Mike Brown quit his job, outfitted his van for adventure, and discovered freedom and the power of simplicity in the Pacific Northwest – Seattle Times

WHEN YOU MAKE the decision to live in a van and travel the country alone, problems are to be expected: engine trouble, financial strain, maybe even bear attacks. However, the lastthing I expected was a case of mistaken identity.

But thats exactly how my adventure kicked off. Knowing Washington was Number One on my to-go list from my home in Houston, I considered driving straight there. But it felt like a direct trip would miss out on too much in between. So I mapped out stops in Wyoming, Minnesota, South Dakota and a couple destinations in Canada, all before dropping down into Washington.

The Backstory:While living in a van built for adventure, I had a life-changing epiphany

As I crossed the border from Canada, the good andfaithful U.S. Border Patrol was adamant that there was a felony warrant out for my arrest inTexas. Their six assault rifles corroborated and confirmed their adamance.Fivehours and one ransacked van later, I was released. I didnt even get a Welcome toAmerica, let alone an apology for the mix-up. Honestly, the most terrifying part was thenumber of hands that had rummaged through my underwear.

That was my introduction to the Pacific Northwest. I almost drove straight throughback to the South, stopping in Seattle only for coffee. But I just didnt have it in me to skiphiking to another glacier; or miss seeing the Northern Lights rumored to bevisible that far north; or worse, waste gas money on simply driving rather thanadventuring.

Life has a way of revealing truth through experiences. I came to that realizationsomewhere between buying an empty cargo van, building it into a house, quitting myjob and getting lost on several backcountryAmerican roads. These experiences showedme that Id never get new results with the same calculations. I had to venture into the unknown and expand my palate, despite a few bad tastes.

I suppose its somewhat implied that major shifts in any part of life can result in a newperspective. But for those of you who have never created such transitions in your life, letme tell you: The world out there isvastly different from the one you know.

Born and raised in Houston, I knew only city life. The way I grew up likely would provoke frustration in some of yall. No joke: Just two years ago, my perception ofnational parks was that they were no different from the nicer parks you found in richneighborhoods. I wasnt introduced to the outdoors. I didnt give special notice tosunrises or sunsets, and I never had the desire to hike.

Isnt hiking just walking, but in the forest? said outdoor-uninitiated me.

Being a product of your environment is a real thing; believe me. This made mylife on the road a blind jump. By myself.

During the preparation phase for this jump, I was working a government job in Houston, creating videos and television content. From the outside, I was working with my passion, but my internal desire was for more. I wanted something substantial out of life that didnt consist of just making as much money as possible. I needed my interactions with people to stretch beyond taking a break from work or trying to make connections to further my career. In short, I felt life had a better way of being lived, one that didnt revolve around a career.

What I wanted was the one thing coveted by a range of cultures, communities and household incomes: freedom.

THE WHOLE TIME I was preparing toquit my job and convertthe van, I wondered what all my family and friends were going tothink. I mean, my cousins and I never watched orcas tread water in the ocean; none ofmy friends was trying to backpack through the Pacific Crest Trail; and, to us, if you livedin a van, then, my brother, you were homeless.

But once again, reality superseded perception. My family and friends reaction to my decision was one of love and even envy. They not only empathized with this move but could see themselves doing it, in a perfect world a world where the logistics of where to park/sleep, how to poop and shower, and what to do for money were irrelevant questions.

The reality is: We never will have a perfect world, and we always will have to find somewhere to wash our behinds.

I decided early in my vanlife-planning process that I was going to prepare as much as I could and learn the rest on the road. Additionally, I had saved enough money to where, if I couldnt find the frequency of video-production freelance work I wanted, I wouldnt have to transition into panhandle mode.

So with that mentality and practice, the logistical part of vanlife came somewhat easily. I already had outfitted my van with a fridge, solar power, a bed, dressers, running water and a compostable toilet. I built it out myself, which took close to six months, working after work in the evenings and on weekends.

The key to vanlife is the same as any other endeavor: You just have to pull the trigger and execute.

From research into others whod done this before me, I had a plan to shower and work out at gyms wherever I was. When that wasnt an option (more often than not), I simply exercised in the open outdoors. Then I showered right there: I would pop open my collapsible shower-tent at the rear of the van, pull out the showerhead connected to the electric pump/water tank combo and get clean (everything was biodegradable).

Hygiene was the biggest vanlife problem. The next biggie was: Where would I sleep? National parks were easy, as there are plenty of campgrounds, and theyre cheap. The real issue I had was the in-between, going from city to city and state to state.

Early in my trip, I was in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, and I had found a prime parking location: near downtown, with no restrictions or time limits, and close to all the areas I wanted to visit. The problem was, someone didnt like it. They called the cops, and I had to leave. The police said it didnt look good.

Lesson learned: It wasnt enough to find a good parking place. I had to be invisible. Thats how the world is, baby. So for overnight or longer-term parking, I started uses places that were a little less conspicuous, like hotel/motel parking lots, truck stops, Wal-Mart or Home Depot.

This came in handy when I reached Washington, where I knew Id be spending more of my time. On my first run through the state, I logged a significant amount of time in Seattle and in the North Cascades, Mount Rainier and Olympic national parks. Not very many destinations in the grand scheme of things, but the nature of my exploration, brought to you by vanlife, allowed me to stay at least one week in each of those spots.

As I look back at my vanlife adventure, it blows my mind that Ive adventured more during the first year of my 30s than almost all 29 years before. Before, I had reached a point in my existence where I had robbed myself of the peace I had had as a bigheaded kid running around outside, carefree.

