How I Built a Custom Camper Van (2015) | Hacker News Reader

How I Built a Custom Camper Van (2015)

syntheti.cc

751 pointspvsukale3340 comments

I did something similar.

I wanted a vehicle I could explore the world with, so I turned my Jeep into a house on wheels with fridge, drinking water and filtration, solar and dual batteries, interior cabinets and a custom modified pop-up roof so I can stand up and walk around in the Jeep.

I joked about applying for a home owners grant :)

The full pictures and story are in this album - http://imgur.com/a/OLK3o

I'm driving it around Africa now.

EDIT: I'm a Software Engineer too, and I decided there is more to life than sitting at a desk - a few years back I drove Alaska->Argentina, now it's around Africa for 2 years.

EDIT2: I've hit my posting limit.

Yes, I'm still alive!

Follow along if you want to see if I stay that way!

Facebook: https://facebook.com/theroadchoseme

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/theroadchoseme

Twitter: https://twitter.com/dangrec

YouTube: http://youtube.com/c/theroadchoseme

And my website: http://theroadchoseme.com

You Are The Truth, Sir!

I read your story on reddit a little while ago. Its a really interesting choice and I applaud your sense of adventure. What I don't get was the swap to a Mercedes diesel. Your argument for it made sense, but why not a toyota diesel, for example? :)

At the time I thought it made sense... of course hindsight is great.

If I wanted a Toyota diesel, I would have just bought a Toyota, but I didn't want that.

The reason for the merc is that the engine I chose (the OM606) is the most sophisticated non-computer controlled diesel possible - actually it came from the factory with a computer, but by using the injection pump from the earlier OM603 it can be made fully mechanical. This is a boon for repairs, simplicity, and the ability to burn basically anything like kerosene. It also means it's powerful and efficient, and mileage was my number 1 goal.

Also, that Merc engine happens to come from the factory in many cars with exactly the same gearbox as in my Jeep (the NSG370), so things made sense there. Jeep have also used Merc diesels in the past (not in the Wrangler), so that made sense too.

It was an ambitious plan, and I'm glad that I tried, even though it didn't work out in the end.

That aside, I'm in west Africa now, having the time of my life :)

I also remember the reddit thread. There were a LOT of people questioning your decision to tour Africa, with some scary sounding warnings.

Have you run into anything as dangerous as they made it seem?

Nope, not one single thing. And I've been talking to many, many people traveling here, including people backpacking, and they are loving every second.

People here are extremely friendly and welcoming, and the landscape is breathtaking. "Africa" does not deserve the reputation it has.

I've never met anyone that has traveled in Africa that would say otherwise.

> I've never met anyone that has traveled in Africa that would say otherwise.

Because the rest are all dead?

> I've never met anyone that has traveled in Africa that would say otherwise.

That could be survivor bias.

> I've never met anyone that has traveled in Africa that would say otherwise.

I have. Many.

And not just "travelled" to Africa—actually lived there.

Africa can be safe, at times, but it can also turn brutal seemingly overnight depending on where you are.

Saying that it's safe (without any caveats) is basically irresponsible IMO—especially if you are white/foreign. Very different customs/culture. It's not for everyone.

Honestly, the same could be said of the USA. I live in South Africa. People smile and greet you on the streets, the weather is great. I feel secure.

What about an OM617?

That has to be one of the simplest, reliable, and over-engineered motors MB ever made. I spent 5 years running mine on vegetable oil! I figure that would have been a good Africa motor.

How's getting gas been so far?

OM617s are every bit as reliable as 603s and 606s, but

1) the non-turbo versions are absolute dogs 2) manual valve clearance adjustments are annoying 3) vibrate more

Why not just swap in a new motor at that point instead of getting a whole new vehicle? The long block should be pretty plug-and-play since all the adaptations had been done already?

I had already sunk waaaaay too much time and money into the conversion, and it was far from finished. I was burning money much too fast.

Even if the engine didn't blow up, there was still months of work to iron out bugs.

After the hard miles I've done here in Africa, I'm actually immensely happy it didn't work out, and that I have a factory drive train in my Jeep now.

What a bummer about that engine blowing up, after all that work :(

But great to see you took that as a character building exercise and kept going!

You're still alive! I remember reading about you and everyone tore you up for your route in africa.

Iirc he said he was going to drive through places like Syria, Ivory Coast and so on up the east side of the continent. He hasn't gotten that far yet, so there is still a good chance for him to stick to his original plan and die. I hope he doesn't.

I find your comment dissapointing.

You speak with such authority and finality, yet your basic lack of African geography makes me wonder if you have any experience at all.

When was the last time you were in Africa? For how long? where exactly did you go?

You may want to have a look at a map at where Ivory Coast is.

Maybe it should have been in quotation marks, I'm repeating what was said on the reddit thread from memory. I don't really care about the guy or his trip. The only thing I really care about is why he put a MB diesel in a Jeep (twice).

I'm "the guy".

I didn't put MB diesels into a Jeep twice, I only did it once.

When that engine blew up, I bailed out, and I'm now driving a completely stock driveline 3.8 gas engine Rubicon.

Curious as to whether you went with the 3.8 because it was what would have been OE, or if there was an advantage to it over the 3.6.

Unlike most others in here, I'm not trying to second-guess you -- everybody's choices are personal choices, and I'm sure you had reasons for every choice you made that we weren't necessarily privy to -- I'm just curious, as I don't hear of a lot of 3.8s getting swapped INto JKs

The Ivory Coast is west and Syria is not even in Africa...

Didn't say otherwise. Read it again because it says "places like" and "so on up the". Good luck 2nd time around.

You drove from Alaska to Argentina? How did you drive through the Darien Gap in Panama?

It looks like he took a ferry:

http://theroadchoseme.com/panama-to-colombia-vehicle-ferry-x...

I shipped the Jeep in a container from Colon, Panama to Cartagena, Colombia.

I wrote up the whole process in great detail so others could follow in my footsteps.

http://theroadchoseme.com/shipping-across-the-darien-gap-pt-...

There was no ferry when I did it, and it's been cancelled again now.

Lol, still rumours of a ferry. Was the same when we crossed in 2012

The ferry did actually run for a few months in 2014. A few friends took it.

Now it's not running again.

I didn't know you were a hacker! I've been following you online for some time!

Oh man, I remember reading your reddit post, and pooh-poohing your idea as stupid and irresponsible.

I reckoned a Jeep was about the worst possible vehicle for the job, that you would break down and be stuck because nobody drives Jeeps in Africa. I still believe a Landcruiser, Land Rover Defender, or a G-Wagen would've been a better choice in terms of parts and repairs, but it seems the Jeep has held up fine.

I'm actually quite happy to have been proven wrong. Congratulations on a safe and fun trip!

I agreed. For central america at least, Land Cruisers (or anything Toyota) are your best bet.

> I still believe a Landcruiser, Land Rover Defender, or a G-Wagen would've been a better choice in terms of parts and repairs

Of course the landcruiser would have been. It also would have cost twice as much, and I couldn't get a diesel one in Canada.

Registering and insuring a vehicle in a country you don't live in is near impossible, and then renewing it while on the road is even closer to impossible. It's not something I wanted to deal with.

I find it strange the conventional wisdom is to drive a 25+ year old vehicle with 300,000+ miles instead of a near-near vehicle with <80,000 miles.

My last Jeep didn't have a single mechanical issue in 40k miles from Alaska to Argentina, and of all the overlanders I have ever heard of (a lot) I have never heard of a single landcruiser or defender doing that.

It's all about choice, and variety. If we all did the same thing, life would be pretty boring, wouldn't it!

A new landcruiser would probably cost twice as much, but a 10 to 20 year old won't break the bank. It actually makes sense buying an older vehicle because they're much simpler, mechanically.

Will the old landcruiser break down? Maybe, probably even. But the good thing is that any mechanic in even the remotest African village can fix it. Good luck finding a bush mechanic who can sort out a CANBUS-error in your Jeep...

Having said that, I have to admit I'm just an armchair warrior. I read your story on Reddit and I massively enjoyed your undertakings. Hats off to you for actually persuing your crazy plans!

> A new landcruiser would probably cost twice as much, but a 10 to 20 year old won't break the bank. It actually makes sense buying an older vehicle because they're much simpler, mechanically.

Of course, you are right.

Remember though I can't get a diesel.

> But the good thing is that any mechanic in even the remotest African village can fix it. Good luck finding a bush mechanic who can sort out a CANBUS-error in your Jeep...

Of course it adds to the complications if and when something breaks down, but that's all part of the journey. I have friends in the USA that can send me any part I need, and I'll kick back for a few weeks while it arrives and I install it, or have a mechanic do it for me. That's perfectly fine, I don't have a timeline. Waiting a month somewhere is not in any way a problem, it will just allow me to learn the language better and get involved with the community.

> Having said that, I have to admit I'm just an armchair warrior

It's interesting you acknowledge that.

I spent 2 years driving 40k miles through 16 countries. I created and moderate wikioverland.org, and have attended and presented at Overland Expo. I'm a moderator on multiple overlanding forums and fb groups, and I've personally met hundreds of overlanders, and "met" thousands more online. I've spent years of my life researching and planning and talking to people. I've watched and learned from literally hundreds of people that have made the same journey I'm making. Even one in a Wrangler!

I did do a tiny bit a research here, you don't need to "convince" me of your opinion that a Toyota is "better"

A Jeep wasn't a diesel either. There are quite a few rover converts roaming my area.

Edit: Didn't scroll down far enough to see your install ran away from you. Ouch..

Either way, it worked out well for you so who cares! Love your story.

Awesome build - was that a DeLorean in the garage in http://i.imgur.com/wqXRJVp.jpg? Great taste in cars!

That's no DeLorean, it looks like an old Z28, maybe about ~1980

Yeah, true story: I make 250K per year and live in a minivan. Wellll, ok, I actually have a mortgage and a house but that's somewhere else :)

Pro tip: xfinity is your friend.

The reality is that everyone can do this. And why not? The big problem with this model, though, is lack of property taxes. And parking spots.

I would happily pay for X per month for a nice parking spot though and my fair share of property taxes. Ok, maybe not happily, I have to admit I do enjoy free.

What will be really interesting for this model is when we get self driving cars.

Can confirm. Was crashing in my van around Palo Alto outside of Social Capital's office for a bit. I wrote a few articles about them: https://medium.com/@sinkorswim/one-free-night-425196d2e2fc#....

I basically founded my entire new startup and team while homeless. It sucked sometimes, but it was an experience. Would I recommend it to everyone? Probably not hahah, but if you're brave enough you should try it at least once. :)

Do you keep a blog?

How do you use restroom and shower during the night? I hope you are not one of those who drain their urine and recycled water to the curb?

I know of someone who does this and he uses Google's (his employer's) facilities. Given the forum we are posting on, I'd wager it's a safe bet for anyone making that much to have similar facilities accessible to them. Enough employers have "apartment" amenities now that it's starting to become a cool social experiment about urban living in some ways.

> The reality is that everyone can do this. And why not?

The need for a stable native (underclass) population to sustain the travelers.

I see you're on your way down from the Western Sahara into Mauretania. I was there in 2006 and the border is fascinating: it's a no mans land stretching for several kilometres, basically a minefield, with tons of burnt down car wrecks left and right, and many small potholed roads leading in all directions. Also there are some weird dudes driving around, trying to lure you in other directions than you were driving. We didn't have navigation systems back then, just paper maps, so it was an adventure.

You will probably encounter much more police checks in Mauretania and beyond than in Morocco.

At some border crossings, you can negotiate a visum on the spot. I had a 'visum' written with ballpoint in my passport. No stamps or official stickers, just a signature :) It was reluctantly accepted on my way out of the country.

I drove a sedan from the Netherlands to Burkino Faso, it was an awesome trip.

A couple comments for your own safety and the safety of the vehicle:

1) Those batteries should be in battery boxes. You can find them at any marine supply store. Note that for boats where batteries are commonly stored like you have them there, it's the law. For RV's it's a good practice and may be required by some insurers and in some states.

2) H2S also known as hydrogen sulfide. It's explosive and it's possible for even the best sealed batteries to have a problem whereby H2S is released. If those batteries have vent ports, you need to ensure they are connected to a vent tube and run out of the vehicle. If they don't have vent tubes, don't assume they won't vent. I run sealed batteries in my boat and it came with a H2S detector connected bilge ventilator. If the H2S detector senses a build-up of the gas it sets off an audible alarm and kicks the ventilator on. I've seen the aftermath of battery compartment explosions. Trust me, it's not something you want to experience. The cheapest option here is to get batteries which allow for the connection of a vent tube.

UPDATE: here's a decent article on the issue with a picture of a vented battery box (I didn't know those were a thing - cool!):

http://blog.rvshare.com/6-things-need-know-rv-battery-box/

UPDATE #2: just went out and looked at my boat. This is what's in the battery compartment attached to the bilge fan:

https://www.zoro.com/macurco-fixed-gas-detector-h2s-4-12inhx...

I read somewhere that higher H2S in the environment is correlated with higher suicide rates in those locations so sharing air with a bunch of h2s leaking batteries might affect you.

