60 seconds with taylor blanchard & marc atwood: “we all need to find more balance between spending time in nature and spending time with our human communities.”

After spending years building corporate careers, Taylor Blanchard and Marc Atwood did something many people only dream of. They hit pause. 

This past year, the couple (who have been married 18 years!) decided now was the time. They began planning for a sabbatical to travel across North America in a campervan named Bonita. In May of this year, they took off. 

They have been on the road ever since, visiting 13 national parks across the U.S. and Canada, nine Canadian provinces, and 12 U.S. states (and counting). This new way of life is slowing them down and teaching them, oftentimes daily, how to pack their lives into a van. More than anything though, it’s giving them a new appreciation for the open road and the power of community. 

We’ve known Taylor (and Marc!) for several years now, and watching them take this leap has been inspiring – we hope you walk away from reading this inspired, too.

— meg & steph

toth shop (ts): Earlier this year, you both decided to take a sabbatical from corporate America and enjoy the van life. That’s a massive shift. What was the hardest habit or mindset to unlearn during week one on the road?

Taylor Blanchard (TB): We gave ourselves a buffer of time between work and when we hit the road, so by the time we drove into Shenandoah National Park (along the Blue Ridge Mountains in Virginia), our first stop, we’d sufficiently detached ourselves from the day-to-day stresses. However, traveling in a van brought new challenges, and honestly, those remain. While the routine at home can feel stressful and constricting, I counterintuitively miss the predictability of the routine. 

Marc Atwood (MA): It was shocking how quickly my general mindset adapted to not having a 40-hour per week job. Once we hit the road, it began to feel almost like we took on a new, drastically different job. Our first week, we quickly had to adjust to a new routine of not having certain routines. No longer could we guarantee waking up, eating breakfast, getting to a gym, and showering before getting on with the rest of our day. I think I’m still struggling to adjust to that. When your life involves driving from campground to campground (with some Airbnbs sprinkled in), some amenities either aren't available or aren't very inviting. You realize all the things you take for granted in your “real” life. 

ts: You chronicle your adventures on Substack (@thosevanpeople). How do you balance living in the moment, or “seeking clarity about what comes next while enjoying what's happening now,” with analyzing and writing about it?

TB: In general, I think that’s a lifelong challenge: living in the moment and documenting adventures or even daily life. I’ve been journaling because I want to remember the smaller moments – the silly, laugh-inducing mistakes, the strange people, the unique roadside attractions. Taking photos with film cameras also forces me to focus on the present because I’m limited in how many photos I can take. I’m also not trying to document every little thing, so I have the mental space to experience the big moments.

MA: It’s not easy. The biggest thing I thought about when we started the blog was treating it like my personal journal; my posts are much more for me and Taylor than for anyone else. Obviously, I have to be cognizant of the fact that everything I write will be in the public domain as soon as I publish it, so I have to self-edit at times. But I want to be true to myself while still appealing to our readers.

When we’re out and about, there are times I think, “I definitely need to include this in my next post,” but then I often forget to include it. At this moment, I’m remembering that I intended to include a story in a recent post about the bats at a campsite in Montana, but I forgot. It comes down to the fact that I know it’s important to document this once-in-a-lifetime adventure, so I make the time for it and capture whatever’s on my mind in those moments. That way, the blog isn’t hovering over me the whole time as a kind of job. After all, I’m trying to enjoy not having a job!

ts: What is your absolute favorite aha! moment you’ve had about life or people since you started traveling?

TB: We’ve realized the importance of our friends, family, and broader social networks. I didn’t anticipate how much I would miss those connections, whether it was a girls’ night out or grabbing coffee with a coworker. With devices, we have the world at our fingertips, but it’s really the in-person social connections that are the most important.

MA: When you’re swept up in the professional grind, you don’t get nearly enough time to truly unplug and think deeply about the meaning of life and the role of other humans in our lives. Maybe the most profound insights are the simplest, but the most important realizations I’ve had relate to just how precious and beautiful life is and the importance of community in shaping our life experience. We all need to find more balance between spending time in nature, observing plants and animals in their element, and spending time in our human communities. If we do better at the former, I think we’ll contribute more meaningfully to the latter.

ts: Now that you’ve been on the road for a while, what is the biggest myth people hold about the van lifestyle vs. the day-to-day reality?

TB: If you look at “vanlife” or “van life”on social media, you get the impression that every day you wake up, look out the window to a gorgeous vista, and step outside in perfect weather (and women are always wearing a big hat and a flowy dress). A few truths: When we camp in the van, we’re often at wooded locations in forests, looking out to tents, vans, and RVs. We have to contend with less-than-ideal conditions: rain, cold temps, bugs. You can’t escape the mundane tasks of “normal” life in the van, such as cooking and cleaning, staying organized, budgeting and financial planning, going through emails, etc.

MA: I’m not sure how effectively this comes through in our blog, but we try to be honest about this lifestyle and the fact that it’s far from glamorous. Previously, I mentioned the important balance between nature and community, and I think we’re a little out of balance. This lifestyle is a bit isolating. I miss my social and professional communities. We try to keep in touch, but it’s not the same as regularly seeing people you care for in the flesh.

Generally speaking, it’s also not the most comfortable lifestyle. We live in a 72-square-foot converted cargo van. As I answer this question, Taylor and I are cooped up in our van because it’s raining, and we have nowhere else we can be. It’s just not a comfortable place to relax, read a book, watch a movie, draft a blog post, etc. It’s cramped, and it’s stuffy. And it’s often quite cold at night when we’re trying to sleep. It was 46 degrees in the van when we woke up on a recent morning (we can run a heater, but we try not to unless absolutely necessary to save power for other things). Also, using campground restrooms and showers gets old after a while.

On the other side of the coin, when it stops raining, we’ll be walking around Yellowstone National Park shooting photos of bison, sulfur cauldrons, and mud volcanoes (yes, sulfur cauldrons and mud volcanoes). The positives outweigh the negatives for sure, but we don’t want people to think it’s something it’s not. 

ts: Every person we interview answers this same question last – Mile 18 is generally considered to be one of the hardest miles in a marathon. You’re hitting a wall. You’re forced to dig deep. What’s mile 18 in your line of work, or at a point in your career, and what do you tell yourself when you find yourself in the middle of a mile 18?

TB: Mile 18 is a good analogy for the point when we decided to take a brief step back from our corporate careers. Looking back, I realize it took a lot of courage and a huge leap of faith. At mile 18, I think you should take stock, listen to yourself, and adjust if needed.

MA: In terms of my professional career, I think I’ve hit mile 18 multiple times. And honestly, I don’t think I’ve ever reached mile 19 – never mind pushed on to 26.2. When I hit a wall that involves that level of pain, I typically stop, make sure I feel like I’m running the race I want to run, and if not, I find another race more aligned to my needs. 

I certainly don’t mean that I don’t pursue and enjoy challenging roles. I like hitting certain kinds of walls and trying to figure out how to get over them, but that mile 18 kind of wall just isn’t my thing. This precious life is too short to be in that much pain. I also acknowledge the subjectivity of the question. Some people run 10ks, some run marathons, and some run 100-milers. I think I like running a lot of really strong 10ks.