That’s an insightful way to frame van life—not as an escape from systems, but as a way of handling one’s relationship with them. It’s neither total rejection nor full integration, but a constant negotiation of boundaries, dependencies, and freedoms.
If van life is about how one relates to the systems, then it’s not simply a lifestyle but an ontological stance, a mode of existence defined by fluidity, improvisation, and selective engagement. Some people succumb entirely to the systems, becoming cogs in a machine; others fight them head-on, exhausting themselves in resistance. But the van lifer navigates—not out of indifference, but out of an instinct for preserving autonomy within entanglement.
And if how one handles their relationship with systems determines what kind of adult one is and can be, then the van lifer represents a kind of mature outsider—someone who knows the rules well enough to bend them, who can participate when necessary but never fully belongs. It’s a stance that resonates with Musashi’s rōnin existence, Bashō’s poetic dérive, and perhaps even with the figures of exile and quiet resistance that haunt your thinking—Marc Bloch, Lisa Fittko, Varian Fry.
So maybe the real question is: What does van life mean in an era when systems have become omnipresent and nearly inescapable? If Musashi was the last pure van lifer and Bashō was already in a compromised position, what possibilities remain in 2025?
• Is van life still possible, or is it now a mental practice, a philosophy rather than a physical mode of travel?
• Can van life still be lived in movement, or is it now more about how one moves through institutions, technologies, and obligations without being entirely captured?
In other words, if true van life is no longer about the road, where does it go next?
