Van Life During the COVID-19 Pandemic

We arrived in Montana the day after the WHO declared the novel coronavirus outbreak a pandemic, and now we are on day 20 of Governor Bullock’s stay-at-home order for the state. We are accustomed to moving to a new destination once or twice a week during the winter. For the 2019/20 season, we purchased a Loveland Ski Area pass, which includes the benefit of skiing three days each at participating Powder Alliance ski resorts. We were trying to hit as many Powder Alliance resorts as possible, including other ski resorts that also offer benefits to Loveland pass holders.

Now we are sitting in place at an RV park paying rent month-to-month. We don’t know if we are asymptomatic virus carriers, and we don’t want to be responsible for cases popping up all along our travel route. Also, rules within each city, county, and state are changing every day, including the resources available to RVers. We don’t want to be in a situation where we can’t find a place to fill up on water, dump our gray tank and cassette toilet, or legally park overnight.

Our plans for spring skiing and a summer trip to Alaska are currently out-of-reach since all North American ski resorts and the Canadian border are closed, and many communities are asking non-locals to stay away. There is no clear answer as to when traveling will be accepted again. Here is what we are doing as we wait:

We are focusing on passion projects

We started working on homeis.blog (now SkiBurrito.com) in 2019 to share our unfiltered full-time van life experiences. We set up a domain name, picked a WordPress theme, and began drafting a few blog articles, but we never got around to sharing content.

Now we are in the middle of the COVID-19 pandemic, and we want to share our gratefulness for the people and businesses that have made our experience so special since we hit the road in August 2018. By dumping all the knowledge we gained after two winter seasons of chasing powder and everything in-between, we hope to create a resource for ourselves and others. If your ski season was cut short, perhaps our blog will get you excited for future ski seasons and help you plan a winter road trip.

We reevaluate our situation every day

Our disaster plans look different than when we lived in a condo. If we were in a car crash residing in our condo, we still had a home. Now that our home is our van, a severe crash can leave us homeless.

A pandemic wasn’t a disaster we had considered as we embarked on full-time van life, but now we’re in the middle of one, so we have to ask ourselves new questions and stay informed.

What if we can no longer stay at the RV park where we are currently staying?
What if Montana asks all non-residents to leave?
What happens if one or both of us get sick?
What happens if one or both of us becomes hospitalized?
If both of us become hospitalized, who is going to take care of our dog?
Is our health insurance going to work if we need testing and treatment for the coronavirus?
If we need treatment for coronavirus, where can we go so we incur the least amount of cost?
If the pandemic keeps everyone in isolation for one month, three months, one year, or beyond, what is our game plan?

We revisit these and other questions often as federal and state governments offer new information and as their directives change. We keep in touch with RV park management to make sure we are still welcome, and space is available if we need to extend our stay. And we even reached out to our health insurance broker for advice on steps to take if we do get sick with coronavirus to minimize our costs. (Portia LaVigne is our health insurance broker if you need help finding national health insurance coverage.)

The pandemic has introduced a lot of anxiety, but having a flexible game plan eases that anxiety. Reevaluating plans for other disasters is a reminder of how things could be worse. If we were in a vehicle collision, our home could be destroyed, and both of us and our dog could be injured or worse. Right now, we have our home, and all of us are healthy and safe.

We are staying fit

During winter, we get out of the van by spending time downhill skiing and snowboarding. Now that ski resorts have shut down their lifts across North America, and several areas are prohibiting uphill skiing as well, we have to plan other activities, so we aren’t spending too much time in our small van space.

We have not signed up for a marathon, nor do we plan on signing up for one, but we are training like we intend to walk one. Having a training plan keeps us motivated each day to keep moving. Thank you to Hal Higdon for making your running programs available! We use Hal’s programs to guide our walking miles even though we are not runners. It works for us!

In addition to our walking mileage, we are also subscribed to Shin Ohtake’s MAX Workouts. We had signed up last year and purchased the minimum required equipment – dumbbells. We found the space in our van to make them fit so we can participate in fitness training that helps us to stay in shape for the various outdoor activities we enjoy.

