Wide Open Road FREEDOM AND FACADE IN THE MEANING OF VANLIFE
Have you ever felt suffocated by your nine-to-five job? Have you dreamt of throwing in the towel and pursuing an entirely different lifestyle? This dream has become a reality for many of the participants featured in The Meaning of Vanlife (2019), a new film by director Jim Lounsbury. This documentary takes us on the road with a number of adventurous ‘Vanlifers’ who have given up material ties to bricks-and-mortar homes and traditional careers in favour of a nomadic life living in a van.
Lounsbury himself spent four months living in a van while making the documentary, working closely with members of Vanlife Diaries, a collective that promotes the lifestyle of van-based living across Instagram and other online platforms. Over the course of the film’s eighty-eight minutes, we meet several couples and singles as they move across Australia and the US to connect at ‘Vanlife’ gatherings. Their stories often overlap, with a rejection of consumerism, a search for freedom and a desire to build authentic community relationships often cited as key motivators for their lifestyle change.
The film opens with scenes of young American couple Kit Whistler and JR Switchgrass preparing their breakfast in a vintage orange van. She fries bacon while he grinds coffee, and they talk about the lack of rituals in their life. After seven years on the road, they have adapted to their small living space and sometimes leaky van, taking full advantage of the natural world as they
