Making Home with Alex Honnold

I've never been particularly motivated to live in a car. It's more that I want to climb all the time and I want to climb in different places all the time. And so that living in a car is the most convenient way to be mobile like that. And so, you know, it's not that I love van living, but I love climbing. And the van is the most comfortable way to go climb all the time. Well, this thing is, I wouldn't even call this van life. I would just call this life, you know. Like I'm just like living my normal life. I just happen to be in a van. It's a pretty nice van though. I mean, it's probably bigger than a lot of people's apartments in New York and stuff. I mean, my whole van setup is basically the same as what you do when you're camping. It's all just nicer. I would say there are a few key elements to the van that make it really livable. I've been refining this over the last year. I'm having a hangboard. Basically, it's just a way to work out, to train your fingers for rock climbing. I like making popcorn on my gas stove. I mean, do I even have to explain why? I mean, who doesn't like home popcorn? It's amazing. A little salt, a little warm goodness. Like, mmm, so delicious. I mean, I love my climbing journal. I love being able to look through and see every route that I've climbed since 2005. And like flip to a random page. And the thing is, any page I flip to, I'll remember the routes when I read the names and stuff. And then I'll remember the day and I'll remember who I was with. And it's just like a nice way to look over the last ten years of my life. I feel the most at home when I snuggle into my bed in my van. And you know, feel like my familiar pillow. I'm like, oh, this is home. It's really cool. The biggest motivator for me is to think of something that seems almost impossible, maybe. Or something that you initially reject as impossible. You're like, no, no way. But then it kind of festers in your mind and you're like, maybe. And then you're like, well, it is possible. And then you're like, oh, I probably could do that. And you're like, oh, no, no, I have to do that. And then going out and actually doing something that you initially thought was totally impossible. I think that process of taking something from impossible and then making it happen is sort of the most satisfying thing about climbing. I mean, I love everything about climbing. But at the basic level, I just like the movement of it. I like swinging my body around and getting to the top of something. I like pushing over the summit. I just like the feeling of climbing things. I love climbing trees and jungle gyms and just playing on things. I'm most known as a free-soulist. But that's not really fair because I spend probably 95% of my time rope climbing. Or like bouldering or climbing in the gym. But climbing with partners, climbing with friends. I can definitely see a time when I give up the hard free-souling. Because I think there just won't be the fire for it for my whole life. But I think at the heart of it, I still just love swinging around and being a climber.