About

Why I built Vroam

My name is Jeff. My wife and I started van life in December 2025, and the planning has been worth every bit of the hassle. It also became obvious within a few weeks that the hassle did not need to be that bad.

We got out there the hard way. We lost both of our mothers to pancreatic cancer within a short time of each other. Watching them go through that took away any illusion that we were owed the years we had been quietly counting on. So we rebuilt our life around doing things now instead of later.

The van is a 2024 Ford Transit, high roof, extended. We built it out ourselves over about a year, and we could not have done it without friends who kept showing up with tools and weekends they were never getting back. Since then it has been to 32 states.

The trip that changed how I think about planning was the first real one. The van had been finished the week before. We decided to make southern Utah in one shot, which was a bad call. At two in the morning we were doing sixty on open range, about ten miles out, and there were cattle across the whole road. We swerved most of them and clipped one. It took the mirror and part of the bumper. The friend behind us hit one head on and totaled his truck.

Nobody was hurt and it could have been far worse. But the only reason we were out there at that hour is that we had never decided where we were going to stop. That is the part I keep coming back to. Not knowing where you are allowed to stop is exactly what keeps you driving.

The information all existed somewhere. The problem was that answering one ordinary day took three to five different apps.

Where am I sleeping tonight?
Where can I shower?
Where can I get out of this heat?
Where is the closest Planet Fitness?

So I started building the one I wanted. Places to sleep with the land status attached where we have the record. Traveler-shared showers, water and dump stations on the same map. The weather, the smoke and the cell coverage at the spot itself rather than at the nearest town. And an assistant you can just ask, because sometimes the question is "somewhere quiet about four hours west, no snow" and no filter menu handles that.

Worth saying plainly, because every photograph on this site happens to be our van: this is not a van app. You tell it what you drive, and that covers Class A, B and C motorhomes, truck campers, travel trailers, fifth wheels, pop ups and teardrops as well as vans. A 34 foot fifth wheel has a harder version of our problem, not an easier one.

One thing I want to be straight about: we do not have as many crowdsourced pins as the apps that have been at this for years. iOverlander has been doing this a long time and their pin count reflects it. That is a real gap and I am not going to pretend otherwise.

What I can do in the meantime is pack the app with the tools that answer the rest of the day. Land data underneath the map, so you can see who manages the ground and what the general rule is. Cell coverage by carrier. Fire, smoke and air. The forecast at the pin rather than the nearest town. Water, dump and showers. An assistant you can just ask. The pins will catch up, and they will catch up faster if you add the ones you find. Everything else is what makes the app worth opening while they do.

I read everything that comes in. If a spot is not what the app said it was, or something is missing, tell me. Right now this is small enough that your suggestion actually changes the product.

I am not trying to be the face of this. I built it because I needed it, and I keep working on it because it turns out other people needed it too.

Jeff