Rachel Randolph Goes Mobile With Van Lifestyle
Writer / Seth Johnson
Photographer / Michael Durr
In a time when more and more Americans are working from home, Rachel Randolph has made the decision to put her home office on wheels.
“If I can make my home and car payment all the same thing, I’m literally saving money being remote, and I can live in this thing where I can drive to these places I want to go to,” Randolph says.
No stranger to exploring new terrain, Randolph moved to Indianapolis from Manhattan in 2014, after losing her job as a pastry chef due to injury. Upon coming to Indianapolis, she found herself without a social network, which led to the start of a meet-up concept she called ConnectED.
“ConnectED was basically just a space for people to have discussions on what it meant to communicate and what we struggle with,” Randolph says. “From there, I really felt called to help people figure out communication skills.”
This led to Randolph starting her own business, called Spec.
“I took a neuro-linguistic programming course to understand my own programming so I could improve communication skills from the inside out,” Randolph says. “It’s basically just really fancy introspection. Then, I realized that not a lot of people knew what introspection was and how it played a role in communication. I created Spec, which is introspective communication consulting.”
Randolph began working remotely out of the Speak Easy in Broad Ripple.
“I’m a Speak Easy member and an entrepreneur,” she says. “I love Broad Ripple. I love the people and members of the Speak Easy.”
With much of her work going remote, however, now seemed like as good a time as any to pursue the van life.
“Everything just lined up and made a lot of sense,” Randolph says. “It made more sense to do it than to not do it. That’s where I was back in August, so from August to now is when it all went down.”
Throughout the year, Randolph plans on migrating to where the weather is best.
“In my new lifestyle, I’ll travel seasonally,” she says. “Now, it’s the springtime and I’m going to head to the southwest. I’ll probably do summer in Washington and Montana. I’ll come back to Indy in the fall, and then I’ll do another loop.”
As she embarks on these adventures, however, Randolph emphasizes that Broad Ripple will always remain home to her.
“Indiana, and Broad Ripple specifically, are my home base,” she says. “I will always come back here. My friends that live here have been so supportive. I’ve benefited so much from Broad Ripple that I probably wouldn’t have been able to do this without Broad Ripple. It’s not a stretch to say that. It took a village, honestly, to make this solo van traveling happen.”
Learn more about Spec at yourspeccoach.com, and keep up with Randolph’s adventures at instagram.com/rachelannerandolph.