H2S is insidious, but it's not the primary reason for venting lead acid batteries.

H2 gas itself is. Particularly when overcharged, batteries will build up a pressure of H2, which specially designed vents within the battery will let out. H2 actually needs a pretty high concentration to flash, but if your RV is airtight, you can reach those conditions.

Any H2S you are likely to encounter will be around drilling rigs. H2S is a product of certain organisms that live well underground or in oceans. H2S makes batteries, but batteries don't make H2S :)

As mchannon noted, batteries produce H2 gas. Googling "lead acid redox cycle" will provide multiple explanations.

This resonated with me: "Life is easy. Humans are fucking badass -- we absolutely dominate our environment and are so smart and powerful."

I really understood that in the desert in Utah, where I got the feeling that I wasn't supposed to be there, far away from any semblance of civilization, but there I was surviving just fine with the help of our machinations.

I bought my RV for what you did, and its a perfectly comfortable home... a home that goes 80mph! I've been to almost every state now, and lived on hilltops with "million dollar" views, been in the desert under the stars, worked from deep in the rainforest in the pacific northwest, all for less money than rent for my apartment was. We can live comfortably for about a week completely off the grid. I would have bought a smaller, more offroad capable van, but I live in it with my fiance, so that was untenable.

I don't know how long you've been doing it, but there are definitely stressors and downsides that accompany the lifestyle. My RV was broken into once and I had everything stolen, and since then I've been constantly on edge when being away from my vehicle, so I often wish it looked beat to shit to deter people from messing with it. Also, staying in parking lots sucks and is sad if you're doing it for any extended period of time. I definitely have a missing sense of community and permanence, but its been a great journey!

Points for the great attitude and anything involving Utah's deserts, but kudos to so many other species surviving harder with less also. Life is badass! Watched a documentary in which lizards hatched in a scalding caldera and had to scramble over the rim while birds were trying to pick them off. That's in their first few seconds of life.

This would have appealed to me about two years ago, but not that much anymore, and I'm still close to a decade away from paying off my student debt.

I'm more interested in 'settling down' and 'getting to work' these days, realizing that my sense of personal success is mostly dependent on quality relationships, productivity, and a sense of community belonging. Now, I've done my fair share of living life on the road, and I always enjoyed the experience, but just like the comedown from a psychedelic drug high I was always grateful at the end to be back home squared away in my "real world."

My issue is not with the self-determinism or the low-impact tiny house living, just with the transience of it. Is he certain that he'll be able to be productive working out of the back of a van or in random cafes around the country? What about stimulating interactions with colleagues? Girlfriend??

Girlfriend? I don't know--maybe it gives off the right advertising. Meaning, if you don't want all the trappings of a conventional lifestyle; I'm that guy. A great opening line, "Do you want to avoid hiring a lawyer in the future to fight over assets? Do you want to avoid sitting in a cubicle the rest of your life? Do you want to never have this thought, "Would I be with him if we didn't have that house, and kids?" If you don't want to have a gaggle of kids because you were kinda pressed into having them by family, friends, coworker, societal pressures, etc., I'm your guy. (Yes, I know having kids is a wonderful experience. If I was this guy in this article, I would get a vasectomy, and freeze sperm. I don't know if you could live like this with a child, especially in an overprotective, fear for the worse, jump to the wrong conclusions, country like the USA.)

My parents fought over the house seemingly continually. The only time they didn't fight was when they left it on weekends.

My father wanted to do what this guy is doing now, but died before completing his van.

I think this is an untapped way of living, but society/cops seem to discourage it by ticketing excessively. That is my main concern. Towns, and cities have much made it illegial to park pretty much anywhere overnight, unless you pay a fee.

I think this is an untapped way of living, but society/cops seem to discourage it by ticketing excessively.

It gets to be a mess when too many people try it.

Sometimes it's totally unrelated to vandwellers- in college, the town was only twice the population of the school, so there was a massive shortage of parking.

Yeah; I'm hearing this as a reason more and more often. People's paranoia is overwhelming and CPS/CAS is often duty-bound to investigate. I was abused as a child, and no CAS tip could have saved me. Meanwhile, they are surely making it very difficult for normal people to raise children. It's basically illegal to let children play in the back yard.

I still want to have kids though; I don't get how even these tangible concerns can turn anyone off the idea. The chemical and emotional wonder of the idea is overwhelming to me.

I live in a van.[1]

I started out in the van with a girlfriend, then our relationship came to an end (the van probably helped it last a bit longer) and so I got back into dating.

I'd say dating with the van was easier than before I had it.

You must lead with it. You have to make sure it's upfront with everyone - you don't bring it up last - it said it all over my OKC profile - and you know - nothing starts conversations like something unusual. It's not for everyone - but the people who opt out - it would't have worked with anyway. The ones that opt in, it's good. Probably the most dangerous people who fetishise your vanlifestyle above the reality. Reality is that there are ups and downs, good things and tradeoffs.

Anyway, I'm now happily in an awesome relationship - and yeah - the van isn't a big deal. It kind of helps - cos she lives a good distance away from many of my friends. :)

[1] https://www.instagram.com/tdobsonnet/

I'd disagree with your statement that "the van isn't a big deal" in your last sentence.

If you feel that you have to be upfront with everyone about living in a van, it sort of becomes an enormous part of your identity, which I would call a big deal.

I think he means that it isn't interfering with his romantic life.

Some people (especially programmers) use the expression "it's not a big deal" to indicate something is straightforward (when you're thinking about it correctly), not to quantify its importance.

Yeah. It rules out some people. It's attractive to some people. Clearly rules oneself out from others.

It doesn't really matter because with dating - you only need to win once.

The analogy I've seen used on other sites is its like a food allergy, which is extremely important when selecting a restaurant or buying picnic food, but it doesn't significantly impair or impact social activity, or it only impacts it as much as you permit it to make you feel bad.

Mind posting more pictures of the van? I've always been intrigued by this lifestyle. :)

Congrats on the adventures!

As it happens I also live in a van (a VW T25 camper) because it's economically-efficient and convenient, and I don't have any urge to buy a million dollar house with a bunch of shiny crap to keep up with the Jones' (my grandparents devoted their lives to this empty pursuit in Los Gatos ahead of learning about the world, themselves or other people). But because marketeers have convinced enough people [0] that homelessness and poverty are such "fatal" pejoratives in the petty, judgmental, status-climbing West, people with alternative lifestyles learn to whom they can share this information... It's nice to be able to go to the beach, or up the coast or inland whenever one wants and cut down to the real, minimal necessities. Plus, it's not much that much of a stretch to go to Burning Man.

[0] just as many Americans have been radicalized by the perverted mind of Roger Ailes' Faux News.

I absolutely loved reading this. I liked how he went into it cautiously, testing out whether he could get by with a small fridge, small bed, less possessions, etc. And I also appreciate the web page design itself -- one long vertically-scrolling piece, very easy to read through!

One thing I find ironic though is the attitude towards other people who make a different decision about the worth of a home and the mortgage. Does he not realize that his van was only possible because his parents owned a home, raised him there, and let him park the van in their carport for 40 days while building it out?

I think it is a bit of a stretch to say that it was _possible_ only due to his parents home. Easier and cheaper sure.

He could have done it at a friend's or his own home after another short stint of saving.

His dad's woodshop (& expertise) was critical to the build - note that dad did all the cuts into the body of the van. There's nothing wrong with it, just a reminder that we never really do anything alone.

Personally, I'd rather have the shop than the van ;)

I noticed that too.

Not to be too critical, but reminds me of a woman I know who pitches how great & easy & wonderful it is to buy complete fixer-upper cars and houses and make something great out of them. But if you read her posts on the subject, you realize her father is a contractor, her husband is a mechanic, and they do most of the work.

Yes, he glosses over that part. From the pictures it looks like he _and_ his dad built it in 40 days (and who knows how many hours per day). That's not free, and could easily add another $20K-$30K.

That's not exactly true. He could have done the build-out in plenty of other manners, some less efficiently. With some extra money, he might have had it done more quickly, even.

Camping out during the build time, or getting a hostel/hotel for 40 days, renting a room, building it ahead of time, etc. Lots of reasonable options.

I noticed on some page he mentioned "focusing on building less expensive homes" and then pointed at tumbleweed homes, they build those "tiny homes" on trailers. Those things go for like 3x the most inexpensive mobile homes.

We've already solved this problem, we're just changing the paint to avoid the social taboo.

I too have wondered at the tiny home thing. Regular single wide mobile homes are small, cheap and standardized, and they even have "communal living" in a park. I'm pretty sure it's just trying to tell bougie people that it's fine to live in a trailer park

I'm not really against it, even. I think it is fine. Some of those tiny homes are really nice, or inspiring, or liberating. I really appreciate hand-made things, especially ambitious projects like homes. And I definitely appreciate the frugal builds.

But when you're buying it pre-built, it's just a tiny, expensive mobile home.

If they catch on enough, they'll build them cheaper and more efficiently, and we'll have smaller versions of normal mobile homes, with aluminum siding and all.

I'm all for it, personally--there's no reason for the dream of home-ownership to be expensive.

Sure, variety is the spice of life, I just don't get it.

It feels like a cynical marketing exercise to me, and I have some other personal issues probably tied up in millenial homeownership angst, but that's me, not the tiny homes.

...social taboo

When I've lived in mobile homes, I've found them to be substandard in various ways. One might be prepared to accept that in exchange for their advantages, but if not it seems perfectly rational to seek other solutions with different trade-offs. E.g., most mobile homes are over 70' long, while tiny houses are much shorter.

The social taboo had nothing to do with quality and everything to do with the mobile home = trailer trash stereotype.

Tiny houses are what happens when a garden shed has sex with a travel trailer. Practically tiny houses copy the floor-plan and interior design of an existing high end travel trailer and paste it into a traditionally constructed building. The result is basically a travel trailer optimized for staying instead of going.

As people realize they want more space than a tiny home they're gonna basically build mobile homes, realize they're heavy as all hell and not really mobile and see that the mobile home people are actually on to something.

It is true that is it partly about class and stereotypes, but the Tiny House people have thought about this much more than you seem to think (I'm currently designing one). Here are some counterpoints.

Beyond class, the other major reason for Tiny Houses appearance is acceptance in local communities. If they look nice, people and the law tend to leave them alone. Also it is nice to be nice for appearances sake.

Because they don't move that much they often get wide permits and skirt the trailer or put it onto a pad such that it appears to be a small house rather than a something on a trailer.

http://imgur.com/a/Dv8xE

I should say also this perception that Tiny Houses are, well, Tiny, is not quite accurate.

Some of them are very small, 200 sq ft. Many of the new builds for living full time are easily 500 sq ft if you include the loft space.

In America that may be still very small but in many countries such as mine, that is actually larger than many townhouses most people live in.

As for later discovering that they need more space, that is not something that scares Tiny House people. They already built a small house, constructing other modules to do other things doesn't scare them much.

It is difficult to overstate how much less expensive they are than the traditional housing route. 50% of the cost of building in the West is paperwork. That is half off the most expensive item most people buy in their lives.

The main hiccup is about Land. This is solved in different ways, I intend to buy mine.

Most Tiny Housers spend money on quality materials. I've worked in construction before and know that most 'modern' builds won't last much longer than a 30 year mortgage due to cutting corners, substandard materials and an overall lack of attention to detail. I fully expect my TH to last at least 50 years, probably longer, be constructed from state of the art materials, and still be 1/4 of the cost of the average house in my area (excluding land).

Of course not everybody can go this route but it beats being homeless or paying a mortgage for decades. Besides, as a geek it is fun to find out how things work, it is an education.

The point I clearly made is that social taboo is not the only reason why one might prefer a tiny house or indeed any other sort of house over a mobile home. You might not care about the other reasons, but they exist nonetheless.

He owned a house before, so that's a moot point, he could have used his own house before selling it.

But of course his lifestyle is enabled by his environment. It is easier to do that in the US than in Europe, easier in the Western World than in the third world, easier if you started off as a developer rather than a min wage employee with the burden of student debts, easier single than couple with kids, easier as a man than woman, ...

If you are one of the richest man in the world (not the 1%, just above average in one of the richest country in the world), which is pretty much the majority of HN, this is an interesting alternative lifestyle.

Note that it is oddly reminiscent from the 7/80's hippies. I just wonder if just like them, some of those people will settle down one day and make a 180 turn on everything they valued when they were younger.

Can you elaborate on why you think this would be more difficult in Europe?

I can imagine Europe wide fitness chains not being so common. http://www.basic-fit.com and friends seem to be building something like it. But then again, public swimming pools, and even public showers are more common and often highly subsidised.

- Language will be a problem. Speaking more than 1 language will help.

- Access to public bathroom is going to be another - like even public bathroom in place like Walmart-equivalent cannot be assumed to be generally available.

- Legality and Cultural acceptance is going to vary country by country. In my home country, a single man living in his van will be reported to the police the second nights he stays in the same place, and he will be asked to move somewhere else at the very least.

