Van Life Adventures: Intentions and Experiences

In this episode of the Less House More Moola Podcast, Holly Davis shares her journey into tiny living and minimalism, highlighting how her experiences with van life have shaped her financial planning philosophy. The conversation explores the motivations behind choosing a van for family travel, the joys and challenges of living in a small space, and the valuable lessons learned about blending personal passions with professional life. Holly emphasizes the importance of experiences over material possessions and how this mindset has led to a more fulfilling lifestyle.

For full show notes and more information visit: https://bit.ly/40uvC6M

Book a Call with Laura

Go to thetinyhouseadviser.com

Transcript

Less House More Moola podcast (00:05.974)

It takes a brave and independent mindset to go tiny. If you are trying to figure out your tiny pivot, this podcast is here to inspire and connect you with the other unconventional, gritty, inspirational people within this community. I am Laura Lynch, your tiny house friend and host. On this show, we are always going to come back to money because as a financial planner, this is the question I hear the most. How do I make this work for me financially?

Well, that's my jam, so jump in, let's go. New episodes drop every Thursday.

Less House More Moola podcast (00:43.95)

Holly Davis, welcome to Less House, More Mool Podcast. Listeners, this is one of my favorite colleagues. We sit together on an unconventional living study group. We talk about financial planning for unconventional lifestyles, and Holly has a very particular angle and niche that she's focused on. So we're going to have a very nerdy conversation today. So Holly, thanks for doing this with me.

Yeah, thanks for having me. I've been really excited and looking forward to this conversation. It really sounds like that from what I've heard from you that your van life trip was really life changing and perspective shifting. So we'll definitely get into all of that and I'm sure listeners will love to hear from your experience. So just to kick us off, would you introduce yourself and kind of your interest in

tiny living minimalism, kind of how you came to this mindset. Yeah, I I would say that for me, it started when I met my husband 22 years ago. I met him and we were in our 20s, not making a whole lot of money. And he's always been pretty, I would say, fiscally conservative.

we were there was a bigger gap between the two of us when we first met and now we over the years met in the middle. But when we first met, he definitely, you know, did not spend much money. And neither of us were making that, you know, a whole lot. So we've kind of carried like throughout our relationship of 22 years, kind of mentality of less is more. And that's always been my favorite quote and that I put on

you know, web pages that like employers and so forth where you put a little tidbit about yourself. My quote is less is more, which really carries through all aspects of my life. So as far as like tiny living, you know, we, after we got married, my husband had a townhouse. live in Seattle and he had a townhouse and

Less House More Moola podcast (02:56.968)

And we knew that we didn't want to stay there. We were planning to have a child, you know, eventually. and we knew that we wanted to stay in Seattle, but didn't want to be in the neighborhood where we were. So, after we got married, the opportunity came up to, buy our close friend's house, which is a square foot house. They were planning on having three children and we were only planning to have one. So it just wasn't easy move to move into this.

you know, small house, was affordable on what salaries we were making. We definitely could have afforded more, but just as far as what our comfort levels, in particular, my husband's, we were like, no, this is, think it was maybe around 15%, you know, of our incomes. That's what kind of we, we wanted. And the other aspect is it was in a neighborhood that had really good,

public schools, so like K through 12 public schools. So we thought, well, this is great. We'll be able to send our child to public schools, not have to pay for private schools. And so that was kind of how it started. then, I mean, beyond just our house lifestyle of having the less is more mentality, we have never been big on material items. When we met, we were both bike racers. And so any money that we had, if it wasn't being saved, was going towards

bikes or bike paraphernalia, skis and so forth, not towards clothes or fancy cars. We used to joke how when we would go to bike races that the bikes on the roof of the car were worth more than the car itself. So we definitely had, you know, our values have always been aligned with, you know, our activities in the outdoors and so forth. And so in addition to that, you know, we were up until three years ago, we were a one car family.

we just, you know, we've just feel like having too many possessions causes us stress. And so when you live in a small house, you can only accumulate so much. yeah, up until three years ago, we were a one car family. then until my dad gifted me his car, cause he was too old to, drive any longer. And then other than that, like our, when we pre-child, when we would travel, our, our favorite way to traveling was bike touring, self-support.

