1 Year Living in my Car | Car living // Zachary Thomas

[Music] what's going on everybody my name is Zachary Thomas and I live in my car so today I just kind of wanted to do a sit down video um I was a little busy this week getting everything ready to move to fulltime this week so I was trying to figure figure out what I wanted to make a video about since I was just going to do a sit down video and I realized that I may have I may have explained why I decided to uh move into my car in a other video but I'm not entirely sure uh I film a lot of videos and some of them I just I don't uh edit or they just don't see the light of day uh I don't like them or something of that nature so I wanted to make a video about why I decided to do this because uh recently I just made a year on January 10th I made a year uh living in my car full-time besides a couple hotel stays that I did but um I I'd say about 360 days in in my car roughly so I'm originally from Louisiana and we got hit by a hurricane in 2021 and uh and me and my best friend Jason at the time decided to move into uh move out of state he went to Tennessee to live with his now wife and I went to South Carolina to live with one of my friends and for a while it was really good I I loved it um because my friend Connor is a musician and it was really cool to be able to just sit down and play music with him and just like swap songs and i' I've always really love doing that so H being able to do that anytime I wanted that was really cool but eventually Connor got a girlfriend and he started spending a lot more time with her and less time in the apartment that we were living in so I ended up actually pretty much living alone for like a year um and then you know circumstances changed and uh I'm not really sure what happened but uh Connor texted me one day that we had to be out uh in like 10 15 days or something like that and at that moment in time I was kind of considering already to move into my car because I had always been fascinated by you know van life and things like that ever since I learned about it I wanted to do it but also when I was younger I was um when I was younger I was really into music and I wanted to be a professional musician I wanted to tour the world and the line between a Tory musician and somebody doing van life is really really thin uh they're both living in in Vans for the most part it just really it made sense to me and it didn't sound like a crazy idea because I grew up wanting to be in a van with a bunch of guys playing music you know like I that was something that I wanted to do I was just never able to do it so whenever I saw my opportunity to move into a vehicle and uh do this it it it made complete sense to me so I did it so I took out a loan that I could have used for a a down payment of an apartment or something like that and I got my solar battery and I got a bunch of uh pillows and blankets and stuff like that and a bunch a bunch of things that I I needed to make my car a little bit more comfortable and I moved into my car I lived in the parking lot of the apartment that we were living in until the um until the last day that we were allowed to live in there I was in I was living in the parking lot basically because I wanted to get used to sleeping in my car get used to having to deal with the temperatures and stuff like that and it was also kind of cold at the time too so it was it was really good to um to get used to being cold and being able to deal with that being out in the weather kind of I guess and and acclimating yourself to that kind of Lifestyle you know and at the end I went full-time I was uh I was nervous about um sleeping basically that was probably one of the most recent Parts is trying to figure out um how I was going to sleep places because it does take getting used to uh because sometimes in the middle of the night there there will be noises and things like that and people walking by if you're in like a a truck stop or something people are always walking by [Music] um for instance the the Walmart would uh I think I think the kids graduated because they don't do they don't come here anymore but um some some like high school kids I guess would come and they would have like lifted trucks and they would rev their engines all night they would blast music and they would like race in the parking lot and it was it that was really frustrating but they don't they don't come around anymore so I'm guessing they graduated or something who knows but having to deal with those types of things is something that you have to get used to whenever you're living this lifestyle and um yeah just being able to sleep places was one of the things that I worried about the most but over time I learned you know how how to do it I guess and I got more used to it and now I sleep I sleep pretty well one of the main reasons that I decided to move into my car besides just the fascination of Van life and things like that I really want to see the world and I want to travel because I really didn't I I didn't get to travel too much as a kid I got to travel I guess a little bit more than most people do I've been to Canada and Colorado with my family but besides that I've never been out west I've never been to like California Washington Utah Arizona all those all those outwest places I've never been to any of them ever not even over them so it's like I want to see that and I want to see the world and I want to go on Hikes and see see things that I wouldn't be able to see later on in my life because my thought process was whenever you're older whenever you you if you live your life the way that you know usually it's lived you know you work until you retire at you know 60 65 or whatever and whenever you retire that's when you can you know get an RV and travel and do things like that but I don't want to do that because by the time I'm 60 65 I'm not going to be able to go on these hiking trails as as much as I want to or I won't be able to I won't be able to do a bunch of things like my body will just be breaking down and I won't be as strong as I am now I won't be as healthy as I am now I won't be as uh energetic as I am now and that's the reason that I want to do this because I want to see the world while I'm still able to to experience the world at its full capacity and don't get me wrong I just turned 30 and I'm already feeling it and but I'm still G I'm still going to get out there and I I want to see I want to see things and I want to see you know mountains and I want to see waterfalls and I want to sit under waterfalls and swim in rivers and like exper I want to experience life to the greatest capacity that I possibly can and I'd love I'd love to travel overseas um I have to get a a passport and things like that first but I'd love to go overseas and I'd love to you know go to Japan go to uh England go to Ireland I I'd love I'd love to do that and it's something that I have to look forward to because one day I will but yeah I just wanted to make a video because since I've been busy packing everything I haven't been able to really do too much and um I just wanted to kind of explain to people and have this as like a reference to go to of why I decided to do this you know why I took the leap of faith and kind of remind myself because sometimes I get doubtful sometimes I think that um you know that I made a mistake that you know this isn't what I want but just having something to go back on and hear my thoughts on it and um hear myself talk to myself because this is something that I really want to do and this is something that I really want to experience and I don't know it it feels feels right it feels like the right thing to do and when I'm when I'm on the road and I'm traveling and I'm going to different places and you know I'll wake up one day in a different city like I'm happy it it's it's there's a sense of adventure that just really makes me happy and um I really want want to chase that so thank you guys for watching I'll see you guys in the next video when I'm full time I'll have that whole um that whole journey documented and um ready to upload but yeah I appreciate you guys make sure to like the video subscribe if you want to follow my journey and um I'll see you guys next time bye