I know a lot of you have been following my van journey, and I was really excited to make it work. I even planned to swap the motor and transmission myself, but life threw me a curveball, and the costs just didn’t make sense with my new timeline. Just the motor and transmission alone would have been $12–14k installed—not to mention solar, battery backup, bodywork, and building out the living space.

So, after a lot of thought, I decided to pivot and picked up a 2022 Toyota Corolla Cross compact SUV instead. It’s a big change, and much smaller, but it’s the right move for me now: reliable, efficient, and still gives me the freedom to travel, live out of my vehicle while I search for the perfect land home base, and tow a teardrop camper. Plus, I’d have been lucky to get 8 mpg in the van—whereas the Cross gets me about 33 mpg—so it just makes more sense for me all around.