Vanlife helped get me back out. Not just outdoors, but on the outs of society: outside the typical job, housing, salary, perceptions and aspirations. I found new passions as an outdoorsman, adventure photographer and vanlifer, and as an agent of visibility for those with societal blinders. Social media, you are useful after all.

AFTER THE CANADA/U.S.A. border humiliation, my nextstop was in northernWashington, at North Cascades National Park. Here, theres a little pullout to anoverlook of Diablo Lake, a place with water so vivid, it inspired my poetic coining of itscolor as a bright, Kool-Aid blue. This proper reintroduction to the Pacific Northwesthooked andinspired me to discover more of the area.

I think the greatest tug at the old heartstrings came from seeing and photographing theMilky Way for the first time, on Rialto Beach onthe OlympicPeninsula. I had spent theday there, hoping for the lingering fog to break so I could witness the hugehorizon that had been left to my imagination, via Google, until then.

Instead of waiting on the fog, I hiked a few miles down the beach until I reached ahuge cliff that separated the coastline right down the middle. Inevitably, the better viewwas on the other side. At this point, sunset started to fall, and so did the fog.The vista I was hoping for had shown up, and now I had to make a decision: Keeppushing forward and hike back in the dark, high tide and all, or go back to the van andhope for clear skies the next day. Mother Nature had proved herself untrustworthybefore, so I pushed on.

Without swimming out far enough past the cliff to incite this novice ocean swimmers anxiety, the only way to the other side wasthrough. There is a reasonably sized opening in the wall to hike through, normally requiring wading through maybe 12 inches of water. But of course, today, the tides were too high, closing off the only easy way in. This meant scaling the cliff about10 feet and traversing the opening on a small 4-inch ledge.

I decided to wear moccasins that day, thinking water and sand equated to a less-strenuous time outdoors. The huge, rocky cliff I now had to climb spoke to me and said, Nah.Illspare you all thedetails of slipping off this little ledge into the ocean and justbarely saving my camera/tripod combo by holstering them above my head, looking likea fake Navy SEAL with a rifle. Just know that I had to put in some work.

I shot all the compositions of the Milky Way over the Pacific that I could find. I mustvestayed out there until at least 3 a.m., with another photographer from Belgium who also was shooting, just as miserably and excitedly as I was.

That set of pictures, and the adventure attached to them, inspired me to makephotography my new passion. This heightened my desire to explore even more; moreadventures meant more ambitious pictures. I came back to Rialto Beach three more timesbefore leaving the Olympics.

AFTERWARD, I WENT to Seattle to restock at Costco and figure out a game plan formaximizing my exploration in the Northwest. Living my entire life in a city led me to think I knew all major cities and what they had to offer, which was mostly true. But afterrealizing that all my internet searches for the best hikes in Washington resulted inseveral outdoor destinations only 30 to 90 minutes outside the city, I started to realizethis place was different.

Not to mention, almost everyone I met here was born and raised someplace else.Now, that easily could be attributed to the global phenomenon that is Free 2-dayshipping for Prime Members, but I wont give them all the credit. This place ismagnetic for the outdoor culture, the mountains behind the skyline and the proximity tovariety: sea, mountains and coffee (thatll be my last Seattle/coffee reference).

I ventured beyond Seattle to the Hoh Rainforest, Whidbey Island, Deception Pass and Rattlesnake Ledge, and eventually came to my favorite destination of all: Mount Rainier.Among Glacier National Park in Montana, Yosemite in California, Valley of Fire inNevada, Custer in South Dakota and Big Bend in Texas, Rainier always stood out to me. AsI traveled on from Washington, Rainier was always the place I compared othermountains, hikes and pictures to. Thats saying something.

LIVING ON THE ROAD and traveling thousands of miles creates so many experiences thatits hard to know when to call it quits versus reaching for more, because there always will be more. My constant pervading thought was that I was developing an entirelynew view of the world around me, and so I needed more of it. I was traveling into alifemetamorphosis and started to consider that it was because of the experiencesthemselves.

This, however, was simply not true. It was the opportunity, not the experience, that ledto realizing my freedom.The main lesson I learned from being on the road was the power in simplicity, in both a mental and physical sense. I soon foresaw myself chasing that next high of a betterexperience, rather than appreciating my newfound strength of being content with less,with keeping to the necessities.

The truth was, I loved the fact the Pacific Northwest had much left to explore as I ventured into other terrain. All of that potentialwas enough for me to sit down and recognize what I had created for myself: the ability toopt out of what wasnt adding to my freedom.

So, at the end of spring, I ended (or paused?) my countrywide vanlife expedition and found a parking space/home in Seattle. Well several parking spaces, since vanlife in Seattle means moving every three days or getting towed. Ill be getting an apartment soon, though, after enough of you buy prints of my photography.

I couldve settled down in any other city, even back in my hometown. But this whole adventure was about re-envisioning how to do life. And there was no better way to start than in the place that kept tugging at my passions.

Now, I can drive an hour in either direction to kayak Lake Wenatchee, hike WallaceFalls, snowboard Snoqualmie or taste wine in Woodinville. Recently though, Im getting used to the Seattle gray and have been sleeping a lot, catching up on myrevolving schedule of hiking with the rising and setting sun.

Everything that makes life seemingly successful and important for most people the jobs,houses, cars, clothes, vacations are all fleeting and temporary. Eventually, we allcome back home and deal with the reality that is life. For all thereasons thataffect my mind, body and spirit, for me, that home is the Pacific Northwest.

Mike Brown is a native of Houston who says his home now is the Pacific Northwest. His website is nomadpixels.com.

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Mike Brown quit his job, outfitted his van for adventure, and discovered freedom and the power of simplicity in the Pacific Northwest - Seattle Times