The experience of a 70-year-old woman who drives a truck to travel and sells used books throughout the United States

From May to October, 70-year-old Rita Collins can be seen in the front seat of a white Sprinter van driving across the United States. In an age of van life-themed Instagram photos, Collins’ trip is different. Around, in the back of her truck, is a fully functional second-hand bookstore.

While stopping in towns and small cities across the United States, Collins delights in people’s astonishment when he finds that his truck is unlike any other. Whether parking outside a book fair, cafe or farmers market, Collins catches the eye, and she encourages people to climb the wooden steps and look inside.

Like most brick-and-mortar bookstores, the St. Ms. Collins’s Rita’s Traveling Bookstore and Textual Apothecary features floor-to-ceiling shelves organized by genre, overhead lighting and a rug on the floor. The main difference, of course, is that it is placed on 4 wheels. The 600 books were placed at a 15-degree angle to keep them from falling as Collins drove from state to state. So far, Ms. Collins has traveled across the country three times.

For the bookstore to function, Collins had to imagine a lot, because there weren’t many models to follow (as of now, only a handful of travel bookstores are in business – one in the Bronx, the other in France. ).

In 2015, when contemplating quitting his job as a teacher, Collins dreamed of opening a bookstore. “Don’t all book lovers want to open a bookstore?” Collins mused. However, during a week-long business planning course with the Booksellers Association of America, Collins learned that opening a bookstore would not be sustainable where she lived. Originally from Baltimore, the self-proclaimed “nomadic spirit” left home at the age of 18, living in 9 states and two countries before settling in the small town of Eureka, MT, near the Canadian border.

With a population of 1,517, Eureka doesn’t have much traffic to maintain a bookstore. So Collins thought of bringing the bookstore to others. She contacted Jeff Towns, owner of Dylan’s Mobile Bookstore, a travel bookstore in Wales to learn some tips, such as having a typewriter as a way to attract customers. Currently, she is placing a typewriter outside the store, along with tables, chairs and display stands.

Collins went to the mechanic to ask for a car that was large enough to hold his books, easy to park, and easy to use. She also met an architect friend to design the bookshelves, which are so effective that to this day, she has never lost a book while driving. Mrs. Collins then hired a graphic designer to create the logo for the bookstore’s name, partly inspired by mobile medicine carts, in a style that only books can heal.

The first summer, Mrs. Collins toured her county in northwestern Montana. Then a couple from Brooklyn gave her the idea to go there. Collins made her first cross-country trip in the summer of 2016. Ms. Collins’ business continues to be sustained by the connections she made along the way.

This summer, Mrs. Collins will be going to the South Dakota Book Festival, on the recommendation of a woman in the parking lot. She will stop in Nebraska, Montana and Colorado. At the end of the season, she will visit Portland and Bainbridge Island.

As Collins drove away, she was aided by strangers on the street. When he started traveling in a book truck, Collins gave himself a timeline, which could be a year or two. Now, she sees that she will continue to do this, indefinitely. Ms. Collins also doesn’t think it’s possible to run a profitable business from traveling cross-country by truck. Collins says it’s breaking even now, making no more money, but not losing it either.