Less House More Moola podcast (05:17.504)

self-supported bike touring. We, on our honeymoon, we did a three month long self-supported bike tour through Europe, Western and Eastern Europe. And that's just, you've been one of our favorite ways of traveling and meeting local people, seeing people. It's less expensive. You know, so in addition to just like wanting to reduce stress, the other aspect is just financially, know, tiny living enables you to spend money on things that you value. And for us,

you know, spending money on, you know, travel and experiences and then being able to save more money towards retirement has really, which I didn't realize, you know, 20 years ago that it, our way of living would have enabled us to get where we are today, which is with, you know, a lot of flexibility. We're still in the same house, still have, we make more money now, but we, you know, have the same mortgage. And so,

We're in a very good spot of being having a lot of flexibility. If we want to retire early, we're now having to put our child through private school because we found out that he has dyslexia and ADHD. So we have the flexibility to be able to afford private tuition. And so I feel like tiny living is like one of those things that you don't necessarily talk about with many people, because it seems like in society, there's this mentality of.

More is more and I need the bigger and the fancier house and I need the fancy car or multiple fancy cars. So it's not something that we necessarily talk about, you know, with friends, but you kind of, find that you connect with the people who live similarly, but it's definitely, you know, I, I wouldn't change anything just because of where we're at today and having that, that flexibility. So I think that's kind of.

I don't know. That's how I, you my interest in tiny living and how we've continued to live that lifestyle. It sounds like that your self-supported bike trips were like a very, it seems like a natural segue into a van trip, right? Because you're, you know, it's a, maybe a lower cost of travel in terms of not, you know, renting homes or Airbnb's and you have flexibility to.

Less House More Moola podcast (07:40.3)

meet people and go where you want and that sort of thing. now it all makes sense to me why you like were immediately attracted to the van life trip. But you did mention to me before that you had a specific intention around that trip. So share with us what was your intention for your recent trip with your family in a van. Yeah. So our intention. So every summer we take a two week vacation.

And sometimes it's challenging to find a vacation that everyone, all three of us, so it's we're a family of three, me and my husband and our 13 year old son, and now a one year old dog who is a very high energy dog. So it's at times challenging to find a vacation that everyone is really excited about. And so the van trip, so my son has always loved.

We've all always loved camping, but I am to a point in my life now where I can only take so many nights of sleeping on the ground in a tent. So the van was a good happy medium of a way of traveling that could be simple, but also have enough comforts. yeah, so that was the primary thing is it had to, the trip had to check a couple of boxes. One, had to be,

something that our entire active family would be excited about. And then the other aspect is that we had to be able to take our dog. So she's a year old and for various reasons we can't, it's hard to find a dog sitter for her at this point. So she had to come along. And so that was something else. And I think my husband and I knew that this would be, you know, going back to like our self-supported bike tours. One thing that we loved about those trips is just being able to go at a slow pace and

just enjoying like the simple everyday rituals of life of like getting up in the morning, having coffee and having a slow morning, chatting with your neighbors in the campground who you'll probably never see again, but meeting people from other countries and then going off, being active during the day, riding bikes and so forth, coming back in the evenings, going to the grocery store, deciding what you're gonna have for dinner.

Less House More Moola podcast (10:03.758)

having dinner and then turning in for the night. So we knew that this was something that we would like. The other aspect, another reason that my husband and I wanted to do this trip was to ask kind of like a prototype for retirement. So eventually our plan is once our son is out of the, he's off to college or whatever, once he's independent, our plan is to get a van and live.

van life for part of the year. So it was partly to kind of test that out and see if that's what we wanted to do. And so this trip, we did it in the summer. It was this past summer. And we went up to British Columbia for two weeks and took our mountain bikes. And so we had to be active. We had to be able to spend lots of time in the outdoors and it had to be something that the whole family would like. And that definitely checked all the boxes. So that was our

That was our intention.

That's beautiful. Going back to the dog and for, you know, all those dog listeners out there, traveling with your animals brings a lot of challenge to the picture for sure. Especially one-year-old dogs. They're like babies. Yeah, it definitely brings a whole nother element and yet you feel like you don't want to leave your dog behind. If you're going to go have an adventure, you want them to have an adventure too. And so,

What a great way to do that is to do the van option. Why did you choose a van rather than an RV? So I think you were the one that referred me to Eric, I don't know how you pronounce his last name, Razuski. He has that website, familytrucksters.co.

Less House More Moola podcast (11:55.852)

Yeah, a former podcast guest. Okay, that's right. So I chatted with him and I think we had already decided on a van before I talked with him. I think the reason we picked a van was more like just the simplicity of it. More mobile, like just to pick up and like drive to, you know, a quick drive to the store.

