What my dog's given up for full-time van life

And what we’ve gained in its place. Does it feel like loss—or making room for something better?

“A dog like that is too high energy for a small space.” “It’s cruel to keep an animal in a van.” “Dogs need yards.” “[Insert other skeptical comment here.]”

Living in a van with a sensitive dog isn’t simple. We all made sacrifices when we hit the road in January 2023—Scout included. While my partner and I discussed our plans for months, daydreamed for years before that, and knew exactly what nomadic life would entail (on paper, anyway) our heeler came along for the literal ride. Sure, we slowly acclimated her to our rig. We spent hours parked in our old house’s driveway. We eased into this new home like every previous stationary apartment. But eventually we backed out one final time, confining her in the travel crate beneath the bed, and she didn’t get any say in the matter.

Scout’s given up some of her favorite enrichment toys because they proved too difficult to clean without access to unlimited hot water. Sometimes we can’t find her regular food brand and she has to adjust last-minute when the nearest specialty store is more than 100 miles away. It’s harder to fill her epilepsy prescription given phenobarbital is a controlled substance and we always pick it up from a different location (dear pharmacy technicians: I promise I am not sketchy—just a nomad!) which results in necessary detours of extra hours or even days sitting in urban parking lots.

We’ve given up privacy. Step outside our front door and we’re in public, full stop, unless parked truly in the backcountry. (Even then the land isn’t “ours”—and fellow campers have been known to appear out of nowhere with their own dogs.) Well-meaning strangers sometimes walk right over and ask for a tour. Window covers and white noise can’t fully mask the chaos that is parking on Manhattan’s Upper West Side or a downtown Madison street. Scout used to have a consistent, familiar backyard in which to sunbathe—a sanctuary carved out of the busy world just for her—and now might get nothing more than a corner of NYC sidewalk and a plea, in my most hopeful voice, to please use the bathroom so we can get inside and lock the doors and go to sleep. It’s harder to play in the living room on rainy days. We no longer set up indoor food searches. She has fewer toys with less variety. She hasn’t had a proper bath in almost two years.

Physical space, of course, is what we’ve given up the most. Scout once had her own room in our house. Today? Her travel crate is small because that’s what will keep her safe in a crash—but accident potential isn’t on her mind when she wonders why she can no longer sprawl on her side for a nap. She can’t lie underfoot in the kitchen without almost-certain odds of being stepped on or stumbled over. Her choice of sleeping spots, once nearly limitless, now comes down to three: Our bed, her crate, or a front cab chair.

So yes. Our cattle dog has given up many things she used to love.

She’s also given up things that held us back.

When we moved into our yellow van, we lost some comfort—but in the process bade farewell to monotony. We traded the same ol’ walking route at a nearby park for fresh smells across the country. We gave up long hours apart while my partner and I worked traditional office jobs to spend nearly all day every day together. We’ve forgone artificial training setups (and admittedly stressful group classes) in favor of real-world experiences.

We gave up a fenced yard for the freedom to call remote corners of the continent home. Scout no longer sunbathes on the same worn deck boards—instead she flops on Newfoundland’s drizzly coast, basks in Utah’s red sands, frolics through Wisconsin’s northwoods. Less indoor space means we breathe more fresh air. We’re tougher than ever about wind and rain and temperature changes. We gave up being “clean” in the nitpicky sense I once held dear—and it opened us up to greater joy.

Scout no longer has a whole house to wander. But she always has her home within reach.

Of course, many of these things aren’t direct trade offs so much as different versions of the same experience. We had weird neighbors in Florida; now sometimes strangers peer through our windows in a grocery store parking lot. We had maintenance workers barge into our old house; today we have to get our oil changed, sometimes our water pump breaks, maybe we’re forced into a hotel for a night or two.

But the things we’ve truly given up—the ones we can no longer access, can’t recoup without shifting our lifestyle back the other direction—were easy to let go. We said farewell comfort, hello variety. Goodbye stability, greetings quality time.

Years ago I learned about opportunity cost in my intro economics course, and it’s never been more top of mind since hitting the road. Some things just aren’t feasible when your house is less than 70 square feet and fitted to drive down a highway—but the question is if we miss those things. Does it feel like loss? Or making room for something better?

Day in and day out my dog tells me it’s the latter.