I've lived in a camper van for over 3 years. People have a lot of questions about hygiene and space.

• People are surprised to learn that we don’t plan to return to a house in the foreseeable future.
• Other common points of confusion include how we stay clean and how we handle such a small space.

Although we have a shower in our van, limited access to water fill-ups means we don’t rinse as often as we used to before we hit the road. And, of course, the floor of our van gets muddy with two people and one dog going in and out.

We’ve come up with ways to still stay clean, though. We use washcloths and wipes. We only go in and out through the side door, which has a dirt-catching indoor mat — and we often set up camp with an outdoor rug on the other side.

Opening our back doors quickly airs out any cooped-up smells, and our ceiling fan helps here, too.

Although we don’t have a washer or dryer in our home, it’s never hard to find a laundromat every couple of weeks (even if we do struggle to clear enough surfaces to drape clothes that can’t go in the dryer).

I’ll admit it sometimes feels weird to brush my teeth in the kitchen sink — in our case, our only sink — but it’s also great motivation to stay on top of washing dishes.

We’ve also started challenging the idea that “healthy” has to mean “super scrubbed.” My skin is actually clearer than it was pre-van, and my hair has adjusted to less-frequent shampooing.

Ultimately, van life looks different for everyone

Of course, living on the road can take multiple forms, and my answers to these questions aren’t the same as everyone else’s.

Different van lifers prioritize different things: Not every van has a full bathroom, for example. (Not having one was a dealbreaker for me.)

I love our version of van life, though — fewer showers, messes of laundry spread on the dashboard, and painstaking decisions about which belongings we can fit, included.