RVs, I think there's a lot more involved. Like you go and you have to set up and I think you have to get it all, you know, just right, perfectly balanced and that sort of thing. I think we just didn't want to mess with that. We wanted to be able to show up at a campground and just open up the van door, throw everything out and, you know, be able to set up fairly quickly. So just the whole, you know, less is more mentality of it. You know, and our goal for this trip

was not to spend time inside. So we didn't need a really big spacious RV. It was the summer, it was warm. We didn't want to be sitting inside because that just encourages my son to play on his Game Boy or whatever, his Nintendo Switch. So the goal was to be outside, not in the van. And then also for the simplicity. So that's how we chose a van over an RV.

And so you rented a van and some listeners may not even be aware that you can rent a van, live van for a vacation in the same way that you can rent an RV. How did you figure out or sort of navigate the logistics of where you can rent a van and what kind of van to get and what would be a good fit for three humans and one canine and all of that? Right, so again, my conversation with Eric,

He gave me several websites and ultimately, and he also recommended based on our situation, he recommended a specific van to get. So he recommended a Winnebago Solus, which has a pop top. So there was room for sleeping quarters downstairs as well as upstairs. And ultimately we ended up finding the perfect van on, it's called Outdoorsy.com, which is like a, it's like a VRBO, but for,

Less House More Moola podcast (14:09.974)

renting vans and RVs. So we were able to find a pretty new one, you know, within a half an hour of our house. So Winnebago Solace and it had everything, everything that we needed. Trying to think if there was anything specific, but yeah, it was really getting Eric's help with deciding exactly which van to get.

and then found it on Outdoorsy and yeah, it was pretty easy. That's amazing. Do you know, like, could you remember, roughly how many vans there were, like, in a relatively close radius? I have no idea. I've never looked on this site about how many vans are out there for rent. Yeah, there's a lot of them.

I mean, in such a wide variety, like some people like will rent out just like their four by four, you know, truck that's got a tent on the top. And I'm in Seattle, so there's probably more, there's probably, you know, there's a fair number of options. And I noticed that there was a lot like in close range to the airport. So there was quite a few. And I think, you know, ours, I think was available because there was a

non refundable policy. So most people want to be able to refund, we knew exactly what we wanted and when we wanted to go. So we were able to find a really good one, but there is lots of options. I think in particular, if you're not leaving it to the last minute, especially in the summer, if you're planning, you know, several months in advance, I think the earlier you book it, the sooner, and it probably depends on like where you're located, but Seattle has had quite a number of

quite a number of options. Yeah, that's really cool. I'm excited that those sites exist and that people get a chance to try that out because certainly it's an expensive thing to get into van life. And if it's not going to be a good fit for you for whatever reason, it's another, you know, just another opportunity that you need to try before you buy. Absolutely. And it's a great opportunity, you know, for people who do decide to buy a van.

Less House More Moola podcast (16:26.914) 

you know, to kind of offset the cost, you know, by renting it out. And I guess there's different, you know, mentalities like, you know, you have to deal with, you know, renting it out and, you know, some of the hassles, but if you, you know, want to make some income off of it, you can do that to help offset the cost. But yeah, absolutely. You know, a much better way of going to rent it first, just to kind of like, you know, test it out, which is like what I tell a lot of my

my financial, you know, a financial planner. And so when I'm working with clients and they're getting ready for retirement, I'm like, what are you going to do when every day is a Saturday? You know, you need to test this thing out. And, know, I have a lot of clients who are, you know, similarly quite outdoorsy and, and do van trips. And so it's good, a good way, you know, and a, you know, a good way to save money, cause maybe you figure out that, you don't really like van life. And that would be pretty expensive. You know, if you go and buy a van and you don't know yet.

whether you like it. Awesome. While we're on that point, I was just checking one of the links that we're going to put in the show notes for you is a link to Strava. Is it Strava? Is that what it's called? Strava? Yes. Which is your biking profile on that biking runner app. And so it sounds like that in your practice, you're really focused on.

serving people who want to be outdoors a lot and their values are aligned with yours in terms of spending their time and their energy and driving their passion from their outdoor adventures. That's right. Yeah. So I like to tell people I really dislike social media overall, except for Strava, because that's where my people are. So it's essentially an app where you track

all of your activities. mean, even when I go out and walk my dog, you know, just, and you know, there's, can take pictures. whatever you're doing, you know, biking, running, skiing, hiking, and it's a way to like see like what your friends are doing and you can take pictures and you can get an idea of like, that looks like a really cool spot. So we tracked all of our biking when we were up in British Columbia on our trip and like posted pictures of the van. And so, yeah, that's the only social media that I actually really

Less House More Moola podcast (18:52.264)

like and yeah, you're right. So in my financial planning practice, my targeted niche, won't say all of my clients, but my targeted niche is mid career professionals who not just enjoy like being active in the outdoors, but in adventures in the outdoors or just in general value life experiences and maximizing memories over accumulating things. If that makes sense.

so yeah. Awesome. So back to your van trip, what was the best part of your adventure? I mean, the best part, I mean, the best part was that we all had a great time. The whole family had a great time and no one was itching to get back home, but we got to see because we were able to drive and be so mobile in two weeks, we visited three different locations.

