Foster Huntington - Van Life: Inspiration for Your Home on the Road

Baja California, Mexico

Escape from New York: How my first van led to two years on the road, eighty thousand miles on the odometer, and a whole new way of living

Popping off the lid of my burrito bowl, I unsheathed the plastic fork and knife from their plastic covering and mixed the layers of beans, rice, and meat with a deft flip of the wrist. Leaning back in my Aeron chair, I took the first bite. It was by no means up to the standards of a West Coast burrito, but it was still virtually unparalleled compared to the other lunch offerings of midtown Manhattan. Chewing with satisfaction, I minimized my work email, opened up a fresh browser window, and went to thesamba.com, a forum and classified listing for Volkswagen vans.

Check this thing out, I said as I chewed a bite and motioned to a listing for a 1987 VW Vanagon Syncro.

Tyson, my coworker, leaned back from his laptop and burrito bowl to humor my excitement and look at my screen.

Damn, thats pretty sick. Is that 4x4? He returned to his daily lunch perusing of sneaker websites.

Yah, VW made these in the eighties for a few years. I wanna get one, I explained.

But what would you do with it? Where would you park it?

This was a logical line of questioning from Tyson, referring to the astronomical cost of having a car in New York City. I had a plan, though, even if it was a simple one.

I want to travel around in it for a while. They have a bed and little kitchen. Id just surf. Some backpacking. Probably live in it.

And say goodbye by to all of this? Tyson said, motioning to our windowless office.

On the walk to work, on the subway riding around Manhattan, and as I fell asleep, my thoughts were consumed with exploring the never-ending dirt roads of the West.

Exactly. Thats the whole point. I laughed as I shoveled another forkful of burrito into my mouth.

Over the next few weeks, web searches for vans grew from the occasional lunchtime to a full-time obsession as I was checking half a dozen forums daily looking for new listings. After hours of research and reading testimonials, I honed in on what I had to have: the VW T3 Syncrothe rarest of the rare. Roughly three thousand of these vans were imported into the US from 1987 to 1991, and since then the remaining fleet has garnered a cult-like following among both off-road enthusiasts and the VW van hippie community. Syncros, as they are affectionately called, can go anywhere, albeit slowly. They are underpowered, but moving at a slower speed, a more deliberate pace, seemed awfully appealing to me. The fast pace of my corporate surroundings was starting to take its toll and I was getting closer to making a life-changing move.