Van Life

After two years of 16-hour days at the centre of the frantic global Covid-19 response, I took a new home-based job to combine travel and earning. Obviously, this isn’t so easy if you are a maker of things or you must interact in human form, but if your work is communing with a computer all day and your boss is amenable, it is worth considering rigging up a van with a portable WIFI system to become a digital nomad. And, seeing sunrises with a coffee on the dock of the bay in Sardinia is a way more invigorating start than a commute to the office.

Driving across a bridge, several peninsulas east of Tromso in Norway, I stopped to watch some fishers nicely positioned on a 500-metre piece of tumbling river between a lake and a fjord. They invited me to join. ‘Any secrets?’ I asked hopefully. ‘Haill’ said Trond. He explained, ‘It’s a word we only use in the north of Norway — it means the quality of the fish you get is correlated with the amount of sex you have.’

I briefly considered taking my husband up to the van. He doesn’t fish, but is always willing to do what it takes to support my efforts. It seemed like a no regrets measure, but the tide meant the river was close to premium. Too many variables were lining up. Choices had to be made. I returned to the water. Five hours later nagging doubt. I was using the right fly and in the right spot. But maybe there was one more variable I should have allowed for.

‘We call him the Professor,’ Thomas whispered as a newcomer appeared. ‘This is the third night of the season, and he caught a salmon on the first night with his first cast. He caught one on the second night too.’ He added, ‘It probably would be more by now but our rules are one salmon and stop.’

I watched as the Professor tied on the same fly we had all been using and went to the same spot. After his third cast he calmly grappled with and pulled in a 4 kg salmon. During the runs, Trond, a doctor, mused, ‘If you had a monitor on him, it would show resting pulse.’ Having confirmed his folk hero status, the Professor quietly melted away. ‘What would that bite have felt like?’ I asked. ‘Da Dong,’ replied Thomas. With the Netflix opener in my head, I went back in.

‘We fish as long as there is hope,’ said Trond, and we fished til nearly dawn, but there was no other action. I was pretty tired, but luckily a nearby van means it is easy to have a short nap close by the water, maximising fishing time with a 24 hour permit.

Around 10 a.m. I had a ferocious grab on the line, frantic headshake and set of runs, and pulled in a beautiful arctic char. Another great thing about a van is that cooking by the river means the freshest of fish meals. Later in the day an ice cream van inexplicably pulled up. I bought extra. The van has a freezer too.

You can pimp your ride. I sewed North Queensland inspired seat covers and netted the back, the latter handy for lake environments in summer. Near Sirkka in Finland, a woman told me the mosquitoes of early June were nothing. ‘Wait til after midsummer, you can’t open your mouth without them flying in.’ We had found a spot using a free van app with crowd sourced info, called Park4night. Using this with some googling, illustrates another big plus — it is relatively easy to find spots and sleep by the water.

If signs or reviews frown on free camping, councils increasingly see an economic advantage to offering carparks, marina areas or dedicated motorhome sites for minimal charge. Farms offer space too and sell their produce. Some restaurants allow you to sleep in their car parks after a meal.

There are plenty of service areas to empty grey and black water and fill up with fresh. We contribute by sticking to local rules and shop, buy fuel or use local businesses. In combination with weather, river and surf apps, you can maximise the potential for finding a real work-life balance.

I would recommend getting a short van — ours at 5.4 metres long means a normal parking space is enough. I’ve seen those with monsters really struggle to find a place to stop or deal with narrow roads and passing cars. And be kind to the locals. If in doubt, ask first. Some of them are weary of long stay campers or those that leave rubbish or make noise, or spread their awning out treating free spots like campgrounds.

Some folk make stealth vans. These look like work vehicles on the outside, but are kitted up for living on the inside, allowing them to stop in places with questionable permission. Others go for a 4×4 version as the ultimate explorer.

A van is something of an animal hide too. One morning we watched large reindeer circle us. It convinced me to find a local guide and stick around. Well, that and seeing this quote: A big grayling is a shy fish and therefore a cunning adversary. In the words of a famous Lappish angler, ‘Anyone can catch a salmon, but a one-kilo grayling, now that takes real skill.

Mikko, my guide of delightful laugh and long stride, told me he was immune to mosquitoes but advised me to wear a gauzed hat against ‘the little buggies’. Deep in a pine forest on the Aakenusjoki river he pulled up. ‘We stop here, then we walk one kilometre to the magic place.’ I thought that sounded pretty good. He continued, ‘Then we go here and fish downstream to the other magic place.’

Along the track he described the moose, reindeer, eagles and bears that lived there. Indeed, I had a wonderful day grayling fishing using a half Spey cast and his method of ‘annoying the fish by skipping the fly across the mirrors in the water.’ At the outset he managed expectations: ‘I never feel sad if I have a day without fish, because I have always learned something. With fly fishing you are always learning the nature and technique.’