You know, we, we first went to Squamish, which is just south of Whistler. There's a lot of rock climbing and cycling and running. And then we went north and a bit east to Sun Peaks Resort, which is like a little mini Whistler. It's a ski resort in the winter and a mountain bike park in the summer. And then, so we did like three or four days in each.

place and then after Sun Peaks we went south to what's called Silver Star Resort, which is the same thing ski resort in the winter bike park in the summer. So it was fun to be able to visit three different places and just, you know, easily be able to pack up the van, you know, at the end of one spot and like, you know, drive a few hours to the next place. So it's just, I just really love the flexibility and getting to see

you know, new places. So it's hard to say what the best part was, but overall, the fact that we all, it was a memorable experience and we all equally loved it, including the dog, because she didn't have to stay home. Yeah, for sure. And what was challenging about it, if anything, living all of you in such a small space or? Yeah.

Less House More Moola podcast (21:13.55)

The hardest part was that, and this is also like what we would do different next time, is we took too much stuff. And it's really easy. Cause I would say to my husband, I was like, can we bring this? And he was like, well, it'll fit. But what we didn't know is that if you put too much stuff in the van, there's a lot of then constant rearranging. you know, all of it fit.

But then when it came time for evening and everyone to go to bed, we had to put down our Murphy bed, which meant we had to move the stuff that was underneath where the Murphy bed was and move it into the front of the van. And no one could be, we couldn't all be in the van at the same time until it was like exactly time to go to bed. So was like everyone out. So we took too much stuff, but you know, that wasn't a big deal.

The other, the only other challenging part that was also wasn't that big of a deal either was, during times when it got really hot, our dog had to stay in the van while we were out mountain biking. So we had to run the generator in the morning for a little bit to run the air conditioning so that she wouldn't cook in the van. So it was all fine. She was never close to, you know, being at, at risk or danger or anything, but.

That was another aspect of bringing along a canine and when it's hot is just making sure they stay cool. So other than that, there was no challenges. I hit my head a lot on the inside of the pan, but also, you know, minor getting used to small spaces. So yeah, awesome. So did you have any like deep learnings or shallow learnings? Anything that you all learned about that?

I mean, coming back, you know, after living in the van for two weeks or living in and out of the van, our 1000 square foot house felt very spacious, which, know, at times over the years, I've been like, you should get a bigger house until you live in a van for two weeks. And you're like, this is plenty big. We don't need anything more. In fact, we have too much stuff in our small house. So I feel like, you know, how much we enjoyed that just kind of reaffirmed our

Less House More Moola podcast (23:31.654)

our tiny living less is more minimalism way of life. And, you know, I, we definitely won't change things. Sometimes I think I'd like to have like a newer house, but never a bigger house. And I say, I think, yeah, we, definitely learned that we still would like to live van life. At least my husband and I would like to live van life more often during the year. Once

my son is, you know, out of the house. We can't really do it right now while he's in school. We can do trips, but once we are like, you know, semi-retired slash retired, we definitely would like to buy a van at some point. It's definitely on the list, but we've decided that maybe not quite yet. We're not quite ready to make that investment. And then as far as like,

I mean, that's more on the personal side. On the professional side, think I kind of, and this whole journey of me, you know, I launched my own financial planning firm in the last year. And my journey, my intention with my financial planning practice has been to blend my work with my personal life. I felt like when I got into financial planning, I felt like I had to put on this front. There was like,

the work holly and then there was the personal holly and I would go to work, put on my fancy pants and my belt and my button down shirt and it had to be one person that at the end of the day I'd put on my bike jersey and my shorts and hop on my bike and ride home. And it always felt like I had to be these two different people. And so part of my journey that I'm still learning to embrace and grasp as far as my niche has really been to blend those two things. And I,

this trip, you know, and then, and along with my journey with my practice, I've kind of learned that there are people out there who are drawn to my, my niche of wanting to work with, you know, being out there about being really outdoorsy and valuing experiences over things. So it's felt very validating. So from a professional standpoint, I feel like,

Less House More Moola podcast (25:51.264)

I can continue to do that and you know, it's made me feel closer to like clients who I share some of these, you know, values with and it's by doing so I've been able to have more and deep conversations with clients because they share with me, know, what, you know, adventures they've been off doing. Whereas I didn't do that before. It was always like business. Okay. What's going on with your money?

and we didn't talk about the personal side of things. So it's been quite a journey, but it's been amazing just to be able to have deeper relationships with clients and to be able to talk about these things, to say, hey, I'm...

