For years now the bohemian Instagram hashtag #VanLife has told us this is all we need in life. Foster Huntington, the man behind the hashtag, quit his well-paying job in 2011 and gave up his New York City apartment to explore, surf and share pictures of his new life on Instagram.

He came up with the hashtag as a joking reference to Tupac's famous Thug Life tattoo.

It quickly evolved, and #VanLife became its own movement, inspiring people to pack up their nine-to-five office jobs for the simple life, seeing the world with the bare essentials.

The ever-growing hashtag now has more than six million posts.

So here I am, giving #VanLife a go - for a week.

I'm standing behind my hired campervan in a car park by the beach at Byron Bay, toasting my bread in a frying pan and eagerly waiting to smother it in avocado.

It's lunchtime, and already hitting 30 degrees.

Who said a holiday in the Northern Rivers is an expensive getaway?

I had some leave booked in and wanted to explore the NSW north coast without feeling like I was breaking the bank.

I convinced my partner that if we hired a campervan for eight days, and cooked most of our meals, we would save a decent amount of coin.

This was a new experience for both of us. I had heard stories of friendships and relationships either making it or breaking it after spending a chunk of time on the road together in camper.

We pick up our 1995 Toyota Hiace, and immediately I feel like we've travelled 25 years back in time.

The air-conditioning is broken, and we don't have the luxury of winding our windows down with a convenient button. The clunky gear stick is making my left arm develop muscles for the first time.

Oh yes, and the engine is as loud as a bus.

Sweat is pouring down my neck, and I start to reminisce about cruising in my air-conditioned hatchback.

We decided to break up the trip and stay on private properties including a macadamia and garlic farm in Nambucca Heads, a permaculture site at The Channon, and an alpaca farm at Yamba.

Each night we have to rush to make dinner before the sun goes down, and we find ourselves falling asleep before nine o'clock. We wake up at eight in the morning and have outside showers with our water sourced from rain tanks.

A few days in and I notice how unnatural my circadian rhythm normally is. At home I'm not relying on daylight to cook dinner. I have the luxuries of powered lights and am safely tucked inside my little nest where I don't need to fight off hungry mosquitoes.

On that, I'm allergic to mosquitoes. The bites swell so large and I'm scratching for days, if not weeks. I drench myself in repellent but I've learned the hard way, some just don't work for me.

As the sun goes down there's an urgency to put everything away very quickly. Then to make my way into the campervan, while making sure no pesky blood-loving vampires have snuck in. It really becomes quite a challenge.

Living out of a van has made me realise how our day-to-day needs are really quite basic. It seems that our desires are more focused on the excessive luxuries that we have elevated to daily essentials.

By the end of our trip the thought of indulging myself at a cafe became less appealing. There is really something alluring about cooking myself a meal in nature and of course, having a coffee brewing. Enjoying it at my own pace, wherever I may be, whether that's in a car park by my van or in a secluded location.

As I anticipated, we didn't spend a whole lot of money. The van was the largest expense at $700 for eight days, however I would choose a more expensive van in the future, for the sake of comfort.

I would recommend having a campervan with solar panels, and a fridge. The solar panels save you finding sites to connect to power, and I don't need to explain why having a fridge with you wherever you go is quite a frill.

I can certainly see how that simple Instagram hashtag appeals to so many people. It has definitely left me yearning for my next van adventure.

In the best news of all, I didn't want to see the back end of my partner once we had wrapped up the trip. It's amazing how having no choice but to pee a metre away from someone in the bush can make you emotionally closer.