The Brief

In the early days of the pandemic, Angelenos Patrick and Arthur Collera-Ricca were getting ready for a road trip when their vacation rental notified them that due to pandemic restrictions their reservation would have to be canceled.

When the couple realized their weekend trip was a bust, Arthur turned to Patrick and asked, “What about van life?”

“Almost immediately we traded in one of our cars, bought a van, and just without even owning a toolbox, decided ‘Hey, why not try and convert a van yourselves?’” Patrick said.

Patrick and Arthur’s van took almost a year to renovate. During that time, they would take it out on weekends, at times without even having a bed in it.

“It started off as a pandemic project,” said Arthur. “We were inspired and figured we'd want something to keep us busy and start a hobby during the pandemic.”

The #VanLife Movement

Patrick and Arthur's van during one of their trips cross-country

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Courtesy Patrick and Arthur Collera-Ricca

)

Like many others during the pandemic, the couple became interested in the burgeoning movement of #VanLife where people documented their cross-country travels in retrofitted vans on Instagram and YouTube. Some would even share tips and post tutorials to show amateurs how they could convert a van themselves.

Some vans would have full amenities like a kitchen and bathroom, while others were simply a bed thrown in the back.

Beyond just the cool van renovations, #VanLife also showcased the beauty of the outdoors and the potential escapism that traveling to a secluded forest or small mountain town could bring.

Although traveling in decked-out vans was not invented during the pandemic, prior to the #VanLife movement, less than 1% of all RV sales were camper vans, according to Monika Geraci from the RV Industry Association (RVIA). The latest data for 2023 shows that these converted vehicles, categorized under Class B motorhomes for the RVIA, are now 4% of overall RV sales.

“So while they still are a small segment when you're looking at RVing as a whole, they have grown tremendously in popularity,” Geraci said.

Interior of Patrick and Arthur's van

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Courtesy Patrick and Arthur Collera-Ricca

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For people like Patrick, Arthur and many others, vacationing in a van was a safe way to travel during the pandemic while remaining isolated.

“People wanted to avoid crowded airplanes during that time,” said Jonny Feld, president of Field Van, a company that converts vans into tiny homes, campers, or pretty much anything the customer wants. “But people didn't want to stop living, and they wanted to keep adventuring and traveling.”

The height of #VanLife

For Patrick and Arthur, making the leap into the nomadic life has a lot to do with timing.

Their van conversion was completed in 2022, the same time that their lease was up in L.A. The couple was also working remotely and considering moving somewhere else.

“Why don't we take this opportunity to be actual full time van lifers?” Arthur said. “At that time we considered ourselves as part-timers cause we were taking those long weekend trips for maybe a week at a time. We're like, wait a minute, let's kind of figure this out and see if it could work.”

So, for the next year, Patrick and Arthur and their two dogs lived in the van full-time, traveling cross country twice, including stops at some of their favorite places like the Oregon coast, the small town of Bisbee, Arizona, and of course different spots in California.

Patrick and Arthur's dogs in their van

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Courtesy Patrick and Arthur Collera-Ricca

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Their full-time embrace of van life coincided with the movement’s peak.

According to RVIA's Geraci, some 17,000 camper vans were built in 2022, an increase of more than eight fold from a decade prior. And that number, she noted, does not include other types of vans people can travel in or vans people converted themselves, like Patrick and Arthur's.

This uptick in interest spurred new businesses hoping to cash in on the retrofitted van market.

“We've been building vans since before they were cool,” Feld said. “When they became so popular, you saw a lot of people getting into the van building business.”

But with pandemic-related supply chain issues and COVID exposure hitting some of his employees, Feld said demand soon outpaced supply.

“If I could have predicted it, we would have had 500 vans already built and sitting here ready to go just to support that demand,” Feld said. “When the orders started stacking up, at one point it was like a two year wait list for us because you can only build them so fast.”

At the height of the movement, Patrick and Arthur said converted vans overran national parks and campsites.

“At a certain point, in certain areas, it was hard to find a place to stay, because there were so many people traveling,” said Patrick.

A movement on the decline

Patrick (left) and Arthur (right) standing outside their retro-fitted van

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Courtesy Patrick and Arthur Collera-Ricca

)

As COVID restrictions lifted and employers started to require people to go back to the office, the couple decided it was time to move back to L.A.

Now, they're back to being weekenders and rent out their van to others looking to dip in on the adventure.

Geraci said RV sales as a whole have since plateaued from their peak in 2022. Last year, about 12,000 camper vans were built — still well above pre-pandemic levels.

Whether #VanLife is still as large as it was during the pandemic, its effects on the RV industry seem to be lasting.

