So Why The Name “Andiamo”?

It’s a funny thing in the VanLife community: People like to name their RV / Campervan much like people sometimes name their boats, motorcycles, or other inanimate toys. We didn’t come into this thinking we were going to name our van, but the more we participated in various forums and group pages we noticed people often gave names to their vans to make it more personalized.

Names like Pamela Vanderson, Van Gogh, Vanimal, Van wilder, Kara Van, Vanessa, Vandy, Vanderbuilt, Homer and other punny names. Us being former art students and art lovers, we were going to name our van “Van Gogh” or “Van Go” and use some graphics that looked like the famous Stary Night painting. But then our creative director, Theresa, saw the name elsewhere and it was a buzzkill for that name. (Yes, Theresa is an actual creative director for a CPG design firm) After sorting through a long list of possible names, a brainstorming session over wine… Tim heavily lobbied for the name: Andiamo which means “Let’s Go” in Italian. You see, Theresa is of Italian heritage from the Galo Matese region, a small mountain village north east of Naples. And Italy is one of our favorite places to travel to, for obvious reasons. And the “Let’s Go!” montra is fitting for our desire to get out and travel more. And Theresa, being a natural graphic designer, created a logo and printed it on a tire cover and front license plate. Initially it was going to read “Traveling with Siggy” as the “tag line”. But our good friend Carolyn suggested a small edit, “Travels with Siggy” which reads much like John Steinbeck’s “Travels with Charley” travelogue from 1962. And so it was minted.

There are many names for vans. And many “YouTubers” out there living van life in one fashion or another. Be it weekend warriors like us, full timers, retirees, or those living out of vans out of financial desperation. There are as many different styles of vanlifers out there as you’d find in any demographic mix. Some of our favorite vanlifers include the youtube channels below, subscribe and learn, or just travel vicariously:

Eamon & Bec
Jits into the sunset
Kinging It
Travel Beans
Eat See RV
Leave Everything And Wander
Irene Iron Travels
Epic Family Roadtrip (less Van, more Jeep / Motorcycles… so one of Tim’s picks)
Trent and Allie (off the road now but their many vanlife videos were inspiring to us)
The Fit RV (more informational)
Newstate Nomads
RV Miles – News about the industry

We hope you enjoy some of the above channels. What are some of your favorites? Let us know in the comments below!