From Hurricane Road Trips to Paddleboarding: How Portable Solar Keeps a Storyteller Moving

A Life Framed by Nature

“Nature is so very simply beautiful. Just the bustling of the wind through the trees. The frogs and the crickets and the tapetas put this beautiful orchestra,” Angelique says. It's the kind of observation that explains why she became a visual storyteller. “I’m Angelique Herring. I’m a visual storyteller. I’ve always loved telling stories. Always,” she says plainly — a short line that carries a long habit.

That habit took new shape during lockdown, when Angelique felt the urge to simplify and test life on the road. She first imagined, and then tried, van life: “Hit the road with my camera and travel around and tell stories, and I could live out of the van.” The idea suited her curiosity, which combined writing, photography, and video into a single life. As she put it, she wanted to be “a triple threat” that includes writing, shooting stills, and making videos. And the van gave her a way to do it from wherever she happened to be.

The Van Idea and a Hurricane Road Trip

Not long after she started thinking about it, a hurricane nudged the van idea forward. “Very shortly after, there was a hurricane. My friends and I climbed into her car, and we ended up on this wild road trip. And I documented the entire thing and shared it on social media. I was hooked going forward.” That road trip turned a creative experiment into a way of life: travel, story, and a camera always ready.

A Practical Discovery

Van life often comes with a tangle of battery questions. It's a part Angelique admits she didn’t want to overcomplicate. “I didn’t really wanna mess with going through all of the battery stuff that comes with van life, the electrical things,” she says. Then she spotted someone using a Jackery product, and the choice became obvious. “I came across someone using, like, a Jackery product, and I thought, that’s it. That’s the way to go,” she says.

She uses her Jackery Solar Generator every day in practical ways: charging cameras and drones, running a fan, powering a stove and refrigerator, and keeping small comforts working while she edits or uploads from the van. If that sounds like practically depending on Jackery products, then you heard it right. “So I use my Jackery’s…for a lot. I’m charging a lot of things…a lot of the time. I also use my Jackery just to make a living and kind of like working from my van more livable,” she explains.

When Power Kept a Trip Afloat

For Angelique, Jackery proved to keep her afloat and safe during one of her many travel expeditions. On a  fishing trip in Kentucky, during tornado season, she and her companions got caught in a storm.  “We didn’t really know what we were looking at at first. Everything was dark. And then our phones started ringing. There were all kinds of alarms, and we realized ‘Oh gosh, this is a tornado.’”

The basement of their Airbnb was flooded due to the tornado. Thankfully, she had brought both of her Jackeries. “Thankfully, on that trip, I had both of my Jackeries. The basement floor of our Airbnb flooded. We were able to use the sump pump to kind of get up a lot of that water…with the Jackery. Able to light up kind of the rest of our trip for the time that the power was out, which is probably at least a day,” Angelique says.

“Because of the Jackery, I feel a lot safer,” she sighs in relief. That kind of reassurance which comes from being able to keep basic systems running while storms move through is exactly why Angelique keeps portable power with her on the road.

Working Wherever the Story Takes Her

By day, she works at NASA Langley Research Center as a communication strategist, translating technical research into stories that audiences can care about. “I work at the NASA Langley Research Center as a communication strategist, and now I’m working with just telling different stories of the scientists and finding ways to share all of the cool research that we’re doing in a way that’s engaging for our audiences,” she says. 

She also runs a studio that helps brands tell their visual stories, so sometimes she’s in an office and sometimes on the tail end of a camping trip, editing footage from the van. Her workflow leans on portability. She’ll edit photos or cut a short video from wherever she happens to be.

As she puts it, “Sometimes it looks like going to the office. Sometimes, I'll even be on the tail end of a camping trip and just be working from my van from wherever I happen to be.” Jackery makes that possible: reliable power means she can mix professional deadlines with remote life.

Angelique usually travels alone, but not always. “Usually just me. Most people don’t like getting eaten alive by bugs for fun,” she laughs. Last year, she even convinced her mom to camp with her for a week. It didn’t exactly go smoothly: “Particularly, I went camping last year for, like, a week with my mom. She hated the bugs so very much,” Angelique admits with a smile.

Paddleboarding, Drones, and Quiet Joys

Angelique loves being on the water and has layered that love onto her visual practice. She says, “I really knew that I loved surfing. I loved being on the water. And so I was just looking for a way to get out on the water that didn’t always involve having to go to the ocean. And paddleboarding seemed like the perfect opportunity.” 

She brings a camera and a drone to capture quiet mornings on a board and uses her Jackery to inflate gear and keep batteries topped off. “I have been known to bring my camera out on my paddleboard and usually my drone so that I can try and get pictures.” Those outings, she says, “almost kinda feel like camping,” a restful way to be present and record the world she loves.

She also uses her Jackery to simplify the small tasks that make those outdoor excursions possible. For example, she can inflate an inflatable board, charge camera batteries between shots, and run the little comforts that make long days outside sustainable.

Norfolk, Rising Seas, and a Sense of Stewardship

Angelique thinks like a local and like a scientist when she talks about places. “Norfolk, Virginia, is one of the places in the country that’s going to be most affected and has already been affected by sea level rise,” she says, explaining local geology and how slow movements of land combine with rising seas to make flooding worse. “So flooding can get absolutely horrible, and it’s not unheard of for big storms to come through and knock out power.”

Her environmental perspective is practical and personal. “My personal beliefs regarding the environment are that the world would be a better place if we all saw ourselves as stewards of the world that we inhabit,” she says. “We’re all kind of working in harmony with each other,” she adds.

Solar Equation: Stewardship in Practice

Jackery fits into her ethic of stewardship. Angelique is explicit about why a solar-capable, portable power system appeals to her: “Jackery fits in really, really well to my aspirations to be the best steward of the planet that I can be. Having something that I can charge over solar or that I can charge while I’m driving makes the best use of the resources that I’m using, so that I never feel like I’m wasting anything. And I’m getting the best bang for my buck every single time, so that I know that the impact that I’m making on the environment is a good one.”

That sentence ties her creative life to a larger belief that portable power can be both practical and low-impact, letting her tell stories without leaving unnecessary waste behind.

The Comfort of Portable Power

For Angelique, Jackery is a practical tool and a creative enabler. It frees her to follow stories, to sleep where the camera points, and to keep working when the grid is unreliable. It turned a lockdown idea into a way of life, and it has kept storms from derailing trips and creative work. “I feel a lot safer,” she repeats. It's simple, true, and the through-line of everything she does on the road.