- You pointed out to a gym being available across Europe, but the replacement, swimming pools are not anywhere as available as gyms. There is no public toilet at the public library that is next to my place. Public shower are often restricted to professional drivers and I haven't seen one outside of the highway or trucking road.

- Insuring your car requires to have a physical residence in a country, and you generally can't legally be more than a few months in a country with foreign registration. Similarly depending on the age of your car, your country may require a yearly car check which mean you need to be around there at that time.

- Internet access - you will need to prepare that a bit more carefully.

- What about taxes ? That's another thing you have to know when crossing several countries.

- Stupid little things like currencies.

So going across Europe is going to be more adventurous than in a country that has road-trip in its DNA, and depending on the country, even staying in a single one is going to be more adventurous. Of course it's all relative, that is harder than in the US, but nowhere as hard as for Syrian refugee in Turkey.

These are all really good, valid points you are making. Thank you for that.

You are absolutely right about this. I've even thought of yet another rather elephant-in-the-room one: health insurance.

Well actually that one is pretty easy. If you are European you can ask for your European Health Insurance Card (free, valid for several years) which will cover you in the whole EEA as if you were a resident yourself.

The problem though is that if you have a chronic or permanent disease that requires continuous medication. Hospital will likely sort you out in a pinch, but if you need to stock up some pills you will need to go through the whole doctor chain (GP / Specialist / Various treatment trials ...) in each country (prescription do not cross borders). I have known people going back to their country on a regular basis just because that´s just a pain in the ass to go back to square one and start a several months ordeal only to end up with the medication you know is working.

> Note that it is oddly reminiscent from the 7/80's hippies.

I found his reasoning very solid. To me it seemed like a nice way to save money, enjoy the time and invest it to into his game creating business. What made him a hippie to me was not the van part but the part where he created his own programming language before getting to work.

His "Can I live without my precious possessions?" answer is the most engineering LOL thing I've read all day:

"Pile up my crap. Anytime I need something in the pile, take it out of the pile and save it for later. Monitor usage."

Thank you for posting this.

This but slightly more organized is pretty much the standard answer for anti-hoarding: put all your stuff away, keep track of what you actually use over the next week/month/year, and get rid of anything that hasn't been touched.

I think it deserves to be slightly more nuanced than that. There is a category of things that are small, used rarely, but very necessary. Medicine & tools always come to mind. For me, if I don't use my screwdrivers for a year that doesn't mean I should get rid of my screwdrivers.

Arguably, it means just that. If you only use a tool once a year, you should just borrow/rent them when you actually do need them. Our lives are cluttered with occasionally used 'just in case' items that we really don't need.

That's minimalism taken to an extreme, which is just as thoughtless as hoarding.

A screwdriver costs less than $5 and takes a minimal amount of space to store. Yes, the slippery slope is when you have a thousand tools falling out of your closet, but again, thought and moderation.

The "if I haven't used it in the past year" rule is a great idea overall, but it's not appropriate for this example. Now if we're talking about a ball-bearing extractor, yeah rent/borrow that unless your livelihood depends on it.

This calculus changes if you assign a cost to storing possessions.

If there's no cost, great. Keep everything. If there is a cost, that once-a-year item might not make the cut.

Yup, I think we're all in agreement that there's a cost to storing possessions. The issue folks were debating is that the once-per-x rule isn't appropriate for certain items because:

- the item takes up a negligible amount of space (fractions of pennies), and its usefulness is huge when you need it. Also, factor in the value of immediate access (e.g. fire extinguisher).

- some things you don't use, but are required to have (birth certificates)

Again, my main point was thoughtfulness with ownership. And it doesn't always require breaking out an Excel spreadsheet and amortizing costs and calculating expected values.

The problem is it might cost 5$ to buy, but buying it also takes effort. IMO, the way around this is to keep a good multi tool which is a so so version of a lot of things and then only the real tool if you are going to do a real project.

Cellphone camera good enough? Ditch your actual camera.

Your cell phone camera can act as a camera but not as well. A multi-tool usually has one Phillips and on slotted screwdriver. Of course those are never the sizes you need.

There's a point where it becomes very hard to reduce item count without greatly increasing the frequency that the task at hand can't be performed with the existing set of items.

A Philips screwdriver may or may not be used for a year, a multi bit screwdriver has much better odds. But the trade off is all about frequency. If you need to swap license plates not having the correct tool is not a major time sink. Rebuilding an engine and you need the right tools.

Think of it hierarchically. Instead of a screwdriver let's talk about a box of tools. You may not use the 4-40 tap very often, if ever, but you probably use something from the toolbox at least once a week.

There are inarguably items that should be held"just in case", like an epipen. The interesting discussion is how to identify those items - factors like cost of acquisition, immediacy of need when it occurs, cost of storage, etc.

I keep a small toolbag (heh-heh) that I stuff the essentials into: hammer, measuring tapes, screwdrivers, etc. My entire collection of useful tools (that aren't in the bag) would easily fit into a small UHaul box. Even though I rarely use them, knowing I have them helps keep me from panic buying.

If everyone followed this logic, who would you borrow from?

The guy in town running the (presumably) lucrative home tool rental store?

Do these things exist in urban areas? Seems useful for apartment dwellers who don't have the space for anything more than a tiny toolkit anyhow

A few years ago, on the bus home from work, I had a conversation with a mechanic who owned a shop in an economically disadvantaged area. He said that everyone on the block borrows tools from him, and he did it as a way of building a good rapport with his customers.

Lots of box stores rent out tools.

A while back I rented a nice hammer drill for $30 instead of buying a shit one from the same store for $50. For a more niche tool like that, it works out great not to have a bunch of money invested in nicer tools or a bunch of crap lying around.

Sure, I know lots of the big boxes do, but I was imagining something in a downtown area accessible to a car-less urbanite

http://oaklandlibrary.org/locations/tool-lending-library

Huh, cool concept!

This is where an [idealised] conception of communism wins, there's a local workshop with all the tools kept in common between people in the area. If you're away from home, you just go to the local workshop.

Strikes me as an idiotic waste of resources that a street of a hundred houses would have 50, say, power drills. Most likely they're inferior for costs purposes, they break because they're designed to (capitalism FTW), they're unnecessary duplication and so waste resources.

We've seriously missed the mark with design of our communities/society.

I use my drill almost every day. I can't have it down the road at the tool library. Presumably I also can't check it out indefinitely or demand it if I feel like my project is more important than someone else's.

If you take an object that I use less frequently, say a small tack hammer, I still need it when I need it. I need it for maybe 1 minute or less. I'm supposed to do what? Take my project down to the library, hit it with the hammer, haul it back home? Go borrow the hammer and take it back? Now I've cost myself more in time & effort than it would have cost to just own & store the hammer.

Does your solution only apply to more expensive items? More specialized? How does it account for discrepancies of usage patterns?

What if I need the work-light but I'll interrupt someone's project?

No, I think I'll just have my own set of tools, thanks.

I would be okay with a "library for [tools, whatever]" for people who don't often need a screwdriver or corkscrew or something, I guess--but I'm not going to use it. We have an approximation, with maker spaces, companies that loan tools (auto zone etc), neighbors, and tool rentals. (I don't use those either.)

I use a drill every couple of months, I think that's relatively high usage across the entire population.

FWIW it sounds like a good place for community members to access tools would be at the house you live in.

Just don't try this with a birth certificate.

Jokes aside, are there really places you can rent a screwdriver for a day? And is that really the appropriate solution?

> Jokes aside, are there really places you can rent a screwdriver for a day?

There's places where you can buy them and return them a day later for a full refund.

That doesn't sound all that ethical, and you've now spent two 30-60 minute round trips to a store for want of a $5 tiny tool you used to own.

Sometimes it's actually completely all above-board. You buy the tool- but it's well-worn and has no packaging, because a hundred other people have bought & returned the same tool before you.

Autozone is one example, offering this service for things like bearing presses and radiator pressurizers and so forth. They don't make any money on the tool in this case; the play is, if you have access to <expensive special tool> you'll do the work yourself and buy parts & consumables from them.

BUT, you're totally right about the time & gas, and there's also the issue where you always discover you need tool X right after removing the engine.

Autozone is one I've heard frequently. I think they even rent tools for free when you buy parts from them.

Autozone rents tools. You pay for it in case you don't return or break it though. Those aren't the same tools they have on the shelf. They're more specialized stuff needed less frequently and they have specific ones that get loaned out over and over.

I actually laughed at the idea of renting a screwdriver.

http://oaklandlibrary.org/locations/tool-lending-library

> The Oakland Tool Lending Library currently offers over 5,000 tools available for loan, as well as books and how-to videos and DVDs. The tools can be used for a variety of purposes, including home improvement, remodeling and repairs, gardening and landscaping and seismic retrofit. This is a free service to Oakland, Emeryville, and Piedmont residents and property owners.

You could just put a bunch of tools in a toolbox and figure you probably use the toolbox every week or every month.

You have to watch out for Thanksgiving. I own at least 4 potato mashers, cheese graters, and corkscrews. Each is a once-a-year item (for me) that gets stored during spring cleaning and is easier to replace than find again.

At my house, we've used all of those items in the last ~2 weeks.

Cheese on salad and tacos, corkscrew when friends came over (it's part of a multi-use tool, anyhow), and potato masher all the time, lately on potatoes from my own garden!

Conveniently this has helped me every time I've moved. It's happened more out of engineer's laziness than anything else. Eventually you don't unpack a thing enough times that you accept owning it won't change your life.

Basically just running a copying GC on your stuff. Brilliant.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cheney%27s_algorithm

I did this with all of my various t-shirts. Hang them on the pole backwards. When I put away laundry, hang them on the pole forwards.

Did you notice any patterns about what you wear / don't wear from doing this?

I do a similar approach, except it's insert freshly washed shirts into middle of closets, so anything that hits an outer edge I don't wear much, and is the best candidate for pruning.

I've found there's shirts I like owning but not wearing. No rhyme or reason, they're not damaged or stained. I just don't like wearing them.

I have shirts that were given to me and I feel obligated to own. Like a gift from my mom, say.

But they don't fit me well and so I rarely wear them.

Need to lose some weight and then it won't be such a problem...

Do you find that this is because you like them but they don't fit well? This became a very apparent category of clothing once I started consistently working out.

This works until one notices the backwards hanging clothes more than the forwards hanging ones, and then one's OCD or something begins to care about reversing all the hangers more than choosing what to wear, like a game...

This is also the best way to buy (or not buy) stuff.

See thing. Want thing. Add thing to wishlist. Forget about thing. See thing again, bump it up on wishlist. If I still want it 30 days later, consider buying it. I end up not buying 90–95% of things I instantaneously wanted this way.

This is the standard advice for "I bought a camper, what do I need before I go camping" and many other similar situations.

I'm a full-time pharmacist working 50 hours a week, with several investment rental properties.

Since April of this year I've been sleeping in my 2002 Toyota 4Runner in the parking lot at work. Shower at the gym, infrequent laundry runs, hang out all day at the library with all the other strange people. Pros: feeling of simplicity and freedom; enough said. Cons: a mid-sized SUV is too small and not private enough. I want privacy when I first wake up and put on my contacts and get dressed. I want to wake up, sit up and meditate for 30 minutes without anyone seeing me.

I'm getting a Ford E-150 van for $1500 next week. Going to put in hardwood flooring, maybe insulation and plywood on the walls. Excited.

This lifestyle sounds interesting. Is it inspired by choice or necessity?

Choice. Most of my coworkers can't understand why I am doing it. I love the feeling of lightness. And the earthy smell of the outdoors when I wake up in the middle of the night.

Yep, I'm in a similar situation, except I have a house, mortgage, etc.

Honestly, I prefer the minivan. The house, stuff, and 10K sq feet of maintenance nightmare is such a PITA.

I will say though, shell out a little bit more :) 1500 is a bit tooo cheap and undermines your stealth.

I'd like talk to you about your setup and experiences. My email is in my profile.

Curiosity, but honest question: how old are you? (Or in which age range)..

Think about a 250 or even a 350. Brakes, suspension, and motor all more robust. This'll be important once it's filled with plywood and hardwood. And all your stuff.

Great article, small technical issue:

First, cut all the 0 AWG wire. Why 0 AWG? Because I had a 1500 watt inverter, which meant I could be pulling 150 amps (1500 watts output / 120 volts output × 12 volts input = 150 amps input).

That's nearly the right answer, but "watts / volts × volts" is not going to end in "amps" as an answer. I'd suggest: 1500 watts / 12 volts = 125 amps.

I also whole heartedly agree with him with statements like "By far the most beautiful place I've driven through has been the drive from Butte, MT to Idaho Falls, ID.". I drive mostly across the country twice a year. I avoid interstate highways. The evening routine is to look at satellite imagery for interesting terrain, look at something like Panoramio to see where people take pictures and of what, then piece together some travel for the next day. Pull over and take a mini-hike if anything looks interesting.

I was wondering about that as well given that the dimensional analysis didn't work out, thanks.

As cool as this, like a lot of folks here I don't see how a pickup and a gooseneck wouldn't be a better (probably cheaper) option, even if you had to renovate / shop around for the gooseneck.

