VanLife FAQs: Who is Nuck Hankins?
QUESTION:
Who is Nuck Hankins?
ANSWER:
Hey there! My name is Nick aka NUCK.
I was born in a densely wooded neighborhood with twinkling fireflies along bumpy dirt roads in a land of absolutely brilliant thunderstorms, horrid humidity, humbling hurricanes, and a propensity for ridiculous news headlines.
Oh, Jacksonville...only you.
After growing up with an education focused on classical music training, I somehow managed to join the incredible team that produced the moderately celebrated Oprah Winfrey Show in Chicago, IL and later the Oprah Winfrey Network in West Hollywood, CA.
Fast forward a decade and you’ll find me as a young man who has lived an exciting life in the largest cities in the United States, who has learned from countless encounters with amazing friends such as yourself, and who has now become completely enamored with the romanticism and adventure of #VanLife.
So, as any young adventurer would, I left the fancy job, the expensive apartment, my peppers, tomatoes, herbs, and succulents in my little raised garden on that impossible clay hill in Los Angeles, California to travel the U.S. National Parks in a sweet 1992 Dodge Ram Camper Van! ...(down by the river).
As of late, I've been keeping quite busy helping friends and clients with a little AV engineering, tech consulting, creative design/editing, music collaboration, in addition to the full-time, seemingly ever-expanding to-do list of a project that is #VanLife.
When I'm not flying around living out of a backpack for work and play, I'm most likely in my van, greasy and dirty, chasing electrical faults in some crazy uncomfortable contortionistic yoga pose inspired from my days teaching at CorePower Yoga in Chicago.
I might be hiking in the woods, all weird, crouched down taking super close-up videos of bizarre insects, or nervously perched up on some high ledge babysitting a time-lapse of the clouds crawling over some fantastic view of an expansive horizon.
Perhaps you will find me following my epic younger brother and his lady friend attached to some cliff face with naught but a little harness and floss keeping us from going KERSPLAT.
Maybe I’m reading one of the small selection of books I keep in the van library or fingerpickin' the ol' guitar in the coziest hammock, rocked by the gentle sway from the wind in the trees, swatting away the incessant bombardment of mosquitos and "no-see-ems."
If you’re lucky, you may catch me singing and playing music in Chicago with my friends in The Little Family Band or randomly singing jazz standards at a dive bar in Vancouver!
My intention is for this site to be a place where you, my friends and fellow life enthusiasts, will be able to follow my journey and benefit from my extensive research, experiences, successes, and mistakes.
Ultimately, I wish to inspire you as others inspired me; to show you an alternate approach to living, whether be it solely for your entertainment and vicarious enjoyment or perhaps as that last piece of encouragement you need to live life in a bigger, less desk-oriented way.
Along the way, I’ll be singing you love songs, live vlogging my daily adventures, writing recollections of exciting times past, and sharing beautiful imagery of this fantastic mossy pebble hurtling through space that we all call home.
The best way you can support me is to talk to me! Join and participate in the Forum. Follow and share your thoughts, opinions, suggestions, criticism, and love on Facebook, YouTube, Snapchat, and Instagram.