When Britt came home one afternoon and announced she'd put in her two week’s notice at the hospital, Neal wasn't surprised.
Travel nursing had been part of the conversation since their very first date. She had always dreamed of combining her nursing career with the freedom to explore, and after years of working opposite schedules, it finally felt like the right time. Britt was a staff nurse in Vermont, while Neal spent his career traveling the country as a corporate executive and business consultant, stepping into struggling companies and helping turn them around. The work was rewarding, but it often meant eighty-hour weeks and very little time together.
In 2018, they packed up their lives and hit the road.
Van life wasn't the plan just yet. For nearly three years, they bounced between Airbnbs and short-term rentals while Britt completed travel nursing contracts around the country. At first it felt exciting. Every few months brought a new town, a new hospital, and new friends. Eventually, though, they realized how much of their lives revolved around packing and unpacking.
Every contract meant loading the car. Every move meant finding another place to live. Every few months they were starting over.
"We thought, there's got to be a better way," said Neal. And that’s when they started to search for a vehicle to call home.
Neal and Britt’s first van experience wasn't perfect. They had gone the Class B route with a different company, and soon into life on the road, it turned south.
A cabinet literally fell off the wall while they were driving. The propane system had somehow been filled with butane, leaving their stove, hot water system, and heater unable to function correctly.
They tried another van, which came with a whole different set of problems.
Neal spent countless hours repairing exposed electrical wiring, fixing plumbing, and addressing workmanship issues that should never have made it out of the factory. Then, while they were on the road in their old van, their other RV caught fire while parked at their home in Florida. The experience was a wake-up call that changed the way they thought about RV construction. At the same time, they were uncovering more wiring and plumbing issues in their current Class B, reinforcing just how much the quality of a build matters when your home is also your vehicle.
Most people might have walked away from van life after multiple experiences like that, but Neal and Britt did the opposite.
Every frustrating repair became another lesson. They learned what mattered, what failed over time, and what separated thoughtful craftsmanship from shortcuts hidden behind finished walls.
Neal took matters into his own hands, and as he puts it, "You have to learn by doing it."
Their search for a new van began with a recommendation from fellow Noovo owner Theresa Fernandez. When they started browsing Noovo's website, one photo immediately caught Neal's attention.
It wasn't the open kitchen or the smooth cabinetry or the comfortable bed. For someone who knows the most important components of a van that keeps them running smoothly, it was the electrical compartment.
Years of renovating homes and repairing RVs had trained him to look beyond polished finishes. The neatly organized wiring told him everything he needed to know about the people building the van.
"If they cared this much about something most owners will never see," he thought, "they probably cared about everything else too."
Remarkably, they committed to buying their Noovo Lite before ever stepping inside one. They drove to Las Vegas expecting to film a walkthrough of the van for their YouTube channel. Instead, they drove home in a new camper van they quickly nicknamed Nugget.
Today, Neal and Britt spend most of the year traveling between nursing contracts, business projects, and content creation. Along the way, they've built a business that includes their YouTube channel, real estate, brand partnerships, and educational resources for fellow travelers. They also help manage Noovo's Facebook owner community and have hosted several of the company's earliest owner campouts, creating spaces where new owners can meet, share ideas, and learn from one another.
Ask them what they enjoy most about life on the road, though, and it isn't the business, but rather the people.
One evening they swap stories around a campfire with fellow Noovo owners. The next day they're meeting a small-town mayor who simply stopped by their van to introduce himself. Every destination comes with another unexpected conversation.
"You never know who you're going to meet."
That's one of the reasons they still love this lifestyle as much today as they did when they first started.
After years of traveling full-time, Neal and Britt aren't slowing down anytime soon. In fact, they're already thinking about the next chapter. They hope to raise a family on the road, homeschool their future children, explore Alaska, and eventually drive the Pan-American Highway all the way to the southern tip of South America.
For these two van life was never about escaping reality. It was about building a life they didn't need a vacation from.
And after years of trial, error, and countless miles, they've finally found a camper van that lets them focus less on fixing problems and more on chasing whatever road comes next.
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