I know a whole lot of folks who live this way, mostly itinerant musicians.

While this is a much nicer build-- I think it's quite beautiful-- it is a lot closer to a custom conversion van most folks I know have much different, less successful experiences with DIY RVs.

To the folks who cite "stealth" as a rationale here, there are a lot of reasons why you might get kicked off a patch of ground... one persons "hack" is another person's criminal trespass. There are a lot of great places that you can camp out without getting hassled and without relying on other folks footing the bill for your plumbing and pavement.

To the folks citing mobility, I still don't see how that kind of van is more mobile than a pickup.

So while I think that it's really cool-- I gotta say that I think it would have to be cheaper / easier / more reliable to buy a pickup and 5th wheel or similar.

I am a big fan of the pop-up campers that go in the bed of the truck. I loved mine. I took three months off and traveled around the west coast in it. Had some great adventures.

But calculating it all out, a Miata and motel would have been a lot cheaper. My Diesel F250 with the camper got about 8 miles to the gallon. 300 miles a day was over $100.

This is all about the ratio of travel days to productive or fun days I talk about a bit in my longer comment below. And sure, do the math- if you would be happier in a hotel anyway- and a lot of people would be- then it makes sense to get hotel rooms.

But if you're parking the truck on BLM land for a week at a time, then that's happier and cheaper.

Hell, you could go with a Miata and a camping tent, and just control the ratio of BLM land time vs hotel time.

I think one viable strategy is 5off 2on. EG: Stay in a Hotel on Tuesdays and Wednesdays (lower cost than weekends) and then camp on BLM land (or other cheap places) the other 5 days.

State parks are 12-$25, while Motel 6 is $40-$60.

Awesome build!

I am a product designer working in tech in San Francisco. I also live in a stealth camper van, mostly by the Whole Foods in Potrero. I ride a folding bike to work downtown. Life is very good and I wouldn't trade this setup for anything.

Here is my build out: http://wonderbywonder.tumblr.com/tagged/chrono/chrono

And here I am: http://i.imgur.com/s4ZpdaO.jpg

Or you could just move to Poland. $33,750 could buy you studio in any medium town in Poland, even in sub-million population cities.

You'd get: no mortgage, apartment with a toilet, clean running water, wifi and all the electricity that you'll ever need. 5-10 times more area for your stuff. Monthly cost of utilities, tax and fee towards building maintenance of about $150 in total, access to a lot of young, English speaking people you could hire for cheap to help you with your projects.

I travelled around the world for 6 years and the number one impediment to staying in any country was the visa situation. If you are staying there longer than a tourist visa, and especially if you want any kind of employment (or are in a situation where you are visibly employed) the red tape in the vast majority of countries is very tough.

The only exceptions I know about are Chile (which gives one year visas that are relatively easy to renew) and Panama (which will give you residency if you start a business there, it can be a small one.)

Poland does not require visas for US citizens (even though US requires visas for polish citizens).

As for working you could just incorporate. It costs maybe 30$ and most hacker-type polish friends can help you with that. Later it costs $250 per month to own a company (mostly social security fees and health insurance, not sure if this is obligatory for foreigners but probably yes, plus service to help you deal with paperwork).

No, US citizens can enter Poland (or more correctly the Schengen area), and stay there for 90 days in any 180 day period. This does not give you the right to work there.

Chile gives "rentista" visa TE6 if you can show some sort of passive income starting with ~$800/month per person. This visa can be converted into a residency in 1 year.

What's considered a medium town in Poland? I was checking out housing in my dad's hometown in Serbia, and it's like a shitty agricultural town pretty far from anything notable with a population of ~12,000 and a place was still like $40,000-50,000CAD.

$30K bought me a studio apartment near the center of a city with over 700K people.

I'd say that medium town is from 50K to 200K people. Above that I'd call them cities but I don't think those are strict terms.

Here's a list of polish towns and cities: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_cities_and_towns_in_Po...

Check out Kraków https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Krak%C3%B3w

It's a great historical city to live & work where I've been staying for almost two years and still loving it =)

Well, it's probable that no new houses are being built in the place where you were looking for a home. The local community is probably strong too, so not many people are moving away.

I can tell about Novi Sad (250k people, nice university, nice city center etc.), you can indeed get a livable flat for one or two people without kids for anywhere between 20k-35k euro. Though there are still some downsides to living in Serbia.

However, I was born and I still do live here as a freelance software developer (maybe at 30 hours/week, including time for learning new stuff), mostly Rails, nothing fancy, and I can tell that with a family of 4 I'm still saving 75% of my after tax income. Without trying hard to save money. That's what's keeping me from moving westward.

I am having a hard time with this article. On the one hand, it resonates with me DEEPLY.

"Sure, it's cliché, but it's cliché for a reason -- this subconscious drive for freedom is hard-wired in our DNA. No modern comfort or toy can take the place of true autonomy."

On the other hand, I can't deny certain life comforts. Relationships come to mind when considering a life like this. Sure, living frugally on the road while coding your own project sounds exhilarating. But I wonder how I'd feel without my significant other?

I guess what I want more than a life in a van, is economic freedom with a home.

Agreed. It gets even harder with tiny dependents.

It calls for making unorthodox decisions, and trying something different. I live in the rice fields of East Java on about $3 per day with my 1.5 year old baby girl and wife. I grew up in Brooklyn, NYC and spent most of my time in urban areas.

I also have two older children whom I raised during their youth with my ex-wife in rural NJ when we decided to leave Manhattan. They grew up with a fresh water lake, no motorboats, with bears, deer and raccoons among other wildlife.

My new baby girl is growing up with fresh bananas, mangoes, papaya, and of course, rice right outside our door, and beautiful sunsets and sunrises over the rice fields. There are chickens, goats, geckos, cobras, beetles that look like gold, and colorful birds, and we live in the shadow of a dormant volcano. We live very minimal. Most of the floors in the village are just packed dirt with a bamboo mat pulled out to use. My home is tiled - had to have that!

Funny thing is my internet is spotty at times, but much cheaper, and it goes with me and my phone wherever I am. I get 500 KB/s at times, with an average of 175 KB/s. This allows me to Skype my Dad and older children several times a week with video and share my world. I love my freedom, health and the world of wonder I am learning about. I have been in SE Asia for over 7 years, and in the village for almost a full year now. I might grow tired of it, and move on, but it will be to the next different thing, like a sail boat with short jaunts to other islands. Am I rich? No! You'd be amazed at how much you can accomplish if you set your mind to it, and have some passion about it.

People live in fear. Not the terrifying type of fear you might experience in an immediate life or death situation, but in a sort of self-imposed fear of change or anything different. I like to imagine our world takes place in an imaginery little bubble around us, and if we don't kick and push its walls, stretch them, exercise them, they close in, and we become imprisoned in this gnawing, subtle fear. It goes hand in hand with the quote attributed to Einstein. Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. People know why they're unhappy; they just don't listen well to themselves, or are paralyzed by this subtle fear that drives their whole life.

This.

My wife and I are also planning for the life like this. We haven't had children yet, but we want them to live in nature, value life as it is.

We don't know when and how we will start, but once day, we will have the van like the OP's, and just go.

Thank you for sharing.

How do you get money? Savings or do you have income?

Bit of both. I saved a bit from working elsewhere in SE Asia, however, most of it went to support my family that lives back in the US. We live off of a fifth of that here.

And remember, I said minimalism. Where I live you get by on $3 per day per person. That's for food you don't grow yourself and other luxuries like internet, razors, soap or toothpaste. I use my phone's 3G service tethered via WiFi to my computer when I need it or want it. It's my biggest luxury item. I could even cut it in half. I currently spend about $25 dollars a month for it, or 1/3 my daily expenses!

As I wrote above, most people have dirt floors here, and refrigeration and electricity came not too long ago to this village. Each home has just under 900 Watts of power available, usually on a single 4 Amp/220 Volt (880 Watts) breaker. That's the deluxe plan. You can opt for 450 Watt service! You pre-pay for your electricity.

I am just starting on the ground work for a house similar to this: http://www.domegaia.com/ All in all, it should cost me less than $15K for the land and the house. Less than two years of property taxes for my house back in the US.

I am vegetarian, and it is great to be able to eat local produce. I have bananas, mangoes, papayas, jackfruit, peanuts, rice, and chilis right outside my home, and potatoes, carrots, corn, and other leafy greens from the vendor who comes down the road each morning at 6:00am.

There are plenty of chickens and goats around if that's your thing. Roosters start up around 4:30am!

There are also mongoose and king cobras, and I am buying an antivenom kit (finally after a year!), since there's no way to save someone from a positive bite other than antivenom. King cobra bites are very rare, but the nearest facility with antivenom is over 3 hours drive from here mainly due to the road conditions and the distance. You only have 30 minutes tops after a good envenomation by one. I am no doctor, but I have done some reading on extreme medicine over the years, but luckily I have not had to test most of that knowledge!

Bottom line is that I always wanted to travel and experience life throughout my life, not only when I was over 60 like most people plan to do. Funny, but when most people have saved and not traveled or lived differently, they tend to stay put and never do it. At least from those I grew up with or knew. I think there are a lot more 30-something millionaires now than ever before, but I ain't one of them; I wish I were 30-something again, and a millionaire ;)

Interesting. What will you do for education when your kids reaches school-age? There are lots of people living off the grid, on boats, all over the world. A common choice is to return to the US when the kids hit middle-school and would benefit from the facilities at secondary and higher schools.

I lost the argument to home school with my first wife, and our children went through the system there in the US. They both did, and are still doing well, but both of them independently came to the conclusion, as well as my ex, that the homework load is insane. More than 3 hours per night, and my kids are pretty fast at doing it. Some friends were taking 4 to 6 hours! Unnecessary, and not education in my book. My son did the same as me, and works on his own projects outside of school mainly in the summer due to the homework load. My daughter reads her own books late into the night, and is developing my old habit of staying up too late!

I am not fervently against the school system like others can be. I just think the world holds enough wonder and obstacles to teach children. I've traveled enough to meet and speak with homeschooled children from boats, to remote areas, and I just like what I see and hear. Besides, I love spending time with family; I'm selfish that way!

I don't think any parent needs to be too academic either. It just takes love, patience and basic aptitude, since the materials are more readily available than ever, and attitude goes a long way to children opening up to learn rather than mechanics. Side benefit: the parents relearn along with the children. It's wondrous. A few focused hours per day maximum should accomplish more than 7 hour day at school confined to a room, and to administering a lot of the time away.

If I were to consider any school for my latest child, it would have to be project-based. I like applying as many disciplines to a singular project a child is impassioned about rather than teaching the discriminate subjects. They can focus later on, but getting how things work together in the real world is more valuable to me. Less is more in this instance.

Here, daily life is a learning experience, and social life is across the ages like when I grew up in Brooklyn, where it seemed to be an urban immigrant thing more than an American suburban thing. I don't believe in age segregation in schools. It was instituted about 170 years ago in America. I think the experienced elderly are an untapped resource, and it would benefit young and old to rediscover this.

I grew up with my Irish grandmother next door, and I learned a great many things from her, and the other elders around me - history, music, storytelling, and just life. I befriended a childless couple on our block who taught me so much too. The man was a very literate, sober, milk-drinking, pipe fitter who was like a very older brother, or more like a second father to me. He taught me the basics of celestial navigation, took me on a sail on a sailboat a group of workers co-owned to afford it, and would invite me over for dinner with his wife to discuss literature, philosophy, history, Latin, the classics and film. I will never forget those moments. They proved to me what a rich life a person can have at the poverty line.

The young children in the village here are naive to the world's history, politics and urban life, but they seem to have a lot more common sense at an early age than what I recall of my urban peers when we were children. I started an informal school here to give them some additional help with English, mathematics, music, literature and art. I had four girls show up daily, until a few of the boys that were making fun of us from the road, joined us. At one point, I counted 11 heads not including my baby girl walking around and creating havoc ;) I plan on putting on a bit of extra space in the house I am building as an informal classroom, or at least where we start off. I am buying some King Cobra antivenom just in case, since it takes over 2 hours drive from here to get to a facility that purportedly has a stock of antivenom. Attacks are very, very rare, but rather safe than sorry, given I videoed a 7 ft cobra at the edge of the rice fields in a patch of teak trees several weeks ago. Handlers or performers are generally the people getting bit like the singer Irma Bule who died in West Java this past April [1].

[1] http://time.com/4286323/irma-bule-snake-bite-cobra-singer-da...

That was pretty awesome, I enjoyed reading all the way to the end.

I wonder how long it'll take him to regret the fact that his bed only fits one person in it.

You might surprised how spacious half a queen bed can be, and he looks to be fit and trim overall. I don't think he's likely to have much trouble.

Half a queen is 25% smaller than a twin. It's 30" wide. Your shoulders are probably around 15" wide, wider if you are muscular/fit. Workable, sure, but with a companion it's hard to imagine describing that as spacious.

I shared a 20" wide camping mattress in a pinch. We are both very slender. Spooning was mandatory.

> Spooning was mandatory.

Oh. Well. Yeah, I can see how that's a real problem.

