need to look hard enough.

Thanks for reading.

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