Vivian Aldridge – Painting Solo Stealth Travel
My guest this week on the Solo Women RV podcast is Vivian Aldridge. Vivian is an artist and stealth camper who documents her travels via beautiful watercolor paintings. Vivian talks about why she prefers solo stealth camping to any other way of travel. She talks about the cool and interesting people she’s met along the way and shares a bit about her creative process.
Resources for Solo Women RVers and Artists
Homes on Wheels Alliance: a charitable organization dedicated to helping people get into safe and secure homes on wheels.
HistoriCorps: volunteer to save historic places
Urban Sketchers: a global community of artists
Cascade Campers: the company that built out Vivian’s van
Vivian would love to connect with other solo women who want to meet up and do art together. You can find her on Instagram at https://www.instagram.com/vivianaldridge/
Solo Women RV Theme music if Fields Station by Nikole Potulsky
Connect with Other Solo Women RVers
Key Take-Aways
- To find stealth camping locations, Vivian looks on google maps for hospitals, apartments or hotels. She prepares where she’s going to stay before dark and then slides into the spot after dark.
- She does her cooking in big parking lots such as Walmart
- By stealth camping you can really go at your own pace because you don’t have to make campground reservations.
- Traveling solo is a great way to connect with strangers in a way you don’t sometimes when you’re with someone else.
- For Vivian everyday was a surprise and that’s what she likes about travel.
- Travel also reminds Vivian that people are mostly good.
- Solo travel can sometimes bring up loneliness. But there are ways to deal with loneliness. You can accept it and just sit with it. Or you can call a friend or go talk to strangers.
- Vivian loves stealth camping because she meets more of a variety of people with interesting stories and backgrounds than she does at campgrounds.
- If you want to try stealth camping, find a place near where you live to try it out. And know you’re probably going to be uncomfortable the first few times you do it.
- If you normally camp with someone else, if they can’t go, don’t let that deter you—get out there and try camping by yourself. The time to live is right now. Don’t hold yourself back.
