Non-confession time

I think I might have identified the single biggest stress factor with vanlife for me, and to be honest I feel a bit ashamed of it. It’s not the driving, or having to choose what to take with me and how best to use the limited space. It isn’t finding places to park, or worrying about running out of fuel or getting lost. It isn’t spending a lot of time alone, or not having a clear plan of what to do everyday and having to be conscious of how much power I’m using and have available. I actually enjoy many of these aspects of travelling around in my little van home.

The thing that bothers me most is being disconnected virtually. I’ve discovered that I hate not having a decent phone signal. Especially on the west coast north of Ullapool and Skye I was constantly searching for signal when maybe I could have been enjoying better things, actually taking advantage of being properly off-grid. I even looked into Starlink, Elon Musk’s effort to cover the whole world in WiFi but thankfully that is currently too expensive for even my obsession. That and I don’t want to attach a mini satellite dish to the top of Travis.

It’s especially a consideration for overnight spots. I’ve definitely passed by some rural places to spend the night which I’m sure were beautiful and would have given me a silent night’s sleep and starry skies and amazing views to wake up to. But if they don’t have 4G there, I didn’t want to stop. Now thankfully, the world and coverage being what it is, this is a rare problem nowadays and there are many stunning spots that do also benefit from good coverage so I’ve always been able to find great alternatives. It’s not like I’m sleeping on industrial estates every night due to this limitation. It just takes a bit more effort to find somewhere sometimes and seems a bit silly. So I’m trying to figure out what’s going on and probably want to justify it to myself a bit as well.

My first excuse, I mean reason, is that I’m working whilst I wander around to and fro. I do need to be able to receive emails from my clients and I need to be able to react to them quickly when I get them. My whole ability to exist in this way depends upon me being able to do a good job and provide a good service whilst I travel so this really is an important factor. I just cannot go for days without being contactable, and in places like Skye where I was finding signal very sparse that was a genuine concern. So I think that this is a valid one in terms of avoiding any prolonged disconnectedness.

So that’s all well and good for the working day but I don’t do the kind of work where my clients urgently contact me in the middle of the night. I’m not Batman. Although of course that’s what I’d say if I was Batman in order to protect my identity so you still don’t know, I might be. Anyway if we run with the notion that I’m not Batman for now, if you can take my word for it, then there’s really no work-based reason why I can’t sleep overnight somewhere off-grid and return to civilisation the following morning.

There’s a degree of security in having a phone connection I suppose. Despite the risks of becoming too over-reliant on them in all circumstances a mobile phone is generally the quickest and most convenient way of summoning help from the wider world if you need it. But I don’t really think that’s the reason either.

To be honest I like being in touch with people. I like to able to chat to my friends and family of an evening, I like watching movies, playing games, listening to music and learning stuff. Or writing music and being able to share ideas I have in real-time. Or writing this self-indulgent nonsense and being able to upload and share it. I’m used to the benefits of a connected world and it wouldn’t be possible for me to live the way I do without it.

So I’ve now come full circle, I’ve decided it’s perfectly fine to want to be connected and that my error is not in wanting it but in being ashamed of it. So screw it, and here’s to beauty spots with signal. This post was original called ‘Confession Time’ and I’m going to go change it to ‘Non-Confession Time’. So there.

Seems like the justifying it to myself mission was successful.