(Actually, I spent almost a decade married, so, gentle sarcasm aside, I can see how that might be a problem. On the other hand, I get the impression the cases aren't really parallel. I mean, if it were me and I had someone moving in, it'd be a good occasion for a rebuild to meet current needs, I think.)

If you need a fan to keep cool in that small space then a second body will make things a lot more uncomfortable.

I don't think he plans on company, because really how much creepier can you get than: "Do you wanna check out my van?" or "Come back to my van with me"

Even though I know his whole backstory, I still wouldn't come right away and I'm a 25 year old dude...

You may think that'll keep you safe, but creepy people can live in houses.

>, I have a pee bottle and a 5 gallon jug. Line the jug with two trash bags, and cover the poop with kitty litter. Then toss it in a dumpster.

1.is this legal to dump trash in somone else's dumpster without owners permission?

2. Is it ok in the US to dump poop in dumpsters? I know nursing homes incinerate poop but not sure if there is a law specifically against dumping human waste.

2.) Baby diapers?

In our municipality it has to be double-bagged but it can go in with the regular trash.

There are lots of sewers for human waste at truck stops, some gas stations, and parks that he could dump it down, I would rather do that than throw it in a dumpster.

I think people are misunderstanding your comment and thinking you mean dump it in the drain.

For those people, there are actual sewage dump stations at a lot of those places. Look for a sign with a vehicle with an arrow or pipe out the bottom next time you're near a truck stop or state park.

Then you are just living the RV lifestyle, different from what OP is trying to do?

Unless his purpose is to pollute other peoples trash bins with human waste than it has no impact on what he is trying to do it is just a safer way to dispose of his waste.

It seems like OP is already halfway to the RV lifestyle, and he's probably in close proximity to dump stations, so he might as well dispose of it in the 'correct' manner rather than throwing it in dumpsters meant for trash.

I always read these stories with a sense of awe and wonder. "I took 2 years off of my totally boring office job to X" where X is something that is 1. expensive and/or 2. not generating income or not nearly as much income as Boring Office Job. How the hell does one live without their salary for 2 years without going into debt or depleting savings? Don't you people have student loans to pay off, medical bill payments, or other financial obligations that can't be delayed? I don't think I could last much more than 3 months, and I'm quite proud of my meager emergency savings. What the hell do you people do for a living that you can save such a vast amount of money (and presumably blow it during said 2 year activity)?

I'm not criticizing--just very curious. Most of the time when this kind of question is asked, the response is a vague and coy, "Well I got a little savings..." Awesome--how on earth?

Pretty simple — reduce their living expenses to the bare minimum. And I do think most people in this position are depleting their savings to cover said living expenses, at least until they have a profitable side project and/or part-time gig.

He explained that he was able to do all this once he was debt free.

Presumably equity built up while paying off his mortgage paid for a lot of the costs.

This would not be possible if you had dependents of course, but now was the time for him to do it.

Live on half your income. For every year you work, you can have one year of play.

This guy "Nomadic Matt" has a great explanation of how people do it. It's much cheaper than I would have thought.

http://www.nomadicmatt.com/

"use the public facilities"

Yeah, right. That's the plan for the first little while & then you'll be just pooping in the woods.

You see, we're in europe in a motorhome. Every time we see a little camper we know two things are going to happen. They are going to start sliding doors at all hours of the day.

And they are going to go poop in the woods.

And there are hundreds of them.

So be sure to get yourself a proper porta potty. Nobody wants to see your toilet paper.

Similar but less extreme version: "Just" a "mobile office"

http://davidmckinney.com/blog/2013/12/29/redesigning-the-off... By mr david awesome mckinney :)

I've contemplated something similar, thanks for the link!

It's that, or get an actual office, but I think I'd prefer to be able to drive somewhere interesting and work from there.

This is a heart-warming story but he is definitely conflating 2 separate issues.

If you want to have a gap year and drive around the country then do that and it's clearly what he wanted. If you want to cut down on expenses there are far better ways of doing it without buying a van. It makes as much sense as saying the only way to cross a river is to build a giant sling (fun - yes, but mundane options are available).

Can you give examples of better ways to cut down your expenses?

Move to a small apartment in a downtown area, ideally where you don't need a car. Get a roommate, cancel netflix, etc etc. Pretty mundane stuff...

Downtown is expensive, roommate is annoying, especially in small apartment. Plus, we're talking here about reducing costs in general, for for 20 year olds. We're talking about people with family, kids, jobs, etc. If you live in downtown so you don't need a car, you'll find out your groceries suddenly become much more expensive.

Don't want to spend your salary on your mortgage? Houseshare. Has the added benefit of still living in a house. Cook for yourself. Don't own a car. Live outside the city (obviously some are mutually exclusive). Stop buying useless crap (that includes a gym membership, netflix, prime). You can drive down your expenses to quarter rent and food.

You can live frugally without an RV. Running and maintaining an RV costs money (aside from building it).

Very very true! As someone who lives in a Van, I can assure you, gas is very expensive. I could live much much cheaper with a bus pass and a house share (or maybe not, who knows I haven't really looked)

problem is I despise roommates... so there is that.

Transportation is the big one. The biggest wasters you'll find in most peoples budgets are cars. The author put everything into a van. Go the opposite direction. Pull every dollar you can away from your car. Have no car if you can get away with it. Or only one car instead of two in a family setting. Consider the TCO of any car you buy. A lot of people say 'buy used' but IMHO it's more important to buy less car.

This is true, and relevant as long as a) you don't need to commute by car (or you have all the time in the world to manage convoluted public transit) and b) you can rely on that same public transit for all the errands you will need to do.

For people outside of select cities, these are far from given in the USA.

I'm actually curious about the insurance situation. If you are living in your van I would expect the insurance to either be a lot more or worse, to decide not to cover you because you didn't get a special policy. Then there's the issue of what happens if you are in an accident because now your wheels and your bed are in the shop, a shop which is not going to be able to restore your situation properly.

Easy : Airbnb

Hopefully you are also not broke.

So why didn't he just buy an RV? Not to take away from his accomplishment, but isn't this just the most engineery thing to do? Instead of leaning on another industry that has spent decades perfecting exactly what he is trying to build, he spent all the time he could have used actually exploring the world building what is certainly an inferior solution in every regard.

One word: Stealth.

He can park this van on virtually any street in the world and sleep for free, and nobody will be the wiser. Try that in an RV and many places the police will be called on you in 30 minutes.

I would think parking a commercial van on any old street might get some reactions. Plus, he's pretty much in the US, so there are many box stores that allow RVs along with quite a lot of rest areas.

Stealth camping is nerve racking, and its never that stealth, you can always tell when someone is sleeping in their van.

Absolutely this. And, it can't be emphasized enough if you want to keep your expenses down.

As a preference, I think that this guy being able to make van living work is awesome. That being said, it's not necessarily cheaper than regular living unless you're willing to adhere to a certain kind of lifestyle. Awhile back, I looked at van living and there's an amazing community on YouTube of all places that chronicle the practicalities of van living and they talk about everything like expenses, sex life, etc. As one example on the expenses:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bXA8_YeMvAA

Anyway, as much as everyone thinks that you can just park at Walmart every night, that's not necessarily the case or desirable. Not every Walmart allows it. After awhile, you don't want to live there. That leads people to guerrilla camp, which there's an art to. Industrial areas aren't always safe as there's no one around in case something happens. If you park in front of someone's house, they probably will call the police because it's weird. As such, the best guerrilla camping spots are in mixed commercial/residential areas where you can park on the commercial side of the street and still be near people for safety. As long as you move the van before the business opens, no one really cares. However, that moving around increases living costs. Loaded vans get terrible gas mileage. Gas isn't always cheap.

Alright, so we can just park in National Parks, right? Not always. Many, if not most, National Parks require camping fees per night, but it depends. Also, with budget cuts in Congress and not everything being fixed since sequestration, many parks have shut down their camping spots between Labor Day and Memorial Day, so there are fewer places to go. BLM land can be a bit more forgiving, but, really, because BLM doesn't have the money to patrol the amount of land they have and this only works in areas of the country with huge BLM controlled areas.

Alright, so say you do want to do it legally. What's the cost? If you ever want to shower, the cheapest place is a Planet Fitness membership at $10/month and there are many around the country. As far as rent, trailer parks vary in price, but in smallish cities I see them going for $300-$350/month. As far as food, since there's little storage place and refrigeration, expect to eat out quite a bit more or buy in smaller quantities, so more money.

As an aside, cooking is sort of a pain in the ass because cooking in the van will vaporize the fats in the food. That will, in turn, get it all over your stuff, which sucks and is a pain to clean. I wish I could find a link to it, but there was a video from one guy who did a beautiful build out of a van where he created an isolated kitchen in the side door of the van. In that way, all of the cooking problems were isolated from the living area with the consequence of having to go outside the van to cook, which made it more difficult to guerrilla camp.

As another aside, if you're unwilling to guerrilla camp, I came to the conclusion that it's better to just have a trailer that's towed. It tends to be more comfortable. When your vehicle breaks down, and it will break down, you still have a place to live while doing repairs unlike a van or RV. Also, the startup cost is much cheaper. I was at a maker fair this last weekend and this guy was there showing off a trailer:

http://camperplans.com/

$4500 for a full build out and all he started with was an axle. The result seemed pretty good, but I'm not an expert. I believe he sells plans for it as well. Certainly, trailers require a vehicle to pull them, but a small trailer like this can get away with something like a Tacoma and a used one can be had for a few thousand dollars.

Anyway, I think mobile living is amazing and workable. However, I wouldn't necessarily call it cheap. You pay for freedom, but it's a workable amount of money.

The cost alone would be a major motivator to go the van route. Class B motorhomes are the least expensive and even they are about $50k new from what I can tell. Sure you can save money buying used but I figure for an apples to apples comparison you'd want to limit it to new-only.

That said, I'd probably agree that a better solution would be had for spending the additional money. But this project is pretty darn cool.

Because RVs suck for a lot of things. First, you're restricted where you can drive. You won't be touring the finer dispersed camping sites down some bumpy, rock-strewn forest road in an RV. Or even (for example) Going-to-the-Sun Road in Glacier NP if your RV is outlandishly large. Second, anything bigger than a camper van and your choices of paid campsites is reduced. For instance, over the U. S. Labor Day holiday I'm camping in a state park spot restricted to vehicles 16 feet or shorter. Our VW Westfalia is fifteen feet long. Lastly, for me personally, I just don't want to drive something that big.

So buy a camper van? Meh, you could. Good luck, because there's a reason we ended up with a 35 year old VW instead of new. Despite having the money for new, we were at a loss to find something that wasn't outlandishly expensive or outlandishly large. Sure, there are the Sprinter conversions...for north of $100K. I'm not throwing dogs in a vehicle that costs more than my first house. There are other options, Campmobile and the like, and when the Westy dies we'll probably go with something like that. But plan ahead, because it's not like they keep those on the showroom floor, and though fairly-priced IMO, still spendy. So in the end, we just got a turn-key Westfalia. But it's 35 years old, so you better be ready to turn a wrench, which the author said he wasn't. That leaves building his own.

What I really want is a brand new VW pop-top van, as are still sold in Europe. But those don't go to the U. S. :-( I imagine that since one can buy a bigger Class C (or a lightly used baby Class A, even) for around $60K, $60K for a small pop-top VW isn't going to be a big hit in the "bigger is better" U. S. Me, I'd pay the $60K because it's smaller, but I'm obviously in the minority.

> What I really want is a brand new VW pop-top van, as are still sold in Europe. But those don't go to the U. S.

You could probably get a Ram Promaster SWB with pop-up roof for about what an equivalent VW van would sell for, were they sold here. If that's too spend, there are always 10-20 year old Roadtreks that are in good shape for under 30K, and if you get a Ford or Dodge based one it's even quite good off road with a locking differential.

Meh, the quality of Roadtreks hasn't impressed me much; but I get your point.

The Promaster looks to be the sweet spot between size and expense. But holy cow, Sportsmobile wants $9K for the pop-top option, on top of an $80K build.

I guess I have to admit that there's a bit of sentiment attached to that "VW" badge, too. Ignore the fact that VW vans haven't been the quirky little beasts we fondly remember in over 20 years. Now you'd have to take a second look to distinguish it from a Chrysler (in fact, the U. S. vans were Chryslers for a short time).

Sure, $9K on top of $80K is pretty steep, but that $80K build is orders of magnitude more comfortable than what an old VW could provide, and at reasonable speeds too. By the time you upgrade a classic VW to similar standards (Subaru engine swap, A/C that isn't terrible, etc), the cost would be close to $80K. OTOH, if you want something more Spartan and more classic VW-like, $60K should be good enough to get you there, and it's not like a VW T6 conversion would cost less.

Sure, $9K on top of $80K is pretty steep, but that $80K build is orders of magnitude more comfortable than what an old VW could provide, and at reasonable speeds too.

