The best stories about facing a personal challenge don’t hold back. Which is why it’s easy to love Cassie’s untethered honesty. Her raw account of the “shit show” that unfurled while camping alone in winter for months captivated us.
Somehow, in today’s world of social media, the idea of going off and living in a van or camper has been dipped in romanticism and sugar-coated with Instagram-worthy picture perfectionism. The problem is that those photographs represent a single moment, a mere fraction of the whole picture. That image is one out of 86,400 seconds in a day. The remaining 86,399 moments in a day weren’t captured on film. They were probably spent cursing over a parking spot. Spilling coffee on clean laundry. Trying to set up a rig on a hot asphalt parking lot, or countless other snippets of challenging daily life.
Isolated moments of brief perfection are out there. But they aren’t free. They have to be earned, and in some cases the cost is too high.
As part of Women’s History Month, we’re sharing these stories — straight from the world of female solo RV campers. These women break the mold, brave dangers, and experience extraordinary beauty in the world around them — even if it’s one moment out of 86,400 seconds.
This is Cassie’s story.
“I thought it would be the bee’s knees”
As a nurse, Cassie’s vision of living in a camper first took root at the height of the pandemic in 2021. At this time, nurses were getting paid almost double for travel nursing assignments. To sweeten the increased pay scale, living in an RV would not only lower the cost of living — it would also enable her to cash in on a hefty lodging stipend.
“I thought it would be the bee’s knees to live out of a camper as a travel nurse and see the country.”
But the reality was quite different.
Working as an ICU nurse is an especially exhausting task. It can sap you of all your physical and emotional strength. During the pandemic, the work order doubled in what was an already demanding environment for nurses. Cassie’s 12-hour shifts turned into 15-hour days. After each grueling day, she faced the epic task of setting up her slide-in truck camper. Alone. In the cold and in the dark. All without any water or power hookup.
“It was a shit show. I lasted about three weeks.”
She simply could not go on like that. Soon after, Cassie found a rental on Furnished Finder where she could live in for the remainder of her travel nursing assignment.
“It gives me access to a lot of places”
Working full-time as a travel nurse while simultaneously boondocking in a slide-in camper was not sustainable for Cassie. But powder chasing for a season in a camper? That was a dream come true. For three months, Cassie traveled around the country to snowboard on some of the best slopes in the US. Being in a versatile rig and dry camping meant that she could go just about anywhere to chase fresh powder.
All this involves following precise weather forecasts to arrive shortly after a storms that leave a treasure in their wake: snow. Snowboarding and living in a camper is a full-time job, especially when dry camping. But the reward was well worth the cost.
“It was a whole mess in and of itself,” but, “really fun.”
Cassie spent almost a year researching what type of camper she wanted to live in. She scrolled through countless websites, blogs, and RV Trader looking for the perfect rig. Then driving down from Snowbowl Ski Resort in Flagstaff, she passed a lean, little slide-in camper. Her first thought was, “Oh my gosh, that’s so sleek. I don’t have to be this top-heavy behemoth out in the middle of the wilderness.”
So she pulled the trigger on a 2023 Four Wheel Camper Grandby Pop-Up Camper. It checked all her boxes: It was manageable, small, and conducive to a modest lifestyle /
“It gives me access to a lot of places where the barrier to entry is a lot of money. It’s really great in that way.”
“Akin to emptying — like — month-old bed pans”
Cassie’s interest was clearly maxing out on adventure. To do that, she was happy to deal with the nittty gritty. Her new camper didn’t really have a plumbed-in toilet feature. Instead, she used a Porta Potti, which is a completely portable toilet. You can put the RV sewer enzymes in the tank, and you can kind of use it as a toilet. But it has to be emptied,
“Which was probably akin to emptying — like — month-old bed pans, to give you some imagery. Not glamorous at all.”
For water, Cassie tried to utilize her factory plumbing and water pump to run a sink from her water container. She recalls, that “froze twice on me, before I learned my lesson.”
Cassie ended up using an aquatainer as her sink. The camper’s factory plumbing for the sink drain was basically just a rubber hose that went outside.
“Not environmentally friendly.”
So, she used an additional aquatainer to collect the grey water, which she emptied when necessary. She occasionally boiled hot water, but only for food. Her time living in the camper was primarily during winter.
When asked what she did about hot water, she explained, “There’s a whole world of hot springs, hot tubs, and rec centers in the world, that all have hot showers.”
So, she just kind of went from place to place in search of hot water?
“Totally.”
Cassie says that hot springs were especially healing for her tired muscles, a necessary relief during her season chasing powder.
