A friend showed us the ad on social media.
Let’s create some wonderful memories for our August meetup!
Vanlife Community Canada
Come join us for bonfires and music and camaraderie! And Pickleball and Cornhole and CanJam… Blueberry picking at the blueberry farm and blueberry pancakes… book your spot ASAP!
While we’ve been living and traveling on and off in our converted campervan since 2021, and while we’ve watched plenty of van life videos online, we had never attended a van life meetup. We decided to head out to Meanwhile Blueberry Farm to check out the van life community in action!
Meanwhile is a family run blueberry farm and venue just outside of Newmarket, Ontario. A charming operation run by a lovely family – the Rawsons. Blueberry season starts at the end of July and runs through the end of August. All of the Rawsons’ berries are hand picked, never sprayed and always fresh.
In attendance, was a range of different folks in a range of different vehicles. We saw professionally-converted campervans. We saw DIY conversions. We saw a converted mini-van and even a schoolie. Some were spending their retirement years on the road. Others had moved into a vehicle, more or less as a response to Ontario’s affordable housing crisis. Sometimes aging parents are subsidizing their kids’ rent by living in a vehicle. Regardless of individual circumstance, the good van life folks were there to enjoy some social time together with good food and good tunes!
As you might imagine, a bunch of the van life folks have social media channels, chronicling their van life and travels. So if you are curious to hear the first-person accounts of van-lifers in Canada, check out some of the life stories of the warm and wonderful people we met at this meetup.
First, our Vanlife Community Canada organizer, Lisa, chronicles her travels with her partner Jamie, who have been enjoying their retirement with full-time van life (in their van, Gertie) since 2020. They are as friendly and welcoming in person as they are on their youtube channel.
We also met Kage & Ellie (in their van, Maximus). Maximus is a rig made to be all rugged and adventurous on the outside, with tiny-home inspired living on the inside. Kage kindly helped us replace a fuse for our solar system on our converted campervan. A lot of van lifers like to name their rigs. We don’t really do that… Well, I did for a short time refer to our campervan as Vanna White. Anyway, many thanks to Kage who had the right tool to replace our fuse and who got on a ladder in the rain! Our van may not look like much, but we’ve got enough power to run the instant pot, off-grid (as long as we don’t have a burnt fuse).
We also met Basti, Svenja and their dog Pepper, who are visiting Canada from Germany. They interviewed a number of the van lifers at this meetup, and while a portion of the interview is in Deutch, the Canadian interviewees all speak English. This winter, you can follow this German couple and their dog on their channel as they drive all the way down to Central and South America!
Jared and Maddi of Vancini Conversions also stopped by for a while, in the rig pictured below. You can follow their campervan conversion adventures here.
Another retired couple, Yula and Alex also chronicle their adventures on their website and youtube channel. Many others also enjoyed the event; I’ve focused this post on those who have social media channels so you can learn more about them and their van life in their own words and pictures. Other fun folks at the meetup included Lisa in her van Norbert (Norbert the Nomad, another friendly German, driving around Canada), Jess of Your Inner Vitality and Tara of Travel with TMc.
We also enjoyed meeting Rob and Jan of Rob & Jan Can Van. Check out their video of the event below, as they interview different van lifers on their rigs and see how different van lifers arrange everything in their mobile living space!
All in all, an enjoyable event with warm and wonderful van lifers. And the blueberries were (as advertised) delicious. Check out Meanwhile Farm next blueberry season!
Updated September 11, 2023