You're right, I'm just being a cranky old man who thinks candy bars are still a quarter of a U. S. dollar. A/C? PNW, don't need it. But it's going to be $4K (installed) for the rest of the country. Power? 70bhp in that 4000 lb. tank. Now myself, when confronted with a mountain pass I'm content to put on some Grateful Dead to complete the experience, put 'er in 3rd gear, turn on the blinkers and get in the right lane with the trucks. But I can see that getting old quick for most folks. $10K for that Subaru engine. Add $20K for a turn-key VW, and we're at $35K for an old van that will keep you cool and get out of its own way, but still has inadequate brakes and a suspension that could use a refresh, along with a refrigerator that is so reliable that many remove it to put aftermarket in (though ours is rock-solid on electric and propane). But despite all that, I still love ours. :-) But we look at it as a metal tent-on-wheels rather than living quarters.

And my pound sterling->USD converter says a T6 is going to cost you exactly $60K, before the 25% "chicken tax".

I work out you have an '81 T3/T2.5/vanagon (depending where you are). Got a 1.6 diesel '88 and have to put it in 2nd to get up some hills lol.

You, sir, win the "Educated Guess of the Day" award ('81 California-spec Vanagon Westfalia). Though we're content with the air-cooled 2.0L for what it is, the 50-odd horsepower diesel would have me seriously deciding whether I'd be doing the engine conversion myself or letting the shop do it. If I see a VW going up Snoqualmie Pass more slowly than we are, I'll be sure to wave as we go past. :-)

I was able to "offroad" a bit in my class C RV to get to dispersed camping spots, most of the forest roads were fine. Driving it was also nice since you are pretty much king of the road. Overall, I'm glad I had the class C, especially since I was living with someone else in it. If I were to do a hybrid lifestyle, I would get an offroad capable van (think sportsmobile), but I don't think I'd be able to live permanently in one. I skipped the class B's since they were too expensive

I did exactly this! Bought a used NV2500, went to town. Took 7 months to build. Have closets, cabinets, cooktop, sink, wood floors, butcher block counters, fridge, electricity via solar, bed, etc. etc.

I knew nothing about insulation, wiring, woodwork, power tools, etc. and learned everything as I built it.

Was not cheap, because I didn't want to give up any luxuries, so breakeven is in a matter of years, not months. However, its been treating me well. I have spots that I prefer in South Bay and in San Francisco depending where I'm working out of.

Link?? Photos???? You can't just mention this and not provide pictures!

I am about to embark on a similar journey. I started off buying a 1993 33' Diesel pusher motorhome with the intent to travel the US fulltime while working remotely. It was awesome fixing it up and making it livable, modern, beautiful, and adding solar. Working with my hands was extremely rewarding! That said I soon learned that 33' is a huge vehicle which I did not feel comfortable driving regularly over mountains and severely hindered locations I could camp at. Now that big rig is for sale... instead I've founded a really cool travel trailer with loads of solar ready to go! I plan to pull that behind my 4runner equiped for overland adventures and cannot wait to get started! Great article and I hope others can try this lifestyle. I hope to share some of my experiences with others as well.

Come join in the slack chat of a bunch of younger like minded folks: http://wanderslack.com/

Thanks! Just joined... what a great resource!

I love the idea of doing something like this, but I'm wondering about how to get dependable, high-speed internet access. Anybody have any ideas?

Tether to your phone. I'm doing it now in west Africa and it's super fast, 3G is everywhere (especially in the US or Europe)

It depends on where you go.

On BLM land in the United States, if you are willing to hunt for a while for good dispersed campsites, you can often score the combination of good cell signal + nobody else around.

yes, your 4G connected phone. 50GB of data for 19.99, isn't that great?

Who's your carrier?

Subscribe to www.rvmobileinternet.com. That site will answer every single question you could ever possibly have about how to make it happen. I work full time with a grandfathered Unlimited Verizon plan and a Cricket Wireless cell phone (on AT&T's towers) and I use a cell booster when needed (http://amzn.to/2c52cSG). In the past 4 months I've only needed to move twice for lack of coverage.

For another absolutely stunning van build, check out this one: https://imgur.com/a/RijZM

If you see only one photo, it should be this one: https://i.imgur.com/kTtWZ3f.jpg

Wow, that's tight!

My school loans are paid off in less than a year, and the thought of this has certainly crossed my mind. I've got the house, and I'm sick of all the shit in it.

Come on, voidqk. We all know your dad built this camper van while you took the selfies. His work shop says it all.

He needs a diode between the two batteries in parallel. Otherwise slight differences in voltage between them causes them to cyclically charge and discharge each other, wearing them out and wasting energy.

there would be a 0.7 V drop across the diode so then the system voltage would be 12-9.8V instead of 12.7 to 10.5 (taking 10.5 as the voltage at which your batteries are well and truly dead)

I've used diodes [0] to isolate redundant power supplies, but we turn up the voltage on the power supply to compensate.

However other than redundant applications I've never isolated batteries. I've just googled this and mostly found posts recommending not to use diodes and one that didn't comment on whether or not cross-discharging was actually a problem, but said not to use a diode but to use a mosfet[1]. It generally doesn't appear to be a problem for most people.

The most interesting part of the blog post for me was the eye opener for the author; 200 W of solar and 250 Ah of battery isn't enough to run a computer day in and day out. I would have gone for something like 1200 A-h of battery but not lead-acid, as well as added an AC powered battery charger so I could plug in.

0: https://www.phoenixcontact.com/online/portal/ca?uri=pxc-oc-i...

1: http://www.homemade-circuits.com/2013/08/connecting-batterie...

No one uses diodes on their battery banks, lead acid can tolerate some overcharge which is how they are equalized and lithium use a BMS for balancing cells.

The only diodes I have seen are used for Chassis/House bank isolation but usually its a relay system instead.

Remember a 12v lead acid battery is 6 cells in a single package no different than two 6v batteries in series (which is what my RV has).

That's incorrect. At no point or state of charge can you connect two lead battery packs in parallel and have them oscillate charging/discharging no matter how long connected. Either one will charge the other or they will sit without changing.

That's only true if they were ideal devices, but they are not.

I have not tried it myself, but from what I read if you leave two batteries connected in parallel for a while they will have less charge than if you had left them not connected to each other.

Batteries also don't discharge at identical rates, so each time you use them you will end up cross charging them, which wastes energy.

You are partially right but seem to lack some actual understanding of the underlying reasons why this is the case.

These are both new batteries that have been installed at the same time (without an O2 vent by the way, that is a serious mistake imo) and for all intents and purposes will simply function as a larger battery.

Even if they were not identical and not the same age they would still not do anything cyclical, but would function as a larger battery with the charge/discharge characteristic much like that of the older/weaker battery.

This is why it is not recommended to add a new battery to an existing pack, it will age very rapidly.

You do need a diode separator if you intend to charge your RV batteries from the regular alternator as well so that you don't end up trying to run your starter motor off the (usually) gell household batteries (they can't provide that kind of current), and so that you won't run your fridge/monitor/whatever off the starter battery which you will need badly to turn the engine over once you decide to move.

Great writeup and awesome use of "lean" principles to verify his ideas. I don't know why he didn't apply it to his game programming though:

> My focus for the first 6 months was creating a programming language, which I call Kong

Why on earth would you do that - especially as a sole developer in a niche as hard as indie game development?

I do something similar in the UK.

Stealth Digital Nomad Sysadmin/Sales Engineer in a converted Mercedes Sprinter LWB

http://instagram.com/tdobsonnet

If you're interested in this kind of thing, /r/vandwellers is the place to be!

Happy to answer any questions. :)

I like the stealth style but most people that go this way don't embed toilet/shower (because must be hard to do and harder to have space for it), which in my view must be a horrible downside, no? What do you think? What did you do?

One of my favorite conversions is this two-story camper built by Japanese students:

http://www1.ttcn.ne.jp/~gyo/English/index.htm

I ended up reading the whole post - awesome story! Not something I could see myself doing, but damn does he look happy.

Having a campervan without a toilet might bite you in some places. New Zealand used to be a great place for this but a couple of years ago they made it illegal to sleep in such a vehicle just about everywhere except designated pay-per-night campgrounds and certain districts each with their own special rules. Even then you're usually not allowed to linger more than a few days at a time in one place.

I doubt America will go that way with so many independent states and so much wilderness though. I'm amazed he can sleep in Wal-mart's carpark.

Wal-marts in the US almost aways have an RV or camper van tucked away somewhere in the parking lot over night. It is very normal to spend the night there if you don't have a campground. Wal-mart never seems to have a problem with it.

I've pulled into a Wal-Mart parking to just sleep in a car for a few hours when I got sleepy on the road. It's perfectly acceptable; obviously don't leave a lot of trash or anything.

Not sure DOT regs allow for this if you're traveling for work, but it's not uncommon for truck drivers to have a small bed explicitly for this.

This is an awesome idea assuming one does not want kids or expect to have sex with anything too discerning.

Kudos to this guy. I'm in my early 30s. My wife and I sold our house almost 2 years ago, bought an RV, and we've been traveling debt-free ever since. Feels good, man. But it's not without its drawbacks. Loneliness can be a constant battle when you're away from family, friends and coworkers. It took about a year to get comfortable with the travel routine. And then there's the maintenance. If I knew all of this ahead of time, I'd still do it.

I liked the 6 month writeup, I've seen a ton of these builds but always wondered how things went when reality set in. He did an honest job of stating the pros and cons (I've lived out of a van myself, 2 in fact, mostly in Sun's parking lot).

Hey van dude, if you read this and you get to the Bay Area I've got a guest house attached to a shop like your dads. Be fun to chat and we can fix up whatever needs fixing.

My officemate is a cyclist and photographer and built out a Sprinter van as a mobile production/adventure mobile. It's got a couch that converts to a bed, fold-out tables, water tank, sink, electric chest fridge, PV panel and battery, inverter, and roof platform. Super functional. All hand built and I can't imagine he spent more than a couple grand outfitting it.

This life really isn't sustainable as he gets older, and he's very vulnerable to risk, accident, or loss. Oh, it seems romantic as hell, but the first time the flu hits you, you suddenly realize you've chosen to stick yourself into a tiny box with no indoor plumbing, no quiet, and that has to move every few days or the police will start rapping on your windows.

Or when the van breaks down, and you have zero choice but to fix it right away, and you have to pray to god you budgeted enough to cover it. Plus the van itself wears out much faster than a vehicle most people use because it has to move so much. RV lifestyle in general is far more expensive than people realize, and provides zero equity. If he ever wishes to expand his game business, he's going to have a rough time.

It's romantic, but it's very much a young person's game and he'll probably discover the joys of home ownership when he's 35 and trying to sleep in his van in 90 degree weather.

I've spent 6 of the past 7 years living in an RV (motorhome first, now an old Avion travel trailer with a big old truck to tow it). I recommend it for anyone who is unencumbered enough of other people and responsibilities to do so (i.e., it may not be the right thing for a family with kids, though I know some families with kids who do it and seem happy).

The freedom to travel is magnificent. It precludes many kinds of opportunities, but if you can work remotely, why not do it at the beach or in the mountains or in the desert or wherever you like? It's not dramatically less expensive than living in fixed housing (though that depends on where you were living in the house and where you're parking your RV; when I first started I moved out of a tiny rental house in Mountain View, CA, which cost $2145/month, so I'm not spending anywhere near that now), or at least it hasn't been for me, but there are many benefits outside of cost.

Would you live in a motorhome without a toilet?

I wouldn't, but I know a number of people who do. Or, people who have a toilet, but don't use it because they park off-the-grid for long periods of time. It's do-able.

When I've wanted to live in cities without a nearby RV park, I have been known to use a gym for shower/toilet (when I was moving around a lot more often than I do now, I had an all-club membership at 24 Hour Fitness; Planet Fitness is a better deal now, but they have a lot fewer clubs), so I could extend my time between driving to a dump station.

I think this is the cusp of a big change in America. As the physical industrial base evaporates, in return, many people may not buy into the classic "buy property" plan for their lives.

This is good for them. This may not be so great for all the people who bought property and expect it to always increase in value as there may not be as great a demand for it.

Why do you think the industrial base is evaporating?

If you look at something like iron production, the US share of global production has declined quite a lot, but US production has stayed pretty consistent while global production has exploded. A lot of the jobs are gone because of bigger machines and automation, but the production still exists.

While the website is down, these are also neat:

Hank bought a bus: http://hankboughtabus.com/

Castle truck: http://www.doityourselfrv.com/house-truck-castle/

Inspiring! Have been wondering when I can tweak a Tesla Van: https://electrek.co/2016/07/31/tesla-all-electric-cargo-van-...

I remember reading of someone else doing something like this. They went to huge amounts of effort with a custom timber interior, fan, lighting, cooktop, water pump, etc. In the end, they said it probably would've been better to just have a blank-slate truck with portable cooking and water.

How do you date, have a relationship, significant ot ther? The bed doesn't look big enough for two...

room on top...

You could use your date's bed :)

Speaking of minimal living, I've just recently moved to a new city for work, and I've shacked myself up in a backpackers, and plan on staying at the backpackers probably until the end of the year.

It has a lot going for it. It's cheaper than rent (by a significant amount), and it's literally 3 minutes from work. I also get to meet lots of interesting people.

