Updated June 16, 2017 15:59:05

A highway with no-one on it. Balmy nights and a glassy sunrise swell. Bikinis, a vintage kombi, young love and freedom.

That's the "Van Life" movement, a bohemian revival of living in a van, now being showcased by 20- and 30-somethings on social media under the hashtag "#vanlife".

While its beginnings lie in the high cost of housing or employment itinerancy, it's now become so popular and stylized in the US that "Van Lifers" are using social media to market their carefree lifestyle to people like you and me who are hungry to live vicariously through them.

It's given rise to a surprising kind of existential crisis: is it freedom or just a paid-for, Instagrammed version of freedom? And does the reality of freedom outweigh the limitations?

I met with "van lifers" at a gathering of these normally solitary road folk in northern NSW to find out.

One of brains behind the community in Australia is Jonny Dustow from the website "Van Life Diaries".

The schoolteacher/musician/marketing entrepreneur has been living out of his van for the past six years on and off.

"You've always had the grey nomads and you've had the hippies in the '60s and '70s," Mr Dustow said.

"But there's been a change where uni students [and] young professionals are getting on the roads and spending more time in vans exploring."

The pull of Instagram images reflecting the lifestyle are what has spurned the revival and he's hoping to use it to expand the movement as a self-sustaining lifestyle brand.

"From my marketing standpoint, because I studied that and work in that, I was like, 'oh this is awesome, I can help you guys get more work through that'," he said.

"I know girls that get paid $500 to just take a pictures of them in their bikini and I've seen that coming into the van life community now."

So powerful is the draw of freedom as a brand that luxury goods, tourism regions and food brands are creeping into the market overseas as an opportunity to leverage van life's popularity for commercial purposes; an irony for a movement that largely rejects corporate, materialistic values.

A sign of the growing sophistication of the movement is the weekend's ticketed event, replete with an ATM, two stalls and a sponsor display.

"We are really picky with our brands that we work with." Mr Dustow said.

"I mean any lifestyle could be marketed if there's products we're all consumers."

But not all van lifers see it that way.

Cristal Cachia, 36, recently gave up her corporate life in Melbourne, bought a van and hit the road solo with her dog, Henry.

She sees the commercial influence in van life, together with the fact that photos with strategically placed girls in them seem to get more likes, as "a big pile of garbage".

"If you look at most of the Instagram photos of girls in bikinis who are perfectly tanned with their perfectly lumberjack-looking partners, hitting the road with amazing landscapes how real is it?" she asked.

"It's all there for sponsorship.

"If you have a look they are usually hashtagging the packet of chips they're eating or the brand of clothing that they've been given. It's not just real.

"The reality of it is you've got to stop for petrol, you are going to hit some in-between towns, you are going to stay in some fairly unspectacular places.

"You're not going to shower every day, you are not going to look like that.

"I don't know how those girls look like that.

"They may look like that but they may not smell like that."

Ms Cachia says she has to battle the impression that she has no better work or housing options and that van life is her choice.

"When I tell people I don't work that much, they usually look at me and maybe they get jealous, or they don't understand," she said.

"They kind of think, 'why the f*** should you get to not work really hard like I do' not knowing that I worked really hard to pay off my house.

"I just don't get this Australian need to work really hard to be a good human, it just doesn't make any sense to me."

It's not all sunsets and romance all of the time, according to Jared Melrose and Ash, who've been living van life as a couple for nearly two years.

"The reality of van life is it's tricky. It's not a, 'get in the car and your life will change'," Mr Melrose said.

The tradesman/musician hopes to sustain the lifestyle by offering van fit-out "consultations" for the "groundswell" of newbie van lifers.

His partner Ash says bad weather and a lack of personal space can put pressures on a relationship that are not shown on Instagram.

"We're kind of 'this' far away from each other for substantial amount of time," she said, holding her fingers an inch apart.

"So when we need space Jared kind of sits on the chest, and the other day I lay down and listened to this meditation CD and we were kind of like a bit cranky with each other.

"You can't shut a door!"

Families are also making a go of van life, like Jay, Trip, their home-schooled children Hunter and Ace, and rottweiler Gypsy, who live in a designer yellow Bedford school bus called "Margie".

"We've got enough space for everything and our whole mentality was to keep it simple," Trip said.

"Clear home, clear head.

"The kids are never bored, the kids are always outside, they are always learning."

Jay said: "As for the lifestyle, I think it's much easier than we imagined because we can go wherever we want, whenever we want. So it works for us.

"We don't have Facebook, our Facebook is the ceiling, there's photos of where we have been weddings, birthday, babies."

Trip said: "I don't think a lot of people are awake enough."

While the downsides of van life, such as tedious roads, mechanical troubles and the anxiety of where to sleep tonight are as present on social media as any of the downsides of our own housebound lives, even van life's Australian evangelist, Mr Dustow, admits that it's not all sunshine and rainbows.

Like the fact that he recently crashed his home into a pole.

"Now I'm vanless, and it does mean I'm homeless at the moment," he laughed.

"It definitely doesn't suit everyone, [just] like the pictures definitely suit everyone.

"It's that feeling of that lifestyle is better than my lifestyle when that's not the truth and the grass is not always greener."

Topics: community-and-society, australia

First posted June 16, 2017 14:31:47

Read the rest here:

Freedom or freedom porn? The reality of Instagram's #vanlife - ABC Online