Home on the road: Nomad place identities in the vanlife movement

Living in a van in America is often viewed negatively by wider society, indicating the vandweller is homeless and is living in a van as a form of survival. Yet, in recent years living in a van has become aspiration and desirable as more people discover vanlife as a means of escape from mainstream society to travel and enjoy nature all while posting on social media. The movement first gained traction in 2011 when Foster Huntington shared the first #vanlife post on Instagram, since then it has exploded in popularity creating a countercultural movement of mobile Americans living by their own agenda in vans and other vehicles. Using surveys and ethnographic interviews, this study investigates how mobility, place, and place identity influence vandwellers' concepts of home while living in a van. Additionally, it explores the various experiences of, and reasons for, joining vanlife and the role social media plays in the movement. Three key themes emerged from the analysis: vanlifers identify as houseless not homeless, vanlife is viewed as a means of escape and pursuit of freedom, and social media has played a large role in the way the movement continues to evolve and possibly devolve in the future. Vanlife is a storied experience of leaving mainstream society in pursuit of adventure and freedom in the vast natural spaces of America, in a fundamentally placeless lifestyle vanlifers are challenging geographic concepts and creating new ideas of how place and mobility factor into one’s identity.