Harrison Schoen spent three months on the USS New Orleans staring at the ocean, watching for anyone who might fall overboard, when he decided his life needed to change. That decision eventually led him to a spotlight moment on national television, where he turned down $1 million rather than betray 60 strangers who had trusted him with the choice.
Enlisting in January 2016, Schoen served four years as a logistics specialist aboard the USS New Orleans and the USS Theodore Roosevelt before separating in January 2020.
It was during a deployment on the New Orleans, however, standing lookout watch for hours at a time, that the shift in mindset began.
“Those three months of staring at the ocean, aside from my normal job during the day, I just realized how much time was passing by and how much I really need to get on actually living my life and creating something and moving forward in a positive direction,” Schoen said.
After the Navy, Schoen used his VA home loan benefit to buy a house in San Diego, then cycled through side hustles: vinyl wrapping, Airbnb hosting, flipping cars on Turo. None of it stuck long-term. By 2021, he had sold nearly everything he owned and moved into an SUV, becoming part of a growing community of veterans who had swapped traditional housing for life on the road.
For two and a half years, he lived out of a Porsche Cayenne, documenting his nomadic lifestyle on social media, before purchasing a 1985 Mercedes-Benz Unimog in 2023. While the previous owner had spent nearly two decades restoring it, the truck blew its engine an hour into the drive home.
Since getting it back on the road that November, Schoen has lived in it full time while continuing to renovate it, sinking close to $300,000 into the build.
“I’ve spent almost $300,000 entirely on this truck, both purchasing the truck and during ownership,” Schoen said. “It was taking so much of my free time doing all of these things as well.”
That lifestyle, and his Navy background, is what caught the attention of casting directors for the first season of “Beast Games,” the Amazon Prime Video competition series hosted by American YouTuber and media personality MrBeast, aka Jimmy Donaldson.
The 2024 series, inspired by Netflix’s dystopian hit “Squid Game,” features 1,000 contestants as they compete for $5 million.
Schoen made it deep into the show’s first season and was chosen by 60 fellow contestants to serve as their team captain during a high-stakes challenge, largely because of the steady, low-key demeanor he had shown throughout the competition.
“People were able to kind of see safety in that, even though I told all 60 of these people that I live in a car,” Schoen said.
As team captain, Schoen was offered a counter that climbed toward $1 million, his alone to take if he pressed a button in front of him to eliminate his entire team from the competition. He didn’t take it.
“It wasn’t even a thought in my head that I would accept the money,” he said.
He was eliminated the following episode after a game of chance, declining an offer of immunity from two fellow contestants beforehand.
Schoen credits his service for the instincts that carried him through the show and the years of nomadic living that came before it.
“The military has allowed me to just move freely throughout the world, with the understanding of how to be safe with things, of how to only have a few important belongings, because that’s what you can carry,” he said. “And just the confidence to take care of yourself in whatever situations arise.”
He’s quick to note that the transition wasn’t seamless. “One of the hardest things to overcome that the military instills is moving from being told what to do, when to do it, every day for years, to having complete freedom,” Schoen said. “Nobody’s coming to save me, nobody’s going to tell me how to succeed in what I’m doing. It’s all on you.”
Now approaching 30, Schoen said he’s ready to trade constant motion for something steadier, even as he plans one more long ride: a motorcycle trip down the Pan-American Highway toward Argentina.
“I want to focus in the near future on building a life that someone can be a part of,” Schoen said. “I mostly want a place that I can call home.”