“I was a stinky girl”
Lots of things take a backseat on an adventure like Cassie’s. Staying fresh and clean, Cassie says, was definitely not her highest priority. Dry camping in the winter time and snowboarding all day every day makes unbelievable memories — but it doesn’t make for simple laundry cycles.
“I had a pretty good system once I got into the camper for an evening, I would hang my snow pants and ski jacket onto this little hook above the door, and it would drip dry onto the rug. I was never really dry, everything was always a bit moist and a bit chilly.”
Cassie recalls she would then crank the heater and crack the ceiling vent to the outside to help with condensation. Her camper was a soft-sided pop-up, which lent itself to excessive amounts of condensation.
Her outer layers were always hanging up to drip dry. But she didn’t have the luxury of changing her base layers as often.
“I was a stinky girl.”
Luckily, everything was a wool or cotton base layer, no overly smelly synthetics. But, “I would sometimes only change my socks and underwear and wear the same top and pants for like three days at a time.”
She laughs, “If there was a smell, it was all held in by the outer shell.”
When Cassie passed through a town with a laundromat, she made it a point to stop and do a load.
“White-knuckle driving through this horrific snow storm”
While Cassie was driving from Idaho to Wyoming on the interstate in the dead of winter, snow started falling. She was on her way to Grand Tarehee, approaching a treacherous mountain pass.
“Something got kicked up by a semi in front of meand completely shattered the window that’s between the truck and the camper.”
“There’s not a lot of clearance in this space, so I don’t know how ice or rock magically hit that window in particular. I heard like a little ding! but nothing on the truck was damaged, and it didn’t even occur to me that something on the camper might be wrong.”
“It was a long day of driving, I had to get over this pass in nearly blizzard conditions, going 20 miles an hour. So, I get to this camping lot in Grand Tarehee, and it’s like 10 p.m. I had just driven 20 miles per hour for like 30 miles over this mountain pass, white-knuckle driving through this horrific snow storm. I am dog tired, and I open up the camper. There’s like half an inch layer of snow on everything.”
The glass was shatter resistant, but somehow a hole formed in the window. Meanwhile, all the storm snow was funneling into the camper as she was driving. The only saving grace was that her bed was compressed to the ceiling during the drive. So .when she set up her rig filled with snow, she at least had a dry place to sleep before dealing with the mess the next day.
“There’s definitely something that draws males to a single girl on a chair lift.”
Cassie boondocked during her season powder chasing. She made it a point to arrive late and leave early to avoid any unnecessary interactions with other people. It also helped to arrive late in case she got her intel wrong and was not supposed to be there. It’s not always easy to find an accurate boondocking location.
During her powder chasing months, she spent all of her time alone, and vulnerable.
“There’s definitely something that draws males to a single girl on a chair lift.”
She would tell people that she was meeting a friend, even though she hadn’t seen a friend for weeks. Her feminine intuition was always on high alert and helped to keep her safe.
“Being a single woman with a dog that is not at all even remotely ferocious, I came up with some good stories.”
Her friends all suggested that she get a gun, but she felt differently, “No, if something is going to happen to me, there is no way that I am going to find my locked-up gun and use it to protect myself in time.” Candidly, she says, “I would not do well under high pressure with a gun in the equation. I would have a better chance throwing punches and screaming my face off.”
“You feel simultaneously on top of the world”
After sharing about stink, laundry, snowstorms, and strange encounters, Cassie confronted the ultimate question: Was it worth it?
“Yes,” she affirms. Admittedly, like Alexandra, she says the view was one of the biggest pay offs here. Especially in the winter, where the cold and the snow have a way of making everything so much bigger. Being able to interact with the scenery in such an active capacity is a spectacular opportunity.
“You feel simultaneously on top of the world, because you’re like, I’m out here doing it and experiencing it.”
But then, shew says, you’re also, “so small, and this place is so big.”
Later, after she moved out of the RV, she really sunk into the creature comforts of sedentary life. But it wasn’t long before she felt the pull and was back in the RV. “It felt very nostalgic, almost like coming home. Like, oh yes, this is my thing.”
In 2024, she committed what she describes as the cardinal sin of buying a house. But never takes long for her to get antsy. Getting back in the RV is a great way for her to placate her nomadic fever.
After buying the house, “It was really hard to live with that feeling.” She had to pay for the house and fix the house, and before she knew it, she was needing to work more to pay for it all. Even so, she is already filling her schedule with trips and activities that she is ready to start training for. After speaking with Cassie for over an hour, it was clear that her nomadic fever was an innate part of her being. It’s something that she will always have face head on — no matter what those 86,400 seconds look like each day.
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