I Lived in a Van to Write the Book Behind ‘Nomadland.’ The Fear Is Real.

Spending the first night in my 1995 GMC camper van, I lay awake for hours in my sleeping bag, watching the window shades glow — white, then red, over and over — as cars sped past in the dark. Is that one slowing down? I wondered. Can they see I’m in here? Will they call the cops?

Van dwellers had told me about “the knock” — usually three sharp raps at the door, often by the police. The risk of getting jolted awake and kicked off my patch of asphalt kept me uneasy and made it hard to sleep.

I was living in a van as a journalist, as research for my book “Nomadland.” Over the course of three years, I followed Americans who had been squeezed out of traditional housing and moved into vans, late-model RVs, even a few sedans. I drove more than 15,000 miles — from coast to coast, from Mexico to the Canadian border. And night after night, I bedded down in a new place, whether a truck stop or the Sonoran Desert. Sometimes I stayed on city streets or in suburban parking lots, which rattled me in ways I’d never expected.