Actually, it wasn’t a day without fish and while the grayling and trout I caught were under a kilo, it was indeed a magic time on a beautiful river. At the end he brewed coffee, handed over a hunk of chocolate and marked places on a map to try next. Because I had the van, I could follow his advice. And now with online permit shopping, it gets even easier to head to new spots and not have to worry where to get a permit out of hours.

It is lovely to finally leverage the offers of spots from a network of friends made over the years. Going to one region I sent a text to a fellow FlyLife writer. He responded instantly with a google map pin. ‘Go here,’ he wrote, ‘and shh. Don’t tell anyone.’ I went there. And caught fish. He gave me another spot by a river where the salmon run in July, and returned a photo of the flies I had taken, marked up with his advice.

I met Alan who has guided a beat for 20 years. His eyes widened at my gear. ‘Not heavy enough?’ I asked. He shook his head. ‘These fish can strike at 80 ks an hour.’ He reappeared a few hours later offering me a switch rod. The technique was far less effort and was a big help in fishing for 18 of my 24 hour permit, but I wasn’t successful. I must have seen 30 salmon leap around me. ‘They are mocking you,’ Alan said gently. He holds an ocean trout record. They seem to like him, because soon he handed his rod over to me to haul one in. We cooked it over coals in a place of such immense beauty I now think about it all the time and it haunts my dreams.

Getting more far flung is getting more and more easy. It is useful to put on a solar roof or buy a solar blanket and install an inverter. This means you can charge cameras, computers, phones, run a fridge, fan and be off grid pretty much permanently.

Having a van means I can carry equipment to help me extend my range. A folding Brompton bicycle means I can follow forest or farm tracks or cycle along the side of a long beat in places cars aren’t allowed.

Sulfried, a Sami woman, invited me to fish her ‘favourite place in the world’, at a place she called summer-home-lake. After 100 km bumping through isolated tundra, the road stopped at a cliff face. Having an inflatable canoe meant I could paddle along the coast until the river mouth, then walk upstream to a place which looked closer to Eden than anything I’ve ever seen. After such a day, this digital nomad laid down and logged out.

Once a quick stop for a morning brew led to us talking with the retired horse and pony driver at the next table. He stubbed a gnarled thumb on our map, describing places in such an intoxicating way that we stayed in the region for nearly a week.

I swam with trout in an out-of-the-way gorge, stayed by a 500-year-old millpond watching snapping rises to mayflies, and walked through forest on an upland track to a beautiful mountain lake with a blue indistinguishable from the sky on the horizon.

Another tip took me over frost shattered rocks to a partly iced arctic lake, with an upturned boat the only sign of humanity. As we were hiking out the owner appeared. He crouched, lighting a durry, telling us stories of his previous seasons. He offered use of the boat if we came back tomorrow.

Sometimes the local directions are quite wonderful. ‘Go between the sauna and cabin 13,’ said a fellow at Ifjord, pointing to a lovely little run of clear water bubbling over brightly coloured stones. Town tourist offices can tell you where the ‘tolerated sites’ are and their websites can also be fun. One pointed out ‘you are not allowed to use poisons, explosives, firearms (except to catch pike).’

In a car ferry queue, I learned that every two years on the island of Soroya there is a massive run of Pacific salmon. ‘We pull thousands out. We don’t want them here, so we want people to come and help us catch them.’ (Readers, you’re welcome. You might see me there too).

On the island I climbed to an exceptional view over the sea. In cascading lakes perched like infinity pools, I found some lovely trout. In the morning I swam, Phil went off on his canoe and I settled in by 8 a.m. for another day at the office. At lunch time I had another quick dip, then worked til close, then fished again.

You don’t need to pack light when you have a van. There is always room for the binoculars, the extra fishing gear, hiking boots and wading boots, warm clothes, light clothes, a spare hat and as many maps as you like. Speaking of clothes, given I’m either inside in the dinette or outside on the camping table these days, I only need a few decent looking work shirts for the office wardrobe. Who needs to switch on a zoom background when the sea really is behind you? More than one person has been startled to realise the waves are actually moving.

Having the sort of views others have as screensavers is a great way to defrag the mind, but can you do decent work? I have written a UN Security Council briefing and amended resolutions, hosted international meetings of hundreds of participants, managed teams, contributed to complex reports and met every deadline.

Employers are realising they can save on office space, and head-hunters and human resources staff now say the biggest request is for flexible work locations. There are those who make a living from blogging, videoing or instagramming their trip — they are more dedicated to the digital dark arts than I am. In any case, keep an eye on administration. Some countries want a tax relationship if you work for more than 90 or 120 days within their borders.

In a recent meeting, the person at the other end could see I was in a van. ‘Oh, you work remotely?’ she said. Thirty minutes later I closed the computer, picked over some flies and picked up the rod. In front of me were some granite boulders hovering over a lovely drop off. I took a breath and settled my eyes on a horizon of purpling water under a rocket red sunset and started to cast. A seagull cawed. The fly touched the water then languidly curled down. I thought of my colleague in a glass tower surrounded by other glass towers. There was a tug.

‘Remote,’ I thought and laughed. ‘Not in the slightest.’