“Today's RVer is younger and more diverse than ever before,” said Geraci, adding that the median age for a first time RV buyer is now about 32.

“More people are developing products that can be used in a van or on a van,” said Feld. “Whether it be with the battery systems, like the lithium ion [or] solar.”

Patrick also thinks the movement is still very much alive — just not as a 24/7 lifestyle.

“I don't know that there's less interest," he said. "I think it's just there's now more options again for what a vacation or what a trip looks like.”

As Los Angeles homeowners grapple with the expense of rebuilding after last year’s devastating fires, an L.A. City Councilmember is putting forward an idea that could lower some costs.

Councilmember Traci Park, who represents the Pacific Palisades, has introduced a motion to explore waiving part of the city’s portion of the local sales tax for fire victims who purchase rebuilding materials in the city.

The 1% of the local 9.75% sales tax that goes into the city’s general fund would be given back to consumers under the proposal. The waiver could apply to lumber, appliances and other rebuilding goods purchased within the city.

The motion, introduced Friday by Park and seconded by Councilmember John Lee, says: “The City should do everything within its power to alleviate the financial burden for these residents and businesses in order to facilitate their return and stabilize the Pacific Palisades community.”

Would it make much of a difference? 

Economists told LAist the proposal could help many homeowners mitigate the high cost of rebuilding, but likely wouldn’t tip the scales for under-insured, under-resourced property owners.

“It wouldn't hurt if it's very well designed and easy to use,” said Alexander Meeks, a director at the Santa Monica-based Milken Institute. “But I'm not sure if it's really going to tackle the scale of the financial challenge that survivors are facing.”

Meeks noted that the tax waiver wouldn’t lower up-front costs such as environmental testing, architectural design and permitting. And it may not help homeowners sourcing raw materials from outside the city.

Zhiyun Li, a UCLA Anderson School of Management economist, said the waiver could help some homeowners justify the additional cost of rebuilding more fire-safe structures.

“Homeowners must typically pay out of pocket to upgrade to IBHS+ standards, which are more stringent,” Li said. “The tax waiver could encourage upgrading to IBHS+ standards or investing more in mitigation, thereby reducing future risk and improving the likelihood of maintaining insurance coverage.”

What’s next for the proposal? 

The proposed tax relief would not be available to properties that have been sold since the fires started in January 2025.

The motion has been sent to the City Council’s budget and fire recovery committees. If approved by the full council, it would require the city administrative officer, the Office of Finance and the city attorney to report back to the council within 60 days on options for crafting a tax relief plan.

The motion calls for the report to consider factors such as how to minimize the burden of administering the tax relief, what documentation homeowners would have to submit and what it would cost the city to oversee the program.

Senate and House Republican leadership have resurrected a stalled plan to fund the Department of Homeland Security after a record 47-day funding lapse.

House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., and Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., said in a joint statement on Wednesday that the House will take up a measure passed by the Senate last week to fund most of DHS except Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Border Patrol through the end of September.

Republicans would then attempt to fund ICE and Border Patrol for three years using a party-line budget reconciliation bill that would not require support from Democrats.

"In following this two-track approach, the Republican Congress will fully reopen the Department, make sure all federal workers are paid, and specifically fund immigration enforcement and border security for the next three years so that those law-enforcement activities can continue uninhibited," Thune and Johnson wrote.

The agreement comes nearly a week after House Republicans dismissed an identical plan, refusing to take up the Senate-passed measure and instead passing a 60-day short term funding bill for all of DHS that had little chance of overcoming Democratic opposition in the Senate.

Johnson called the agreement a "joke" and President Donald Trump declined to publicly endorse the deal. Trump had previously resisted any package that did not include his push to overhaul federal elections known as the Save America Act.

"I think any deal they make, I'm pretty much not happy with it," Trump told reporters last week.

Democrats welcomed the agreement as in line with their pledge not to give ICE any more money without reforms after immigration enforcement agents killed two U.S. citizens in Minneapolis. But the deal does not include any of the policy demands Democrats are pressing for, such as a ban on masks for immigration enforcement officers and requiring warrants issued by a judge, not just the agency, to enter homes.

"For days, Republican divisions derailed a bipartisan agreement, making American families pay the price for their dysfunction," Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., wrote in a statement Wednesday. "Throughout this fight, Senate Democrats never wavered."

Trump seemed to bless the revived plan earlier Wednesday, writing on social media that he wants a party-line bill to fund immigration enforcement on his desk by June 1.

"We are going to work as fast, and as focused, as possible to replenish funding for our Border and ICE Agents, and the Radical Left Democrats won't be able to stop us," Trump wrote.

Despite the shutdown, ICE has been minimally impacted because Republican lawmakers approved $75 billion for ICE through another party-line budget reconciliation bill last year.

