Pop-Up Nomads is a low-pressure van life and nomad community built around shared camps, familiar faces, outdoor events, online meetups, and year-round connection. It’s for nomads, travelers, and people drawn to life on the road who want more opportunities to meet people without giving up the independence that made this lifestyle appealing in the first place.
One of the great things about van life is that it gives us an incredible ability to disappear. We can drive into the mountains, find a quiet place to work, close the door, and have uninterrupted space that is increasingly hard to find in any other lifestyle. It may be one of the best things about van life.
But when everyone who loves this kind of lifestyle is scattered across different forests, deserts, campgrounds, and highways, it can make it nearly impossible for us to find each other.
Pop-Up Nomads grew out of that tension. We wanted something somewhere between camping alone and joining highly social events, big van life gatherings, or expensive retreats. Situations where introverts like us can struggle to maintain the level of energy required to try and make long-term connections. What we found ourselves wanting was places where independent travelers can have their own space while knowing there are other people nearby if and when they want connection.
If you’ve ever searched for a van life community, van life meetup, group camping for nomads, van life events, a place to meet other van lifers, or even a kind of “van life hostel” atmosphere, that’s the space Pop-Up Nomads is trying to create — just with a bit more room to disappear when you need it. Or when we need it lol.
A big part of that is simply finding the right places to host us all as we all migrate up and down the country. After a few years of traveling, scouting campsites, and getting to know landowners and places along the way, we’ve been building a growing network of spots that can work for small groups of nomads. Sometimes that means renting group camping spaces and sharing costs in campgrounds or on private land. Other times it means scouting larger BLM or public-land camps where a handful of rigs can comfortably stay near one another. We've found some pretty great places. We intend to find more.
Every Pop-Up is a little different, but the idea stays the same: enough shared space to make connection possible, without taking away anyone’s ability to have space of their own.
Our philosophy is simple: Always invited, never expected.
The Pop-Ups are only one part of the community. Through camps, outdoor events, online meetups, caravans, Discord, and the familiar faces we meet along the way, we’re trying to make life on the road a little easier to share without making it any less independent.
Camp. Co-Work. Co-Exist.
Request to Join the Pop-Up Nomads Discord
Always invited, never expected.
The year-round home for Pop-Up Nomads: our group chat. It's where you can stay connected between camps, hear about upcoming events, coordinate travel, and keep crossing paths with other nomads & outdoor enthusiasts.
Caleb & Jayna
We met on the road as two solo travelers and pretty quickly realized that a lot of nomad / van life got easier — and more affordable — when there was someone else to share it with. Campsites, group spaces, meals, travel logistics, and even when things go wrong with vehicles - having another person around started to feel a little different when the cost and experience weren’t falling on one person alone.
A lot of Pop-Up Nomads grew from wanting to share some of that with other solo vanlifers, nomads, and people traveling independently. We look for places where small groups can split the cost of staying somewhere together while still having plenty of room to live and work in their own space.
The events we host are mostly things we already love doing. Caleb usually organizes the disc golf rounds, Jayna often leads the hikes, and we both love campfires, shared dinners, and game nights. Games have always been a huge part of how we connect with each other, which is why we’re looking forward to starting new virtual game nights and other creative ways for the community to stay connected not only at camp, but between camps as well.
Kodiak, Henry, and Klaus
Kodiak is Caleb’s cat, and Henry and Klaus are Jayna’s. The three of them became friends through Kitty City — our giant communal network of catio tents and tubes where the cats can safely explore outside, move between spaces, and spend time together.
Kitty City has since become one of the biggest features of Pop-Up Nomads and is often the centerpiece of our communal campgrounds and shared spaces. It gives the cats a place to hang out together while naturally creating a gathering point for the humans around them too. What started as a way to give the cats more outdoor freedom has turned into one of our favorite parts of camp — and now the three of them are genuinely best friends.
Kodiak also travels online as @KodiakTheTravelCat, and the cats have made their way into a lot of Caleb’s music over the years, including a 'Travel Cat Album' you can find on Spotify, inspired by traveling and living with them.
We’d love for Pop-Up Nomads to keep becoming a place where cat nomads can find other cat nomads — and where their cats might find a few familiar faces too.
