Career, Life, Lifestyle
by Collective HubSolar panels, virtual fences and podcast suites. The van life community is using tech – to plug into success.
A couple who live in a campervan but run their own wine brand – it’s not the typical cliché of open road ‘van lifers’ but this is the life of artist Elise Cook and her partner Dom – two dream-chasers from South Australia who decided to take to their startup, Down the Rabbit Hole, and their entire lives on the road.
“I have always been involved with everything other than production which is Dom’s game,” says Elise. “In the first few years, I ran lots of events and then, while on the road, we would visit restaurants, bars and bottle shops – doing little happy dances together in the car park outside a shop that loved our wines. I’ll always cherish these memories.”
If you haven’t heard of Elise, who has 329,000 followers on Instagram, you might have seen one of her most famous travel snaps – a (very stylish) scene of their van with an outdoor projector on the side. The outback cinema shot has been repinned, regrammed and reposted endlessly across social media. Some claim it’s a hoax (‘You’d get eaten by mosquitos!’) but Elise insists this is
their real life.
“I got Dom the projector for his birthday,” she says. “We obviously had no television on the road but every now and then we’d set the projector up for a movie night or, if we were somewhere with other campers, we’d put on something for everyone. The grey nomads loved Faulty Towers and, by the third episode, we’d have fifteen deck chairs set up around us.”
Their high-tech extras didn’t end there. “Thanks to technology we could work from anywhere,” she says. “Dom had to continue running all of the logistics of the business – the wholesale, invoicing, distribution – and was able to do so from his laptop. We wound up on the road far longer than we originally thought we would – two years – and in a big way I put that down to how social media allowed our business to grow, and the doors it opened for us.”
If you’ve ever fantasised about downsizing to a home on wheels, you’re not alone. On Instagram there are over 4.7million posts hashtagged #vanlife with over 440,000 people following the Australian account Van Life Diaries – and they don’t appear to be Luddites.
Solar panels, cinema screens, portable Wi-Fi modems, mood lighting, video editing suites and state of the art coffee machines. Instead of roughing it, van lifers are using technology to make life on the road more comfortable, entertaining, connected and – perhaps most importantly – productive.
“Last year, camping and caravanning holidays reached record numbers, with Aussies enjoying over 12 million overnight trips,’ says Justin Hales,
CEO of Camplify, an Airbnb for caravans, campervans and motorhomes which has seen a surge in short and long term booking. >
“A huge factor in the growth of the industry in general is the rising number of Gen Z and millennials embarking on outdoor adventures – in just one year, camping holidays across this demographic have increased by 22 percent,” he says. “They bring greater expectations when it comes to creature comforts and access to technology for their homes on wheels.”
There’s fully-fitted out campervans include ‘Boxy Lady’ (a six-metre campervan with a record player and record collection, USB charging outlets, lighting and sun-powered 240-volt wall plugs). There’s also ‘Hendrix’, created by stylish campervan startup Drifters (featuring Bose Bluetooth speakers, 50 litre fridge freezer, and hotel-grade betting).
One of Justin’s most memorable vans is Le Truck. “It is ultimately a conference room on wheels, meaning you can host a meeting anywhere,” he says. “We also have several ex-ambulances converted into ‘glampervans’, complete with Bluetooth sound systems and solar powered kitchens. Many of our owners are embracing solar power to ensure a comfortable experience and reduce carbon footprints when camping off-grid.”
When it comes to adventure, tech is also helping people to take the road less travelled. The X1-H campertrailer by Australian brand Patriot Campers looks straight out of a James Bond movie. Featuring a separate living space that you pull behind your vehicle, it has a remote controlled lid that’s solar powered and opens in less than 60 seconds. Strip lighting illuminates the bed from the edges.
There’s no shortage of products you can buy off the shelf to pimp your ride either – portable solar power brand Goal Zero (which makes panels and batteries), Pelican Air cases to protect your gear, fridge-freezers by Engel and security systems like the Viper app (it sets a ‘geofence’ around your vehicle and alerts you if it leaves that area).
Acording to blogs, the Blue Yeti Pro USB microphone is a must for recording podcasts on the road. And, a good pair of headphones is vital. The earplug brand Vibe, which featured on Shark Tank, was created by roaming entrepreneur Jack Mann who runs his million-dollar brand from the road and believes, “Work is an action, not a place.”
The point of sales solution, Square – which enables credit cards to be processed anywhere – is a favourite with van dwellers too. In a converted bus called Bussy McBusface, it’s one of the tools used by Melbournite JP Willigenburg, who left a career in IT
to launch the roaming coffee van.
“The idea of working in hospitality came about a few years ago,” he says. “I developed a relationship with one of [Melbourne’s] best cafes, Commonfolk, and ended up purchasing the van they had built.”
“We couldn’t operate without technology,” he says. “I’ve implemented technology platforms that streamline all the tedious backend tasks, from our calendar to event bookings and accounting. Square is super-fast and integrates with our accounting platform Xero too. I can spend more time developing my product offering.”
Compared to a bricks and mortar location, the setup was lower risk. “If I didn’t like an area or didn’t get enough foot traffic I could just pick up and move,” he says. Nowadays, ‘Bussy’ is parked from Monday to Friday at a distillery, That Spirited Lot, which JP started with his brother in Seaford. On the weekend, the bus travels the country to private events.
Currently a place of business, would he consider making Bussy his fulltime home? “I have slept in it before and, one day, we will probably put some beds in the bus or build some sort of add-on that we can use for sleeping,” he says. “I will say though, it will never be a full-time home because I enjoy all the luxuries of a house too much!”
VAN LIFE, HIGH LIFE
Tempted to hit the road? Elise shares her tips …
Start Small.
When we bought the van, we started with Sunday nights – jumping in the van at 3pm, driving an hour down the coast, pulling up somewhere and then driving back at 6am on Monday morning to start the work week. Instead of disappearing into the monotony of the week, it became profound, memorable and enriching hours. Those Sunday nights inspired us to move into the van full time.
Embrace the Off
There’s an incredible balance you can gain on the road. Because MOST of the time you don’t have reception travelling around Australia, you are forced to disconnect regularly. For us, technology while important was never all consuming because it couldn’t be. I could stand on the van with my phone in the air to get one bar to post a photo but couldn’t really spend any time on it because it was too slow.
Divide and Conquer
If you’re travelling with someone else, have each person on a different mobile provider. Normally, only one or the other worked so it was handy to have the options. Make sure your set up has enough battery storage to keep your laptops charged as you don’t want to have to rely on finding power. And, when you’re traveling long distances, always carry toilet paper!