We're going on a two week trip and we're going to rent a van and go mountain biking. know, it's, it's nice to be able to feel okay about sharing that with clients because I know that they'll be excited for me and so forth. So, yeah. So it seems like that as entrepreneurs, have that, you know, flexibility to move progressively towards being more of our authentic self. And certainly there are challenges with wearing so many hats, but.

It's great to be in a place in your profession at this point where you have lived a lower cost living and so you can build up a practice that is surrounded around you and your values. Absolutely. Yeah. And living, I mean, I could not have, so I launched my practice a little over a year ago and we've been able to live on my husband's salary and just, I could not, as I said, I become

more fiscally conservative, I think, since I became a financial planner and I would not have felt comfortable like launching if, you know, we couldn't have lived on my husband's salary. And that's just, you know, it's come from having a lower mortgage and just living with less. So I just like feel, I feel so fortunate, obviously, you know, many, you know, positive things have, you know, been part of my life to enable this to happen.

Less House More Moola podcast (27:57.794)

but a big part of that was having a really low mortgage and just maybe not spending as much as others or whatever, but yeah. Awesome. Well, it sounds like you definitely accomplished your intention for your trip. If you were to do it again, is there anything you would change? Gosh, I mean, really not. We'd go for more than two weeks. We would bring less stuff.

And we would just go somewhere different than where we went the last time, but really not. There was really very little that we would change. So we feel like it was, it was super successful. So you talked a little bit about how you think about your business moving forward and you know, how you think about maybe early retirement, certainly some, you know, time out there in the forest and away from maybe business kind of helps you.

energize or reframe things? Is there anything that really made you think differently about your future, your personal and professional future after taking that time away? mean, I I might have said this before, but I love what I'm doing professionally. The reason I decided to launch my own firm was to make it something that would be sustainable for a long period of time. And even if I

achieve financial independence in the next, you know, 10 years or whatever. plan to keep doing what I'm doing because I love it. So, you know, maybe part of the year could be while, you know, doing it on the road, you know, working virtually as I am now. So I definitely, you know, plan to keep working. Personally, I don't think anything has changed. feel like our trip really reaffirmed

our lifestyle and living simply and realizing that often we think we need something more to make us happy, but really not. For me, happiness comes from having joy and harmony in my tight little family and we have that and that's really all I need to live a happy life.

Less House More Moola podcast (30:21.866)

I, you know, that was being able to live out of a van for two weeks with Harmony. That was, I think, pretty amazing. And so I feel so fortunate that we have the relationship that we do, but, know, between me and my husband and our son, you know, I just feel, you know, so fortunate to have that tight knit family. So, no, I wouldn't change anything because things are too good on that at end. thanks for sharing your experience with us, Holly. I'm sure that those, you know,

good ideas will help inspire other people to consider taking some time off and doing a van life trip and using that as a frame up for what they want in the future. If listeners want to track you down or follow you or get in touch, how would they do that? Let's see. Well, you can email me if you want. My email address is holly@AltaviaFP. So my Firm name is AltaVIA Financial Planning. My website is AltaVIAFP.com. I'm on Instagram under AltaVIAFP. Strava, look up Holly Davis in Seattle, Washington. I'm also on LinkedIn under Holly Davis. So yeah, and I don't post much on social media outside of Strava, but I do have a...

presence, just not a regular presence on social media. Well, thank you so much. This has been great. I really enjoyed it. Hey, thank you for taking the time to listen to Less House More Moola. I have another free resource on my website for you, the Unconventional Values Quiz. In just two minutes, you can pinpoint your style of freedom seeker, security guardian, adventure enthusiast, or community builder.

Check it out at thetinyhouseadviser.com. One more thing, podcasts don't have algorithms like social media does. They only grow by word of mouth and reviews. If this podcast is helpful to you, would you please post a review on your podcast app and tell a friend who is trying to live a values-based life? It would totally make my day.

Less House More Moola podcast (32:39.768)

Please see the show notes for important disclosure regarding the tiny house adviser LLC and this episode.