First Night Out

The first trip out in the van could not come quickly enough. Since I was leaving TN where I had worked on the build with my uncle, I decided to head east toward Asheville and the Blue Ridge Mountains. It was November and starting to get cold so not the best time to launch a ‘van life dream’ but off I went anyway.

My first stop was Knoxville. Again, not planned, I had a full day Zoom meeting on my second day out. I knew I didn’t want to be on Zoom for 8 hours from the van so I decided Knoxville would be a great place to stop since there was likely a coffee shop with wifi where I could sit and work. 

This was also my first time using iOverlander and looking for a place to park overnight. I looked on the app and found a spot in the middle of the city listed as ‘wild camping’ (free, no amenities). So off I went at 5pm to this “camp site”. As I drove through the city, the map led me to a very nice neighborhood with its own walking path down the median of the main road and small parks and gravel lots along the riverfront. I thought to myself “someone is going to call the cops” since these homes are worth about 1 million dollars and I am rolling in with my giant white van but it was too late and dark outside to find another place. I parked in the lot of a small park, put on my window covers, and was too nervous to turn on any of my lights inside the van for fear of drawing attention. I think I went to bed at 6pm that night. When I woke up, I went to a coffee shop and worked in the loudest coffee shop known to man and my boss was not pleased at the quality of my audio.. Then by the end of the day, it was getting dark again so I just went back to my little weird park spot and slept there again (while again praying no one called the cops on me) before hightailing it out the next morning.

So many valuable lessons were learned 1) find a spot sooner in the daylight so if it’s not right, you have time to find another, 2) have a backup site on deck, and 3) do better research on coffee shops before popping in and expecting a quiet location for work meetings.