A nurse working to fight the coronavirus in California lives in a 75-square-foot van with his wife and 2 cats
- Danny Rekart and Lindsey Graham live in a 75-square-foot van with their two cats, Mogley and Bagherra.
- They have been traveling since 2016, when Rekart started working as a travel nurse, and living in a self-converted van since 2019.
- When he's not camping or backpacking, Rekart works as an ICU nurse on the coronavirus floor of a Southern California hospital.
- Rekart and Graham love the van lifestyle, as it brings them closer to nature. It also means Rekart can avoid commuting, as the van is often parked on the hospital grounds.
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Danny Rekart, 34, is a traveling ICU nurse. Currently, he's working on the coronavirus floor of a South California hospital.
At the end of a long day fighting COVID-19, Rekart goes home to his wife, Lindsey Graham, 33, and two cats, Mogley and Bagherra.
Luckily, home is only a few feet away: It's a 75-square- foot self-converted van that's often parked on hospital grounds.
Keep scrolling to see what being a traveling nurse living van life to the fullest is like.
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Danny Rekart has been a travel nurse since 2016.
Rekart and his wife, have been together for 13 years. Born and raised in St. Louis, Missouri, they had never lived anywhere else until Rekart's first travel nurse contract in Los Angeles, California, in 2016.
Travel nurses are essentially free agents that step in when hospitals need experienced nurses to fill in for someone on maternity leave, because their population fluctuates by season, or because they require a certain skill set, among other reasons. The job, which usually consists of three-month contracts, was created in response to worldwide nurse shortages.
Formerly a chemist, Graham quit her job to travel the country with Rekart.
Rekart and his wife, Lindsey Graham, spent four years bouncing between temporary apartments before deciding to try living in a van.
"We were getting killed financially in month-to-month rent, nonrefundable deposits, moving fees, and general moving expenses," Graham said. "We knew something had to change so we could continue our traveling without breaking the bank."
Initially, they only planned to travel for Rekart's job for about a year. After four years, they decided to move into a van, inspired by Rekart's cousin who had an RV.
"We thought an RV could really help us out in our lifestyle because we're getting apartments in towns like Seattle and Denver and LA, where it's very expensive to rent, but most of the time we're out in nature doing things like camping, backpacking and such," Rekart said.
Graham said they were spending so much time in nature that their apartments basically became overpriced storage units.
"Van life brings both our lives together," she said. "We have a home life, and we have adventure time."
They settled on a van instead of an RV because Rekart's job keeps them in relatively urban places for at least three days a week. A huge RV would have been hard to navigate through cities, and difficult to park, as the two don't spend much time in RV parks, preferring instead to park in residential neighborhoods when they can.
Once they decided to give van life a go they made it happen within weeks.
Within a month of deciding to travel and live in a van, they bought "Bruce," a 21-foot Ram Promaster 3500. They found Bruce on Craigslist, lightly used for $33,000.
They converted the van entirely themselves, spending about five months on the build.
They said they spent six weeks living in the van with nothing but a mattress in the Seattle winter, while Rekart finished his contract there.
"We bought the van a little bit earlier than we anticipated because the price was so good. We literally moved our apartment into our empty shell van and lived there," Graham said. "It was good because we learned what you need and what you don't need. I was hell-bent on having an inside shower. After those six weeks, I understood that we didn't need it."
They renovated the van without any prior experience. They did research, watched YouTube tutorials, "and hoped for the best."
Their van features a queen-sized bed, a compostable toilet, a 65-liter fridge, a three-burner stove and oven, storage cabinets, a hanging closet, a "garage" under their bed that stores bikes, snowboards, and solar panels.
"The style that we went with was a wooden look, with cabinets and such — we wanted it to feel like a real home," Graham said.
They say that their priorities were a big kitchen and a comfortable bed.
"I really wanted a big kitchen, I really wanted a big sink, and I wanted a queen-size bed. And I had to have an oven because life without pizza just isn't a life," Graham said.
They're currently in Southern California, with Rekart working on the coronavirus floor of a local hospital.
The two have been in Southern California since November, and Rekart's contract goes through the end of July.
They were in Baja Mexico on vacation in February when the coronavirus situation really began getting serious in California. Things were pretty normal before they left.
"Right before we left, everything was normal," Rekart said. "And then my floor was the coronavirus unit, and there were like 12 patients with potential coronavirus. So I was thrown into it. It's a 10-bed ICU, and almost all the beds are coronavirus patients, almost every time."
He describes the early days of fighting the coronavirus as "scary" and "chaotic," saying that guidelines on protective gear (PPE) kept changing, fear of running out of PPE was rampant, and that knowledge of the virus was still slim.
"It's kind of settled itself out a bit," he said, but adds that he's still dealing with coronavirus patients "on a daily basis."
Rekart worries about getting Graham sick, but they've figured out a few ways to minimize risks.
"We definitely were nervous, because if he's going to get it, he's going to give it to me, there's no doubt about it," Graham said.
They say they're a little more relaxed now than they were initially because Rekart has been working with coronavirus patients for months now without any issues. However, they're strict about mask-wearing and handwashing, and Rekart, who showers at the hospital, leaves his shoes in a plastic bag outside the RV and all of his work clothes in a backpack in a closet.
They limit their grocery store runs to once a week, and usually "boondock."
"Boondocking" often refers to free camping in the RV community, where campers don't use the amenities and hookups RV parks typically provide. By doing that, they've been able to limit their interactions with others.
"We are never reliant on having to have water or electricity or anything like that," they said, though they added that they used to rely on a local Planet Fitness for their showers, which became a problem when gyms closed during the pandemic.
"I think 15 days was the longest I went without a shower," Graham said.
Lately, they've been stationed on the hospital parking lot to make things more convenient for Rekart.
"One thing that we learned with van life is that it opens up so much free time for you. You don't have to drive and commute as much to do certain things, so you find yourself with hours of more free time per week," he said.
Graham adds: "We spend our time the way we want to spend our time, and a lot of the time it's going to be in nature."
Graham says that they really only live on 75-square feet when they're in a city, and that van life has allowed them to spend more time outdoors.
"For the most part, when we're in nature we always have our sliding door open," Graham said. "We always have our back doors open. So the outside becomes an additional space for us. It's our living room."
She added that van life "is a movement, it is a community of souls that believe in living simply and blissfully uncomfortable so that their main focus is on experience and not stuff."
"Van life was the answer to our problems, problems we didn't even know we had or realized were an issue," she said. "It gave us our lives back, and our time, to truly live our lives as we see fit."
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