Congress is on a two-week recess, but the Senate and House could move to fund all of DHS except ICE and CBP as early as Thursday using a procedure known as unanimous consent that allows the chambers to circumvent formal voting as long as no member objects.

Even during a recess when most members are not in Washington, this could be unpredictable, especially in the House, where many hard-line conservatives oppose a deal that does not fully fund DHS.

"Let's make this simple: caving to Democrats and not paying CBP and ICE is agreeing to defund Law Enforcement and leaving our borders wide open again," Rep. Scott Perry, R-Pa., a member of the ultra-conservative House Freedom Caucus, wrote on X. "If that's the vote, I'm a NO."

If a member does object, that could require waiting for another vote when all members are back from recess.

Claudia Grisales contributed reporting.
Copyright 2026 NPR

California clocked its second-worst snowpack on record Wednesday, a potentially troubling signal ahead for fire season.

It’s an alarming end to a winter that saw abnormally dry conditions briefly wiped from California’s drought map in January, for the first time in a quarter-century.

Though precipitation to date has been near average, much of it fell as rain rather than snow. Then March’s record-breaking heat melted most of the snow that remains. The state’s major reservoirs are nevertheless brimming above historic averages and are flirting with capacity, and a smattering of snow, rain and thunderstorms are dousing last month’s heat wave.

But experts now warn that California’s case of the missing snowpack could herald an early fire season in the mountains.

On Wednesday, state engineers conducting the symbolic April 1 snowpack measurement at Phillips Station south of Lake Tahoe found no measurable snow in patches of white dotting the grassy field.

“I want to welcome you call to probably one of the quickest snow surveys we’ve had — maybe one where people could actually use an umbrella,” joked Karla Nemeth, director of the California Department of Water Resources. “We’re getting a lot of questions about are we heading into a hydrologic drought? The answer is, I don’t know.”

State data reports that California’s snowpack is closing out the season at an alarming 18% of average statewide, and an even more abysmal 6% of average in the northern mountains that feed California’s major reservoirs.

Only the extreme drought year of 2015 beat this year’s snowpack for the worst on record, measuring in at just 5% of average on April 1st, when the snow historically is at its deepest.

“I think everyone's anticipating that it will be a long, busy fire season,” said Lenya Quinn-Davidson, director of the UC Division of Agriculture and Natural Resources Fire Network.

“Without a snowpack, and with an early spring, it just means that there’s much more time for something like that to happen.”

‘It’s pretty bizarre up here’ 

In the city of South Lake Tahoe, which survived the massive Caldor Fire in the fall of 2021 without losing any structures, fire chief Jim Drennan said his department is already ramping up prevention efforts.

“It's pretty bizarre up here right now. It really seems like June conditions more than March,” Drennan said. “People are already turning the sprinklers on for their lawns.”

Without more precipitation, an early spring may complicate prescribed burning efforts. But Drennan said fire agencies in the Tahoe basin can start mechanically clearing fuels from forest areas earlier than usual.

“That means we can get more work done,” he said.

It also means homeowners need to start hardening their homes now, said Martin Goldberg, battalion chief and fuels management officer for the Lake Valley Fire Protection District, which protects unincorporated communities in the Lake Tahoe Basin’s south shore.

Goldberg urges residents to scour their yards for burnable materials, create defensible space and reach out to local fire departments with questions. The risks are widespread — from firewood, wooden fences, gas cans, plants, pine needles — even lawn furniture stacked against a house.

“In years past, I wouldn't even think of raking and clearing until May,” Goldberg said. “But my yard's completely cleared of snowpack, and it has been for a couple weeks now.”

‘A haystack fire’

Battalion chief David Acuña, a spokesperson for Cal Fire, said fire season is shaped by more than just one year’s snowpack.

Climate change has been remaking California’s fire seasons into fire years. And California’s recent average to abundant water years have fueled what Acuña called “bumper crops of vegetation and brush.”

“Most of California is like a haystack. And if you’ve ever seen a haystack fire, they burn very intensely because there's layers of fuel,” Acuña said.

Like Quinn-Davidson, Acuña wasn’t ready to make specific predictions about fires to come.

But John Abatzoglou, a professor of climatology at UC Merced, said the temperatures and snowpack conditions this year offer a glimpse of California in the latter decades of this century, as fossil fuel use continues to drive global temperatures higher.

How this year’s fires will play out will depend on when, where and how wind, heat, fuel and ignitions combine. But it foreshadows the consequences of a warmer California for water and fire under climate change.

“This,” Abatzoglou said, “is yet another stress test for the future in the state.”

This article was originally published on CalMatters and was republished under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives license.