We have a new van!

By Adam and Madi

Us with our new 2027 Winnebago Revel 44E.

Meet our 2027 Winnebago Revel 44E. We’re bringing VanLifeJourney back to share this next part of our story.

If you followed our earlier adventures, you may remember our 2019 Ford Transit. We started this site to tell our story of living full time in a van. It came to house photos, travel updates, and the everyday realities of living on the road that rarely fit into a scenic picture.

In 2021, our week along the Oregon coast included arriving at South Beach State Park without a reservation on Memorial Day weekend. A cancellation got us a campsite. We rode our bikes around Newport, walked to the beach for sunsets, and later spent time at Cape Lookout reading, hiking, and working around the rain.

There were also the less spacious moments. When our bikes didn’t fit under the bed in the Transit, they shared the living area with us and Acadia. We wrote about securing things with Velcro, keeping track of water, and making small changes so everyday life in the van would work. Sometimes an update was about a beautiful place. Sometimes it was about where to put the bikes.

Vanlife also led us to deliver a TEDx Talk, “Vanlife and the Art of Belonging: Creating Community on the Move,” where we shared what life on the road taught us about home, community, and belonging. Those reflections are part of this site, alongside the travel stories and what we’ve been up to since then.

And we’re back (in a slightly different way)! The Revel gives us a new part of that story to share. Owning a van looks different for us today as we both balance full-time jobs, teaching, and training for ultramarathons. We are just as excited as we were in 2020 to have you along for the ride. As we document this new chapter, we want to keep the same mix of photos, practical updates, and honest accounts of what we’re learning. The small details of owning a manufacturer-built van have a place here, just as they did in our earlier posts.

Another view of the Revel, with both of us beside the sliding door.

So this is an introduction to the new van and a hello again from both of us. Thanks for following along! Whether you remember the Transit stories or are finding us for the first time, welcome to our vanlife journey.