Tiny living, big life: our first months
What changes when your entire home fits into a van? More than we expected, and almost all for the better.
Gent, Oost-Vlaanderen
By Marie Devos · 4 June 2026
When we moved into our van, our lives suddenly fit into a few square meters. A bed, a small kitchen, some cabinets, a table that was never empty for long, and just enough space to pass each other without constantly bumping into things.
On paper, that sounded small. Perhaps even stifling. But strangely enough, in the first few days, it mainly felt like space was being added.
Not in the van itself, of course. There, we immediately had to learn to think about every movement. If one pair of shoes was in the wrong place, it was in the way. If the dishes were left, the whole kitchen looked messy. If we bought something, we first had to know where it would live. An extra jacket, a second pan, a book, even a pot of coffee: everything needed a fixed place, or it would become chaos.
But in our minds, it became calmer.
Before we left, we had an apartment in Ghent. Nice enough, conveniently located, everything close by. Yet we often felt like we were being lived. There was always something to do, something to buy, something to clean up, something that still needed to be arranged. We had cabinets full of stuff and at the same time felt like we were short on time.
In the van, that was no longer possible. Not in the same way. You can't hide clutter in a room you don't use. You can't keep collecting if you only have two cabinet doors. You can't pretend small irritations disappear, because you're literally right next to them.
That took some getting used to. The first few weeks weren't just romantic. We forgot where we'd put things. We brought too many clothes. We bought food as if we still had a large refrigerator. Sometimes we spent far too long looking for a place to stay for the night. And yes, there were evenings when rain on the roof sounded less cozy than we had initially thought.
But somewhere between that searching, adapting, and trying again, something began to change.
We learned to live slower. Not because we suddenly became wiser, but because the van forced us to. Refilling water takes time. Finding a good spot requires attention. Cooking with two burners demands simplicity. Stowing everything away before you leave is not a detail, but part of the day. Small actions gained rhythm.
In the morning, we slid open the door and first looked outside instead of at our phones. Sometimes we were at a forest edge, sometimes in a simple parking lot, sometimes just somewhere close to home. It didn't always have to be spectacular. A quiet morning with coffee and fresh air could be enough to start the day well.
We also noticed how little we actually missed. Not everything, of course. A long hot shower is still blissful. A washing machine in the house is convenient. And sometimes you just long for a couch where you can stretch out without having to move three things first.
But many things that used to seem important quietly faded into the background. We didn't need twenty plates. No closet full of shoes. No decoration for every season. No extra room for stuff we might use someday.
What remained became clearer. Good coffee. Dry clothes. A warm bed. A place where you can stand peacefully. Light in the morning. A walk nearby. Someone next to you who can laugh along when something doesn't go as planned again.
Tiny living didn't make our lives smaller. It made them more honest.
You feel faster what works and what doesn't. If you're tired, you notice it. If you have too much stuff, you see it. If you stay too long in a place that doesn't feel right, you become restless. And if you're somewhere where everything is just right, you feel that immediately too.
The most beautiful moments were often in ordinary things. Cooking together while the rain fell outside. Opening a window after a stuffy night. The first sun on the bed. An unexpected conversation with someone else who was also on the road. An evening where we did nothing but watch the light change.
After a few months, we started to look at freedom differently. In the beginning, we thought freedom mainly meant you could go anywhere. That's partly true. But along the way, we learned that freedom also lies in having to do less. Managing fewer things. Fewer fixed expectations. Less automatically going along with what is supposedly normal.
Freedom wasn't a new view every day. Sometimes it was simply deciding to stay put because it felt good. Or leaving precisely because the place wasn't right. Sometimes it was not planning anything for a day. Sometimes it was going to bed early because it got dark outside and our bodies finally listened to that.
We still don't travel grandly. No endless world trip, no perfectly planned itinerary. Often we stay in Belgium or just across the border. For us, it doesn't have to be bigger. The change isn't in the distance, but in the way we live.
And of course, there are difficult days. Days when everything is wet. When the bus feels too small. When you can't find a spot, the battery is low, or you just wake up in a bad mood. Vanlife doesn't make your life magically problem-free. It just removes a lot of noise, allowing you to see better what's really going on.
Perhaps that's precisely why it works so well for us.
After those first months, we couldn't look back as if it were an experiment. The van was no longer a temporary escape. It had become our home. Small, practical, sometimes messy, sometimes inconvenient, but entirely ours.
We live smaller than before. Much smaller, in fact. But our lives feel more open. More outdoors. More conscious. More attuned to what we truly need.
And when we slide the door shut in the evening, turn on the lights, and everything falls into place, those few square meters don't feel like too little.
Then it feels like just enough.