Hi there! (again) I'm Ronan.
I've been living a semi-nomadic lifestyle since 2021. What does that mean? Basically, I can't stay in one place for more than a few months without losing my mind. I work odd jobs, live in the forest, and exist in a state of constant existential crisis.
Currently, I'm living in my van and doing the whole "digital nomad" thing. Well, actually, I'm back at my home base as of now, but I'll be hitting the road once again soon. This website is a place where I can share my adventures as I continue to drift my way through life.
I call home a lovely, if not slightly dinky, 2013 Chevy Express.
Van life has been my dream ever since I began my life on the road. I started out with a bus, but it was a bit too big for me and I quickly became overwhelmed with the project. Instead, I focused on seasonal work and saved up for this bad boy, and I couldn't be happier with my choice.
It's completely no-build/off-grid. I sleep on a camping mattress/sleeping bag, use battery powered lights, store my food in an ice chest, cook with butane/propane, charge my devices with a power bank, and do my business in the bushes.
I know that lifestyle doesn't appeal to most, but it's perfect for me. The simple life is the good life. I can wake up on a beach one day, and on top of a mountain the next.
My journey began with an epiphany: Life is worth living. Profound, right? Well, it was for me.
Life, no matter how you choose to live it, is like being stuck in a time loop. Wake up, eat, work, sleep. The same rhythms repeat until the days blur together. Sure, it's comfortable, it's steady, it's just the way things are. Then suddenly, you’re sixty, and it’s the same as it ever was.
When's the last time you thought about the color of your carpet? What does that billboard you see every day on your way to work say? Does your favorite snack even make you say "yum" anymore? Is your sweater as soft as it was when you bought it? What sound does the bird outside your window make in the morning?
It may as well all be background noise. Our brains do a special little trick similar to the cache on a computer. What we perceive loads faster the more often we see it. Your brain doesn't need to use any processing power to know the location of your toothbrush, what your phone pin is, or how to turn on the coffee maker. Routine becomes automatic. The familiar becomes invisible.
Time is made of memories. That afternoon you spent in the dentist's waiting room lasted an eternity, but you likely can't remember what you ate for breakfast yesterday. Bad days never seem to end, but you can blink and miss a month of the average. Memories form from the new, the strange, and the uncomfortable. Do you remember the first time you rode a bike? The anxiety of the air rushing past, the effort it took to balance, how bad it hurt when you scraped your knee, and the thrill and freedom of doing it on your own. But your last drive to work? Gone before it even happened. The more we already know, the more we do the same, the less exciting life becomes. A dull life is a soft one. It can't hurt you, but it will kill you with the maddening rhythm of a ticking clock.
For a long time, I felt trapped by that dull ache of existential dread. When nothing matters, everything feels like a waste of time. Why not just get it over with? It's easy to become consumed by these thoughts if you can't learn to live in spite of them. But that's the thing: you have to actually live. Living isn’t just being; it’s doing. It's experiencing all five senses, really feeling them, absorbing them, reflecting on and building upon them. It's essential to immerse yourself in life and feel it wash over you.
That’s why I love traveling. When I go somewhere new, it feels like I'm opening my eyes for the first time again. There are faces I've never seen, foods I've yet to try, streets I haven't walked- maybe what I didn't know I was even looking for is just around the corner. I am awake. I am present. I am alive. I'm immortal.
A long life isn't measured in years, it's measured in memories. If you fill your days with new experiences- new people, new knowledge, new flavors, new sensations- and you slow down to really think about them- you'll create an eternal life. You don't have to travel the world to do that. You just have to embrace discomfort. Embrace the unfamiliar. Find what challenges you, what excites you, and what you don't know.
So, rearrange all the furniture in your living room. Take a wrong turn on your way to work. Order a different kind of latte than usual. Talk to a stranger on the bus. Listen to a podcast episode on a subject you know nothing about. Count all the trees on your walk. Buy a plane ticket to Latvia. Take up skateboarding at forty-three. Do something new! And wake up again and do it differently tomorrow.
What I'm Working On
Travel Log: I have nearly half the country to still write about, so these will be releasing somewhat slowly. I was trying to fill up the map with the trips I've already done before I start travelling again, but I think there's going to be some overlap for a while. I'm currently writing/editing my Kansas/Colorado entries, which are the ones in which I have the most to say. When I leave for my trip, I intend for the travel log to be more like my journal, just very location focused.
Travel: I haven't shared what my trip actually is yet! I'm tackling the Pacific Northwest. I don't have a solid plan, which is very unlike me, but I think it's the only way I'm going to be able to get moving. Van life is a lot more abstract than planning a vacation or travelling somewhere for a temporary job. It'll be a "move around when I feel like it" kind of pace. But I can't see myself camping somewhere for longer than a week. I intend to leave within the next three weeks, April 12th being the deadline. I've been putting it off all year to "prepare".
Journal: I intend to update this at least weekly. Some will be more casual entries out of my actual diary, but it's also just a dumping ground for anything I write about that isn't travel focused.
Maps: This project has been on the back burner for several months, but sharing it has motivated me to pick it up again! I'll probably be finishing the rest of the maps before I shift to writing the guides for them. I do have guides for a few states already, they're just all formatted as spreadsheets, so I need to translate them to something readable. Probably expect a big dump of maps a couple months from now, as knowing me I'll knock them out in a fit of insomnia.
Other projects: I've also been working on something more functional, The Nomad Guide. This is a page of resources for anyone interested in knowing about the nomadic lifestyle. I think most people aren't aware of what "seasonal work" really is and how to approach it, or people are intimidated by where to even camp when thinking about van life, or people wonder how I can afford to take vacations when I make, like, 20k a year. I'll let you guys know the secrets, because I have years of research and living the lifestyle under my belt, and I'm constantly learning more.