We signed up for online courses

Udacity, Coursera, Udemy, and likely others, have been announcing offers for free or discounted online learning courses during COVID-19. We are using our downtime to brush up on our skills by participating in Udacity’s nanodegree programs, so we are more marketable when we seek new job opportunities. We also just enjoy learning.

We stock up at Costco

The longer we live in a van, the more surprised we are at how much food fits in our Winnebago Revel’s motel-size fridge/freezer and limited pantry space. I actually did not think we should keep a Costco membership when we transitioned to van life, but we continue to use it regularly. We may not have space for bulk items like toilet paper and paper towels, but there are other benefits of shopping at Costco that help us save money.

We discovered that the precooked items in the refrigerator case at Costco appear to take up a lot of space, but when you remove most of the packaging, the food is compact. We can easily fit 14 days of precooked food for two from Costco, including choices like pork carnitas, chicken marsala, chicken tikka masala, chicken teriyaki meatballs, beef and vegetable stew, pork and beef tamales, chicken skewers, refried beans, Spanish rice, seasoned steak slices, and hard-boiled eggs. We also enjoy other items like string cheese, trail mix, and salad mixes.

Precooked items help us cut back on the amount of water we use to clean since our rig is currently winterized. And we don’t have to worry about raw meats that make sanitizing more challenging. Also, excess packaging can be used as serving dishes since we have no plates or bowls. We don’t have mixing bowls either, so excess packaging is great for meal prep.

We are saving money

This was an unintentional side effect of the pandemic. While we are always saving money, this has been an opportunity for us to put away more.

During the 2018/19 ski season, we traveled more than 5,000 miles. During the 2019/20 ski season, we traveled more than 6,000 miles. Quite honestly, these estimates are low because the mileage totaled only considers direct travel between ski resorts we visited and other major detours we had to take. It doesn’t account for any sightseeing, commute times between our overnight parking spots and ski resorts, trips to the grocery store, etc. The point is that we are saving a lot of money by not consuming fuel as we practice staying at home.

Also, our costs for overnight accommodations are less as we are currently renting at an RV park month-to-month. RV parks and some campgrounds often offer discounts for extended stays. Costs add up when you are paying for a couple of nights here or there at full price. While boondocking is free, during winter, lands may be inaccessible due to snow and mud. Also, we need to be able to access other public facilities when we are boondocking, such as laundromats, showers, dump stations, potable water, a post office, etc. During the pandemic, some of these resources are unavailable. The RV park includes these amenities, so we don’t have to worry about whether or not these resources are available elsewhere. We also don’t have to keep leaving our camp spot for the essentials.

We are learning to bake without an oven

Our 2019 Winnebago Revel offers a single induction burner for cooking hot meals. There is no microwave or convection oven. Our space priorities don’t accommodate gadgets like crockpots, pressure cookers, and blenders.

We are getting pretty good at preparing exciting meals with our single burner, and now we are experimenting with baking using this Made by Design ceramic-coated aluminum 10″ saute pan with a lid. There wasn’t a lot of thought that went into purchasing this particular pan other than it was the only one I could find that was compatible with an induction burner after checking a few different stores immediately after buying the Revel. We’ve had it for over a year, and the ceramic coating is holding up great. It does everything we want it to do, which now includes baking.

We recently experimented with making a couple of my childhood favorites – tuna noodle casserole and tater tot casserole. They came out precisely the way we wanted them. The key was leaving the lid on longer than we would a casserole dish in a conventional oven. About twice as long with no peeking! And keeping the temperature low enough that we don’t burn the bottom of the casserole, but high enough that it actually cooks. For our induction burner and our pan, this means setting the heat to 2 of 10. I’ve tried 3 for other dishes I was trying to reheat, and it burns the bottom before everything is heated through.

We are bummed our traveling has come to a halt due to COVID-19, but doing our part to stay at home and practice social distancing is essential. We are choosing to stay at home:

For our parents who we want to be in our lives a little longer;
For family and friends with pre-existing health conditions;
For a family friend who recently had a heart transplant;
For friends and family who just brought babies into the world;
For healthcare and other essential workers who have kindly asked us to stay home;
Because coronavirus can kill somebody who appears healthy;
For everyone we don’t know who is staying at home for the same reasons;
Because we don’t enjoy being sick!

Who are you staying home for right now?