In October 2020, 34-year-old Karstan Smith had just returned from a 15,000km drive. Four months earlier the Newcastle native had set off in a 1968 Kombi panel van with his childhood sweetheart, Maxine, and their baby daughter, Zuri, and headed north. Within a week of being home, he’d thrown out 90% of his clothes, purchased a map of Australia and a box of thumbtacks and started planning the next family adventure.
For most parents the first year of family life is a wild enough ride in its own right, the very steepest of learning curves, never mind enduring the whole discombobulating scenario while living in the back of a van.
But to the likes of Karstan and Maxine, and other enthusiasts of what is broadly referred to as #vanlife – the social media lifestyle trend that promotes the virtues of a simple life on the road – the unpredictable yet monotonous months of new parenthood align obviously with life on the road. Weird sleeping arrangements, novel odours and a schedule governed by the sun are of course inevitable, though seldom advertised, hallmarks of both life with a baby and the wantonly itinerant existence promoted by vanlifers; and it would seem ill-advised to compound these actualities. But is it?
Back in 2011 the first vanlife hashtag was posted by Foster Huntington, a Ralph Lauren designer turned pioneering Instagram influencer. His posts of the wistful, wandering life of a man and his van heralded what the New Yorker later described as “a bohemian social media movement”, one that has come to signify an aesthetic, a mentality and a lifestyle. Over 10 years and 9.4m posts later the hashtag continues to incubate an evolving vision of a charmed, wayfaring existence peopled predominantly by honeyed 20-somethings living in impressively converted vans and wearing felt hats.
By the time Huntington made that first #vanlife post, Maxine and Karstan had already finished a 25,000km road trip around Australia. In 2009 after some extended European gallivanting, which included completing the Camino de Santiago in thongs, the couple returned home, bought a 1971 Kombi and set out for the Big Lap, circumnavigating Australia by road.
Twelve years, a TV wedding and eight Volkswagens later their adventure continues, and Zuri’s arrival in late 2019 did nothing to dampen the pair’s taste for adventure. After her birth, the couple warmed up with weekend trips. In mid-2020 they set out, with the intention of spending six weeks on the road.
When the pandemic slammed borders closed they found themselves in Queensland, and instead of retreating south to home they travelled to Cape York, picking up casual work and checking the news in pubs along the way. Adventures abounded, all documented on the couple’s 42,000-follower-strong Instagram account.
#vanlife goals
Claire Falconer and Luke Morris were among those thousands of Instagram followers. They are now preparing for both a new baby and their own van expedition from the driveway of Falconer’s family home in Mentone. After meeting in Dubai eight years ago, Falconer, an Australian, and Morris, a Brit, returned to Australia just weeks before borders were closed last year, ready to commit to vanlife Down Under.
They spent $18,000 converting a Mercedes Sprinter and headed north during a break in Melbourne’s lockdown, but while in the Whitsundays pregnancy complications put a pin in their plans. With their baby due in late April, the pair hope to take off as soon as Falconer recovers from the birth. In keeping with vanlife doctrine, they’ll just take things as they come.
For high school PE teachers Alex and Kobi Nichols in Perth though, such vagabonding isn’t the goal. In 2019 the couple converted their first van and were still painting it the day Tully, their now nearly two-year-old, was born.
While Kobi hopes to take a full year and “home-school the kids” at some stage, for now they live a vanlife-lite, their full-time work punctuated by trips around the state. For many, utilising the benefits of stable work, employee leave entitlements and a rentable asset in the form of a house is the key to low-stakes forays into aspirational spontaneity.
No filter
Back in Newcastle, Karstan and Maxine were parked outside their home on a dreary afternoon, entwined with their daughter in the back of their Kombi, the drizzle interrupting prime tinkering time.
“Instagram is dangerous,” Karstan says. “It’s not all Jack Johnson, beaches and fluffy dogs you know. Sometimes you’re just stuck in a van with your partner, dropping one in a bucket.”
Such mental images stand outside the traditional #vanlife aesthetic, but that’s his point.
After the couple caught themselves “getting sucked in” to the vanlife industrial complex and getting “a bit carried away with Adobe Lightroom” they are committed to showing a more authentic vision of their life on the road as a family. They’ve since deleted some of their posts and no longer use filters, or remove pesky fellow humans, boats and even buildings from their content – a common practice in the #vanlife community, they say.
Parlaying their enviable lifestyles into self-sustaining brands, through sponsorships and freebies, is an option too good to resist for many vanlifers. Results can range from the inspirational to the irksome.
Maxine says that, as with parenthood, while people will always enjoy the pretty pictures, what they really want to know is what it’s actually like. The pair say that being new parents while living and travelling in their van is so great, “it shouldn’t need to be dressed up as something it’s not”.
Their next adventure will be documented on YouTube, and there will be brand alliances, including with Amazon.
“We just want people to know you don’t need a $100,000 LandCruiser to see Australia, and you can do it with a kid too.”
Just like having a baby, Maxine says that there’s never a “right” time to hit the road. The hardest part, she says, is taking the leap.
“You’ll never be 100% ready and life is short – just do it!”
