In 2019, Sophie Hilaire Goldie was a consultant at McKinsey & Company, traveling constantly and barely living in her New York City apartment.

That summer, the former captain in the U.S. Army climbed Mount Everest, an experience that she says changed the course of her life.

"When I did that, I had this epiphany that I wanted to spend more time in nature and Central Park to me wasn't really the level of nature I needed," Hilaire Goldie tells CNBC Make It.

"On the plane ride home, I knew I couldn't go back to life in New York," she says. "That moment of knowing launched the next chapter — van life, homesteading, and loving myself. The mountain did transform me. She gave me direction and that's been the real gift."

When Hilaire Goldie returned to NYC, she didn't renew her lease. But then the covid-19 pandemic hit and she found herself without a home and without a clue of where she wanted to head to next.

"I thought, 'I'm not ready to pay rent or buy a house, so why don't I move into a sprinter van and continue to visit different places and see where I want to land?'" Hilaire Goldie says.

"I always knew I wanted to get a van just to have, but this kind of felt like a no-regrets move because I thought, 'Why don't I just get it now, so I don't have to pay rent anywhere and I can keep on traveling?' I didn't know how long the pandemic was going to last."

Hilaire Goldie started searching and found a van on Craigslist for $29,900, according to documents reviewed by CNBC Make It. Her dad picked it up for her in Oregon and the two met up in Colorado, where Hilaire Goldie's life on the road began.

The van had already been partially built out but still needed a lot of work. Hilaire Goldie added a bedroom area, a kitchen, IKEA cabinets, solar panels, and a desk. She did most of the work herself and estimates she spent about $18,500 in renovations.

When Hilaire Goldie first lived in the van, she was still working as a consultant, so her daily life consisted of waking up to an alarm and working on her computer until the end of the day. She eventually quit her job and started really enjoying life in the van.

"I really enjoyed that period of life where nobody knew who I was and nobody had any expectations of me, which for me, was a big difference in how I was able to move through the world," she says. "I didn't feel like I ever needed to be on, I could just be van life Sophie, and people didn't know I'd only been living in a van for a few years."

Hilaire Goldie's No. 1 lesson: 'I needed to let go of control'

Hilaire Goldie traveled all over the U.S., Mexico, and Canada and says the biggest lesson she learned from all these travels was not to plan anything.

"I realized that I can't make plans that are better than what God has in store for me. I think I learned that lesson so many times in the van. Every time things didn't go my way, I eventually learned to let it go. Don't ruminate over something that was taken," Hilaire Goldie says. "Whatever new path I was on, I just knew it was taking me somewhere even better than I could have come up with on my own."

"I learned I needed to let go of control and it was a different way of traveling. Before, when I had a four-day weekend in the army or was working at McKinsey, I was scheduling every single second, but this was a lot more free flowing. I always found out that when I didn't script things, they turned out even better."

One of the fondest memories Hilaire Goldie has of living in the van was when she took a trip to Montana. She intended to find a place with no cellphone reception and learn how to sleep again after spending many sleepless nights working as a consultant.

"It was so simple, but it was so powerful, so having my little house with me throughout felt like I could not have planned anything better. I had my home, but was still in a very beautiful place," she says.

After two years in the van, Hilaire Goldie realized she was ready to put down some roots.

"I just wanted a place where I could see a tree through four seasons and didn't like the constant movement. It was a phase in my life that was exciting and it just got to the point where I was ready for a new phase," she says.

Now, Hilaire Goldie lives on a 37.5-acre homestead she bought with her now husband, but still uses the van every day. It has essentially become a place to store supplies for their property, including chicken feed, hay, soil and more.

Hilaire Goldie has no plans to stop using the van — she and her husband even lived in it for a few months on their honeymoon.

"I will never sell this van. How could I sell the temple that I built? When the day comes, the van will become a little cabin on the property," she says.

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