I have my backpack and a laundry bag of kit, and that's it. It's about as minimal as you can get, which has been an interesting experience for me as I usually have stacks and stacks of stuff.

It does have some disadvantages, such as being rather noisy, and the fact that you have to carry all your valuables around with you wherever you go, since things tend to go missing.

You've shacked up in a backpackers what?

Backpacker's? backpackers'?

Unless you're confused about the term backpackers itself, in which I mean a hostel.

I've never seen the plural word backpackers used as a singular synonym for hostel.

It appears to be a Australian/New Zealand English term, I guess it's abbreviated from backpackers' hostel. Somewhere along the line the apostrophe was lost, so now it's backpackers.

Nice story, I could relate with a beach bamboo tent, but there's a level up :)

Action Mobil “Desert Challenger” motor home

https://www.quora.com/If-a-plague-wiped-out-most-people-on-t...

https://www.google.hu/search?q=Action+Mobil+%E2%80%9CDesert+...

Did you consider buying a camper van? They are quite common as a lifestyle traveling around Australia, in the US people use giant RVs but these are not practical at all and not a conscientious selection.

#vanlife was on the fringe about 5 years ago, but it's starting to gain wider acceptance in the US. I would hope that within five years Volkswagen will finally bring the California T6 to the States.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volkswagen_California

Sprinters, Ducatos, Transits, and NVs (not to mention old school Expresses/Savannas) are already available here, so I'm not sure what a VW California T6 would offer that the others wouldn't.

Couple of reasons:

- the T6 is smaller than the Sprinter.

- OEM. You'd need to go aftermarker for a pop-top. And as as awesome as it is to DIY, not everyone has the time/skills for a conversion.

- Volkswagen cult appeal. You can't deny there's a demand for older T2/T3s and Westies. They released the Beetle for nostalgia, they can do the same for the T6.

At least here in the Pacific Northwest, old VW Westfalias seem to be the hot item right now (I know of at least two Westy-specific repair shops in just Seattle). But I have no idea what it would take for VW to import them. Getting rid of the "chicken tax" would be a start, as that's going to add 25% to the price right off the bat.

This will cause undue attention from meddlesome neighbors and cops.

In 'Software Engineering' there is this thing called 'code reuse'. The idea being that you don't reinvent the wheel. We were all taught it (and moved on to realise there is a lot of code out there that is best not 're-used').

These Ducato vans are the popular 'platform' for camper vans in Europe, due to the low floor. Most of the conversions have worked out the hard problems and been 'debugged' with customer feedback. The swivel seats come already done properly with no hammer needed. The various tanks for various fluids are worked out. Spares can be bought, plus you get something better than really heavy plywood carpentry - actual cabinet-making.

We all have our own dreams, however, from my experience of living with a camper-van mad family, second hand is good. I would not go for brand new van that depreciates and custom prototype carpentry when people vastly more experienced than me have done it all before hundreds of times over.

I completely agree with your comment.

It looks like the Ducato is not available in the U.S. Presumably the author could fly to Europe, purchase one, and ship it back for less expense and labor. But I think part of his venture was to have some measure of self-reliance / DIY. "How I bought a great van from Europe and now I live in it" doesn't have the same novelty and escape-from-society appeal.

The Dodge/Ram ProMaster van is actually a re-badged Fiat Ducato - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fiat_Ducato#Peugeot_J5

I think he loves to reinvent the wheel as he created own language for game development "Kong"

I'm genuinely curious - why did he do all the repairs in his house before selling it? Was the market for housing that bad that he couldn't sell it as-is for the new owner to do repairs?

For some stuff the repair/improvement more than pays for itself in either increased sale price, or reduced time on the market.

In the 1970's TV series Trapper John, M.D. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trapper_John,_M.D.) one of the characters, "Gonzo", is a doctor working alongside Trapper John, while living in a motoro home ("The Titanic") in the hospital's parking lot.

Man, think of all the money you can save if you have a good income, and live in a motor home virtually for free.

Gonzo legitimized the whole concept. :)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5-F-q-LDMmw&feature=youtu.be

I would love to do this.

Last year after getting made redundant from Cisco I was looking for work but there was nothing for 4 months as a Devops guy near where I live but there was plenty in London. I was actually considering either getting a van to sleep in, or a narrowboat, and working in London with London rates, then coming home at the weekend.

I'd love to know a cheap way of converting something liveable, bearing in mind most offices have showers so I don't need that, just to provide for my family.

Canal boats in London are not much cheaper than apartments. Nor is anything else.

I used to work Monday-Friday in London and head home (Manchester) for the weekend for about six months. During the week I'd stay in the cheapest hotels I could find (£50/night average). It was horrible, and after six months I ended up doing super cheap Air BNB just so I could cook some food once in a while. Still not great.

Eventually we just moved here. It's fine if you look for beyond zone 1, ideally near where you're working, and get paid London rates.

A friend bought a narrow boat and lives around hackney and some rivers north of the city.

Was definitely cheaper than an apartment

I can really relate to him throwing most of his precious stuff out. My life turned upside down a few months ago. Now all I have is a backpack with a laptop and some essentials and Airbnb life as it comes. I've never been happier.

Owning things obeys something similar to Newton's 3rd law. They also end up owning you. They need constant care, attention and maintenance. I'm not saying this the right way to live, but do give it a try if you've been thinking about it.

What about getting laid?

Plenty of people have no problem hanging out in a van, especially if it comes attached to a nice camping/road trip with a fun person.

I am "happy" in my mortgage-limited slave life, but I've always wanted to extend my vehicle a bit. My car is essentially like a little piece of my home I take with me from place to place. I feel as comfortable in my car as I feel at home.

I've been looking into a second battery and solar setup just for the main goal of running a computer in my crossover. But I'll admit, that job does take up a lot of time I might otherwise use for doing it.

> If you work 40 hours, 9-5, then Monday and Tuesday are dedicated to paying for your house. Every week. If your housing was paid off, your weekend would be longer than your work week.

Isn't this only true if you don't have a fixed rate mortgage? If you bought a house in the 90s then I'm almost sure you're paying less than the average of rent your house might fetch. I've never amortized the cost over the lifetime of the house though.

Yes, the OP's economic analysis is amateurish at best. Also, only the interest part of mortgage payments are a 'cost' at all.

I am really jealous, it's my not fulfilled dream. But right now is kind of difficult with wife and little kid to carry such life.. offtopic The guy would like to write games. Then the first 6 months he spent to write his own programming language, then some time to write own scripting language "sink" ( why not LUA ). I would love to hear from the author what are the motives to write all these tools.

This is my favorite thing I've read on HN so far this year. I loved his pictures (especially of the plains) and the descriptions. I probably enjoyed those pictures more than highly edited photos taken on a full-frame DSLR.

I hope it works out for him. The main thing I would miss would be having a companion and pets. Not sure I could do without those right now. He's in an excellent time and place for this.

I've been curious about living out of a camper or RV in the Bay Area just to arbitrage the higher salaries that are needed to offset the cost of housing. I've heard of some Google employees doing this for a couple years to save up enough to buy a house. The hard part is finding a place to park the camper. Anyone have any experience or knowledge about doing this in the Bay Area?

I would imagine that you could park your camper / RV in the company parking lot day or night. Most residential neighborhoods ban camper / RV parking so you'll have to look for where it is legal road side. In the south bay, there is a long stretch of El Camino Real in Palo Alto that borders the Stanford playground - lots of campers there, parked nose to tail. Another stretch is on Ferguson Drive in Mountain View. Walmart offers free overnight parking. On weekends, take advantage of the beautiful weather and drive your camper / RV to nearby beaches or mountains.

Google employee lives in a truck in the company's parking lot https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10422976

Google Employees Secretly Live on Campus to Avoid Paying Rent https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8289577

Without stealth (normal looking van) and a full time job you are looking at a ton of stress trying to do it without living at an RV park.

I know a couple that commuted from Half Moon Bay. Another couple also lives just south in a tight tight RV park.

I've wanted to do this for a long time, but I need a shower (and a toilet!). With a lot of care one could install them in the same place (and shower sitting, Japanese style, with the toilet shut close of course), and with even more care, one could try to filter and recover some of the water, but I have not found anyone trying to do this, is that just too much work?

Great writeup! Very enjoyable read but, at least for me, the last part "Thoughts on the Van Life" was the best. All the best!

I love his reflection at the bottom:

> Life is easy. Humans are fucking badass -- we absolutely dominate our environment and are so smart and powerful. But for some strange reason, we take those millions years of evolution encoded in our DNA and throw it out the door. We live in ways that are so counter to the flow of nature.

I love this idea in theory, but my wife would never go for it. Ah well... Maybe get an RV for longer camping trips...

Something in the Coachmen Prism range is not that much more expensive and has a shower. You can find some interesting deals on them because people tended to buy and realize RVs aren't for them.

I guess you could also buy an RV chassis as one heck of a do-it-yourself project.

>You can find some interesting deals on them because people tended to buy and realize RVs aren't for them.

Which is highly likely this this case too. I'd suggest renting for a month and living in it the whole time before buying. It can be a great life but it can have its hardships too.

>> "I thought the idea was genius. Not for me, I said, but genius."

Always find it interesting when people say this to me. I mean you can see the awe in their eyes, the longing to "just do it" - and then, reality settles back in and the resign to living the same life over and over until the end of time.

I did something similar a couple years back - but much simpler. I just bought a cap for my truck and stuck my sleeper futon mattress in it:

https://www.instagram.com/p/tLu_9wAR4p/

yeah that's what I did, then I upgraded to a cab over camper.

Beautiful and inspiring read about exploring one's individual freedom. May society find it's freedom by collaboration and sense of community.

We as a society have the resources and technology to achieve much more freedom. Freedom enables the creation of even more freedom.

Awesome story, loved the pictures of building out the van.

One concern I have is that if you are idling the engine and have the fantastic fan on, wouldn't you be sucking exhaust fumes into the vehicle? Or is the hole at the back meant for exhaust with the fan pushing air in?

The air comes in on top, and out the back. Keep reading, he shows the fan.

This is amazing. Instead of getting an apartment with my cofounder and office space for our engineers, I'm just going to have us get a fleet of these things. Would be so dope. Be anywhere -- SF, South Bay, Berkeley, LA, New York. Live the dream now.

Kudos to him for wanting to be "free". Whatever that means. Although my main take-away from it: if you're going to live in a van you should learn to fix a van. Having his dad do all the heavy lifting here really pusses this article out.

I like this guy's spirit an ingenuity, but his attitude is not much different from the Infowars bunker people. There's no room in his van for society. You can tell because he only built a bed for 1.

I'd rather live on a hippie commune than this.

Super cool. I have a VW T3 and would love to have your talent. Travelled 8 weeks through Scandinavia with it. Now I got inspired to build more stuff in it. Q: Is it allowed in the US to park and sleep where you want? Heard different stories.

Everywhere? No. But Walmarts are practically everywhere, and you can generally crash in their lots as long as you ask.

http://www.walmartlocator.com/rv-parking-at-walmart/

I have always been so tempted to do this, the one thing stopping me has always been that I lovvveee my living space. I think I just need an RV to "detach" once in a while! Awesome post, and incredible detail!

This is an awesome write up. Very inspiring. But my favourite bit is the closing to the blog how as smart as we are we spend our time fighting futile battles with nature for naught.

I love stories like this. Well documented, well thought out, and with a 6 month update... excellent.

Now I'd love to read one about someone who's done this with a family...

Did a 2 year trip with wife and daughter (2-4yr) from UK to Malaysia to California to south America.

Met a few other families (usually German, swiss) along the way. Craziest being English family with 3 daughters 11,9,7 in a VW t3 / vanagon.

The trip was great but couldn't do it permantly.

What kind of vehicle/RV were you in? How did you transport it across oceans?

I guess what I don't understand is why not use one of the ready made builds already out there? Something like a class B RV, or truck camper?

Common reason is those are generally too obvious.

meh.. his dad is skilled for sure, but the insides looks like the stale interior of a house. Not a fan of the build

I have to agree with this. The concept is sound for sure, but all.. that.. wood... He's adding so much extra weight (and thus lowering his average mpg etc.), when a type of plastic (the slightly bendy stuff that cooking/food storage tubs are made of) would have been good enough, and also much lighter. The drawers under the bed especially - those in my opinion should be either wireframe and canvas, or based around prebuilt plastic storage.

I also think he wasted space above the bed - there could be wall nets for smaller items, or even a drop down surface for cooking or day work.

Finally, he's assumed that the wiring will never fail or need updating - it's all now trapped behind the (many layers of) flooring or the wall panels. One fried cable, and he'll have to rip out all that 'nice' cabinet work.

I love the idea of kitting out a van and going mobile, but that interior is NOT how I'd do it.

-As one who has toyed enough with the idea (not to live in permanently, but for overlanding) to start kitting out a Land Cruiser 78 to make it liveable, I'd agree with most of your points - though presumably, if he mostly sticks to highways or at the very least properly paved roads, mpg shouldn't suffer too much from a couple of hundred pounds of additional weight.

