Jack Kerouac wrote those words in his seminal 1957 book On The Road. They sound an awful lot like vanlife, a modern-day version of the eternal desire for freedom.

Which brings us to a documentary called The Meaning of Vanlife.

Director Jim Lounsbury, who teaches a film class at Avondale College in Cooranbong, became interested in making a documentary about vanlife after experiencing the culture for himself in Australia.

The vanlife subculture mushroomed through an Instagram handle and Vanlife Diaries website, started by Australians Jonny Dustow and Jared Campbell.

"They just hit this wave, where there's huge interest. There's a lot of people on the road looking for ways to connect," Jim said.

"They kind of hit it at the right time."

Vanlife Diaries shares worldwide stories of people's lives on the road.

"People would send them stories and photos and they'd publish them, so it just grew," Jim said.

Almost half a million people now follow the vanlifediaries Instagram handle. A community was formed. Meet ups in the real world are often held.

Jim attended one in northern NSW a few years ago, had a cool experience and decided to make the documentary.

He raised $63,000 through a Kickstarter campaign to make the film.

"I knew it wasn't necessarily a commercial project. People are interested in subcultures, but I didn't think the TV networks would think it was something for the mainstream."

He tapped into the vanlife community, spending time on the road in Australia, America, Canada and Germany.

Jim sought to examine why the vanlife community struck a chord with so many.

"Predominantly, people in Vanlife are going through some sort of life change," he said.

He found a movement of people questioning why they're working so hard for so little lifestyle.

"They throw a bed in the back of a van and spend a couple of years detached from expectation," he said.

Many vanlifers were rethinking ideas about money, home, family and life itself.

They free themselves from a mortgage or rent and take time to contemplate what really matters to them and what they want from life.

"For many people, they end up going back and living in a house, but they often do things differently when they settle down," he said.

Many vanlifers were essentially on an extra long road trip.

"Road trips are all about new discoveries - taking a journey into the self, as well as somewhere," Jim said.

"Being on the road full time is really an introspective, philosophical journey.

"A lot of people are out there just enjoying life, travelling, nature bathing and getting away from all the stimuli and trappings that come with capitalist expectation."

Jim believes vanlife is a re-emergence of the bohemian culture, which can be traced back to the days of author Jack Kerouac and the Beat Generation of the 1950s.

"We've seen that return before with the hippy movement in the '60s and the grunge movement of the '90s," he said.

"It's a sense of a return to core values, which ultimately are about human connection, throwing away the trappings of commercialism and trying to get back to nature.

"We can lose sight of this when we're in cities and hermetically-sealed office cubicles."

The Meaning of Vanlife is streaming on Stan and also available through iTunes, Amazon Prime and Google Play.

While reading a newsletter from a local retirement community, Eunice from Belmont came across a recipe for "Winsome's Apricot Liqueur".

Eunice noted a typo in the newsletter. The brandy was referred to as brandsy.

"Suspect the author had been sampling the drink," Eunice deadpanned.

Eunice reckons the drink must be healthy, given it had "high-fibre apricots, anti-inflammatory cinnamon and honey and - last but not least - "medicinal brandy".

"Actually, you aren't fit to go anywhere after two glasses but you feel no pain and simply don't care," she said.

Fingal Bay's Steve Barnett noticed that people holidaying in his area were using a "blow-up pool full of precious water".

Steve wasn't impressed, given the Lower Hunter is on water restrictions.

He dubbed them "water wallies". Actually he used a different word starting with w, but we probably shouldn't publish that word because some people might get offended.

This will, no doubt, offend Steve almost as much as the water wallies because he's not a fan of political correctness.