In June 2024, I drove away from my home in St. Paul in a used Dodge Promaster camper van. In December 2025, I parked that same van in front of my new apartment in Minneapolis.
In the 17 months in between, I visited 25 states, drove 28,000 miles, and experienced just about every shade of joy, gratitude, uncertainty, and awe. Living mostly in a van has a way of clarifying things. This graying hippie came home with a few lessons that feel worth keeping close:
• Beauty is the only compelling reason to do anything.
• Spirit is astonishingly generous and has a clear bias for me. I just have to train my eyes.
• Freedom is a continual process, not an objective.
• Accepting whatever happens is helpful; embracing whatever happens is transformational.
• It’s possible to achieve escape velocity and break free from the gravity of conditioning and identities — but not from being human.
• The returns from self-development diminish over time. The returns from connecting with others increase.
One of those lessons — what I called Walkabout Lesson #2 — turns out to have a name. A.H. Almaas calls it Basic Trust: an unspoken confidence that reality is fundamentally good, that whatever happens will ultimately be OK, and that life is, at its core, on our side. Seventeen months on the road turned out to be a lived testimonial to that idea.
Since coming home, I’ve been living a quieter, more hermit-like life in a small basement apartment, integrating what the road offered and wondering what’s mine to do next. Maybe I’ll return to writing. Maybe I’ll buy a rocking chair. What has surprised me is how naturally this reflection has flowed into working with others — so I’ve gently launched myself as a coach, supporting people who are navigating transitions of their own and listening for what life is asking of them now.
Mostly, though, I’m just grateful. Grateful that I gave myself the gift of living a dream. Grateful for the trust that carried me across 28,000 miles. And curious to see what happens if I lean even further into the goodness of the universe.
What a ride.