My one MAJOR gripe with his build, is the water jerry can directly behind the driver's seat - in the event of a crash, he is -quite literally- trusting his life to the straps securing the can. I wouldn't do that. Definitely at the very least have a proper base for the can to sit in, rather than relying on straps.

Edit: Oh, and I hope there's proper ventilation from the cupboard where he stores the cooking gas. One leaky can and you're in for a potentially very nasty surprise. (I solved this the lazy way - by using a kerosene stove...) /edit

Hopefully, the sink and countertop are secured well enough to the van not to come flying forward, too.

That aside, I have nothing but admiration for people with the chutzpah to actually go ahead and DO what they dream of. I wish him many a happy year on the road.

I didn't have all the comforts but in many ways I like my ghetto truck cab home much more

http://imgur.com/a/KhxS3

uh.. it looks like a ghetto attempt at a typical RV interior... rather than something like a Westfalia or Sports Mobile..

I guess that's the difference between a company with more resources with a DIY job with supplies from HD.

Nice to see someone live my dream. Wish I could afford it.

I send my son emails with links to different interesting projects. He is ten. Too bad I can't send this one out. Why do people use foul language everywhere and in between? It's like a disease.

There are plugins for browsers to replace foul words, you could scrub it with one then print to pdf.

Another example of this is The Martian book. Well written, great story, and so full of foul language. What for?!

Because it's hilarious. He's also trapped alone on a planet and pretty sure he's going to die for most of the book. I'd swear as well.

Now, personally, I am of the firm opinion that one should be able to make one's point without resorting to cursing. (Those who suggest otherwise are fing ids!!!)

That being said, the conviction that kids should be protected from cursing puzzles me. When I was a kid, a sure-fire way to get me interested in something was for my parents to say don't go there; forbidden fruit tastes the sweetest, etc.

Now, I'd appreciate it if my kids didn't run around cursing all the time, but I think it would be much more effective to explain to them that yes, some people curse; it is a manner of speech, often a way of stressing a point. I don't find it necessary, and I'd appreciate it if you didn't, either.

Chances are kids will be exposed to the f word and others on a daily basis, anyway.

The occasional fking this, fking that in this blog does hardly make it less interesting or suitable for a kid. IMHO, of course.

wow - dad is really good with the angle grinder. I would have used a jigsaw. Cheers to those skills!

1. sell house

2. buy van

3. get someone to customize your van

4. ???

5. profit

why not get a rv - pre made thing?

That suits some, obviously.

Personally I would have loved building this van, but I couldn't live in it.

wow, what a treat. love the writing and layout of this blog post.

van life is basically not viable right now. people dont like taking their shits in mcdonalds. vans get super cold and moisture can be a huge problem. showers have to be in gyms unless you want to carry tons of water with you. most areas are very hostile to van dwellers from what i can tell. but there are interesting solutions to these problems.

- van dwellers are not received well in most places. you have to park on the side of the street somewhere a lot of the time. so the obvious solution is to create some kind of business that does lot rentals. you can pay a very low fee and have a nice place to park for the night. this could be really great -- images of all kinds of different people meeting and connecting come to mind. but there is the problem that these businesses would be overrun by poor people for lack of a better word. they would become ghettos and attract a lot of crime. so perhaps a better solution is to create an app where anyone can rent out their driveway and vet each van dweller on their own based on their social media, past reviews and other information provided on the app. also vans are physically dispersed and criminals dont have a one stop shop for vulnerable vans.

- taking shits in gas stations, taking showers in gyms and moisture and cold can all be solved by the same thing: making vans from the ground up that are meant for living. i think in the end, if you want a van that is nice to live in then you need to put down real money just like any other dwelling. the van meant for living would look like this: has EV drive train and a huge battery. in the near future this will be complemented by a sophisticated generator (with huge fuel reserve) that can operate at low wattage when demand is low or operate at high wattage when demand is high such as when driving with a low battery. in the far future batteries alone will be enough. solar should be included but only to prevent the battery from losing charge completely when sitting around for a long time. showering is done with recycled water. water is stored in the floor pan and passed through a filter between showers. ozone is easily generated and mixed with the shower water regularly to kill bacteria. the filter used could be very sophisticated if hundreds of showers without refilling were desired. the toilet would need to be a revolution in toilets. there has been a lot of work by the likes of the gates foundation to create toilets that are less resource intensive and clean for use in the third world. the best products of these efforts are desiccation toilets that essentially desiccate the feces though various means. one version drys the feces and burns it to dry more and also drive water purification. the toilet in the van would do something similar. the toilet would disinfect thoroughly with chlorine or ozone and then desiccate. the water left over would be put back into the top chamber of the toilet so to speak and used for the next flush. the desiccated feces could then be stored in much less volume than non desiccated feces and with less hassle. disposing of it would be pretty easy. other issues such as temperature and moister could be taken care of with heavy duty insulation, de-humidification and other things that are built into the van by design rather than added in as an after-thought if added at all. anyway, overall what you have is an extremely sophisticated, several hundred thousand dollar vehicle. thats what it would take to make van life a viable option for more than a year or two imo.

thank you.

> Does anyone actually enjoy being in a cubicle, all day

No. But trading it for a van doesn't sound more pleasant.

I've spent 11 of the past 20 years "homeless" by choice following various practices from living on a boat, to living in a truck camper, to traveling the world living in AirBnBs, to occasionally renting apartments but never really living there. But I'll come back to that.

I want to address several peoples concerns about this guys lifestyle and the presumed limitations:

0. First off Loved that he was using Soylent. That solves a big problem of needing dried food but not liking freeze dried food. If I were to go back to vehicle living I would use a combo of Soylent and Sous Vide. Sous Vide cookers like the Anova are very small, and you can do it just with boiled water, zip lock bags and a thermometer if you want. The results are really fantasic. 30 seconds searing steaks on the grill then 40 minutes in the bath and you have better steaks than you can get at any restaurant for less than $50-- and you can do that on top of am mountain if you wanted! So the food situation is much better than the days of crates of raman.

1. Sex. Sex is totally possible, and it's not creepy at all. When you get on the road and you're traveling you will run into people who are going the same route multiple times. In this way there's a virtual community. This varies regionally of course, travel by train in europe or in alaska for the summer and it becomes pretty tight nit. The women and men you meet there are not exactly going to turn their nose up at your van because that's how they are traveling to. There's a whole vagabond subculture in the USA that ranges from kids hoping trains to techies in vans like this guy to Oldsters in RVs. And there's nothing sexier than a guy who will break with convention and go do interesting things. FTR, my partner and I picked up a woman in the UK who then travelled with us and lived with us for a couple years in poly triad. IT only lasted three years but I don't think the definition of a successful relationship should only be ones that end in death!

2. Cost- you really can save a lot of money. IT's amazing that you can live around the world traveling full time for less than the cost of living in a major west coast city. If you're doing a startup, that's really nice- be in berlin, then go to london, etc. We ran a three person startup (the triad above) going form england to Romania to Chile. While we didn't live as cheaply as we should have or could have (it's a skill) we didn't live more expensively than we would have if we stayed in Seattle (and we never would have met the woman in the UK). When it costs less or doesn't cost more but you have a better experience, isn't that a much better value?

3. The major factor is movement. When you're still- say at a campground or an AirBnB, or anchored at a dock, you save your movement energy, and thus cost, and you spend time working and enjoying. When you're underway- sailing requires attention as does driving, taking trains and planes costs money, boats and cars take gas. The ideal situation is one where you can stay places for a period of time (we used to stay in a country 90 days- the visa limit) to maximize your productivity on the road. This is a lifestyle, not a vacation from life. You earn money when you go, but you earn less money on tavel days.

4. Settling in- another part of the cost of travel is the settling in time. I need to have a good work chair and in each country we would spend the first week or so getting our spot set up to be productive on our startup.

5. The best thing about traveling is meeting the locals- especially outside the USA. This is the reason for the 90 day visa too. You can build real relationships. 4 countries in a year is much better than 9 countries in 4 days! And it's cheaper per-day, because you can be working during the day, and thus it's sustainable.

6. There are many ways to do it. I like the boat the best- it was only 30 feet but it was center cockpit and huge. If I had the balls of a blue water sailor I never would have left and would be traveling around the world in it. But it takes a rare breed to cross an ocean in a 30 foot cruiser!

This van is very much like my experience in the Truck Camper. The truck camper cost me $5,500 all in- an old Toyota Pickup and a $3,500 SKAMPER. You have to crank it to raise the roof. I travelled all the way to Prudhoe Bay in that truck- spending a couple weeks north of the arctic circle.

You can never forget an experience like that!

7. Eventually I vowed to never stop. I decided this was a philosophy and whatever methodology it doesn't really matter. Am I still traveling full time? I'm on a lease, so many of you would say no, but I think I am. You could be too.

What's the difference in lifestyle between crashing in a French student's flat in Romania for 3 months and being on a lease in the USA for 6? In romania 90 days is the max visa and maximizing productive time was ideal. a 6 month lease in the USA isn't that different from the 6 months we lived in the UK (they have a longer visa for US residents).

I now think in terms of the GPWR - Gross Personal Weight Rating. That is the total weight of me and all my possessions. When I was on the boat it was around 13,000 pounds - most of it boat. For the truck it was about 7,000 pounds, most of it truck.

When we were backpacking it was all in the pack- about 60 pounds. Now I am staying in apartments but restrict myself to only what can fit in my car (so I can move across country at a moments notice if I want.) I don't live in the car so it's a tradeoff, I have to rent a sleeping space.

But I'm still mobile. I don't have a bed frame, for instance, I bought a bunch of Akro Mils plastic crates. Turn them upside down and they make a really damn solid bed frame (best one I've ever had, actually) The mattress fits in the back of my car with the seats folded down. I have a mid sized SUV and camping is easy- just put the mattress in the car. Better than a tent (stays warmer). But when I need to move, I can turn the crates right side up and all my possessions go into them.

So, where should I live next? Once my lease is up, I'm going. (and knowing that also puts the kibosh on silly buying.)

Start thinking of every possession as weight added to your GPWR. Do you want to live in backpack? Pare down. Do you want to live in a van? You don't have to be as careful but you should think about how many TVs you buy.

These are amazing, and incrdedibly underrated

In the US these are not as seen as romantic and adventurous as they are in Australia, New Zealand and Europe

One thing I'll say: a pop up conversion can be done while maintaining the possibility of incognito mode, and it is really lovely when you are in proper campgrounds to have the pop up!

So happy to see this post on HN, but also kind of sad because if this because a thing it will no longer be as unique, and they will start drawing more attention. Also, people in these campers are the coolest, nicest, most down to earth, happiest, most respectful, adventurous, amazing people (in my experience), and if this becomes 'cool,' then we'll start having the cool kids driving around in these.

I prefer a motorcycle and sleeping homestays in Himalayas.

Just finished my first 10,000 km ride from Sikkim to Kathmandu to Uttarakhand, Himachal, Kashmir, Zanskar, Ladakh, etc.

It is cheaper, but sometimes a bit tough, when you have to cross a cold stream a half of meter deep..)

The fact that one (in a lot of countries) has to do this in a van, because of regulations, is kind of tyranny: Either you get in-prisoned in debt/rent, or you get to live in a van or on the streets.

I don't think you really have to do it in a van. If you're going to work remote and don't mind being lonely, you can buy a house just about anywhere in the country, which means you can find a house for $50k instead of $500k.

If you check out his list of things he likes about van living, most have more to do with working for himself rather than all the traveling. He doesn't come across as one of the wanderlust folks.

I think you mean in the world, not all countries are that big.

Sure, although that might be a more complicated work relationship if you aren't working for yourself.

All of the work to make this van livable could have just as easily been done to a shack in the woods. The biggest hurdle these days is reliable internet if you want that. You would need a better bathroom situation than "the nearest McDonalds" too, but well water is often an option.

The one question he didn't answer is how he bathed. It's very easy when you're living as a lonely bachelor to slowly morph into Grizzly Adams because there's nobody in a thousand miles who cares about you or how you smell.

He mentions showering at the gym a few times through the piece. Also that he exercises daily - so I'd assume a membership at a nation-wide gym? It'd be a bit much for me personally but I can fighting said Grizzly-ness with his method.

He specifically wanted to travel around. If you want to hunker down and spend time being a hermit and working on personal projects, a shack would be great. But if you want to travel to see places & friends, projecting that into a van makes sense.

The cabin comment was specifically in response to the talk of buying a cheap house out in the middle of nowhere.

The problem is the same as the cabin, it's more difficult to be a developer when your Internet is slow and shitty. It would be really hard to go back to dial-up.

I've found that the $8 solar shower from Walmart works quite well. Much nicer than sponge baths.

For cabins, composting toilets are a pain, but better than a pit toilet and more convenient than the nearest McDonalds

> you can buy a house just about anywhere in the country, which means you can find a house for $50k instead of $500k.

Hell, depending on weather you can buy naked land and live in a shack or a tent.

This also depends on what regulations there might be where said land is at. In some places, living in a tent, even on your own property, is illegal.

Good point. The same issue exists for living from RVs, in some jurisdiction you must have a fixed primary residency.

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