Photo: Ben Gravy // YouTube
Sometimes living in a van isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. Many of us have probably daydreamed about casting off the bonds of a fixed residence, in favor of roaming the coast in a souped up Sprinter and sleeping next to the surf. However, it’s easy to forget about the very real practical difficulties of a home on wheels. In his latest YouTube video, Ben Gravy came up face to face against a few of those harsh realities.
The incident happened during a recent tour Gravy took of the Northern California coast. The YouTuber and his barebones crew were kitted up with a wheeled home away from home courtesy of sponsor Weekend Vans. In the top half of the video, the partnership immediately yielded a few gems, such as a visit to the California Redwoods and a laid-back surf session in a seemingly empty lineup.
“We had the absolute dreamiest morning,” described Gravy as he manned the wheel. “We just drove into the abyss, not knowing what to expect. We ended up just showing up at the beach and it was absolutely firing. It’s pretty fun to kind of just get in the van and not think about what you’re doing, just be like ‘Alright, let’s go here and see what happens.’”
However, the blissful journey briefly came crashing to a halt when Gravy and company learned the hard way what happens when your mobile home becomes suddenly immobilized. While searching for a nearby campground, the van became bogged down on a gravel road, requiring the team to call in for reinforcements to tow them out.
Gravy, for his part, took it as a sign that they had strayed too far from the surf for comfort. “I think that was the Redwood Forest way of saying ‘Get the fuck out of here,” he summarized. “From here, straight to the beach. We’re done with this.”
