How America Learned to Love the Airstream Again

Jordan Menzel had separated from his wife two years ago when he sold his Salt Lake City house for $350,000 and needed a place to live. “I didn’t want to buy a home again, and I didn’t want to spend obscene amounts on rent, either,” he says. Biking through town one day, he saw a 1976 silver Airstream for sale on the side of the road. Menzel had never owned an RV nor been inside an Airstream before, but with “dangerously little foresight,” he says, he bought the trailer for $4,000.

Menzel, 31, spent three months tearing out the 40-year-old shag carpet and junking outdated appliances. Then he parked it in a friend’s 40-acre field. He’s still there—well, technically he’s moved to a nearby yard—and when he’s not, he rents his Airstream out on Airbnb for $100 a night. Menzel, who works in software marketing, estimates he’s already saved about $40,000 in rent. “At first people thought, Oh, Jordan’s going through a midlife crisis,” he says. “But it’s not a trend for me.”