what's the "smartest" way to do something like this?
i want a thing which is mobile and contains the shit i need to survive. so, like an RV or a converted van or a trailer or whatever.
the idea of having a dedicated sprinter van that you can live in is neat, but that's another vehicle you're paying for insurance etc.
>be homeless
>get large dog
This is a woman's van.
Dogs are alive and live for a long time, longer than people rent and own houses for.
>longer than owning a house
Tell me you've never own a house, with out telling me you've never own a house.
What kind of fricking moron would buy a house and become a debt slave to israelites just for the privilege of being trapped in one spot for the rest of your life?
No you're right. You're better off being a rentcuck or a wandering goyim
You can buy like 20-60 acres of land in kentucky for like $30-100k with a property tax of like $300/yr. Plant some oldham bamboo and come back whenever you want and build a cabin on it to retire in. Or plop a trailer on it and rent it out to hunters to recoup.
They live for like 12 or 14 years you fricking moron
Yes. Most people move every 5 years.
source?
I googled it
sounds ridiculous so it must be an american thing. Where I live you buy or build a house and die there.
Where is that
im not american and lived 10 different places since 17, current one i own and im looking at buying a new place next week, solely to fix up and sell for profit before i maybe move a new place a few years later, or i live there to death if i like it. who knows? life is to short to live and die in one place, what if it sucks?
Once you build the favela you stay forever
>must be an american thing
The term is "highly mobile workforce" which basically means "we get the peons to jump and run on command." It's a way of breaking up community and preventing solidarity.
That's Oogle/Dirty-Kid behavior, which isn't specific to women. Honestly curious how the dirty kid lifestyle survived covid, are you frickers still out there?
Black person what the frick are you talking about?
Be thankful you don't know.
Sometimes they have a vehicle, most the time they just hop trains, do heroin, and commit every variety of animal abuse. To their credit there are some that take real good care of themselves and their pets, but god damn are they some of the most petty and nihilistic people I've ever been around.
The Van Life folks don't even come close to the sheer degenerate power of these anarchist morons.
You mean rubbertramp
Dirty Kids are rich. Mommy and Daddy simply pay for all their bills while they aimlessly wander about and get lost navel-gazing.
>vanlife
How are you going to afford the $200 it takes to drive it 60 miles?
I have a very inefficient van and it drives 400 miles on a 100$ tank. Do you even drive?
assuming you're an american
>secure a job or income; ideally this would be an online job, especially if you want to travel
>buy sub $10k van and convert it, shouldn't need to spend over $1k to get you started, at least initially
>get a gym membership at planet fitness or something
>get a domicile license (south dakota, texas, and florida are good for this) or use a friend or family member's address to use as your permanent legal residence
>get a mail forwarder; "america's mailbox" is good and they're based in south dakota, but I'm sure there are others out there like it
>get rid a lot of your shit or look into renting a storage container
>figure out your internet and power situation; phone data is good but if you really really need the internet, look into mobile hotspots and starlink
that's all you really need. I don't recommend pets because they'll complicate things. do it for a while without and see how it goes, then decide whether or not to drag along a pet.
>t. spent 2020-2022 living in my girlfriend's van full time, looking to get back into it but I don't have government gibs anymore and unfortunately work a dead end job that I need to show up for every day
How does this unemployed guy living in NOT EVEN HIS OWN FRICKING VAN have a girlfriend and I don't
She was probably fat.
go outside, unironically. I met her in 2018 when we were both freshmen in college. we were apart of a cross country ski club and the instructor paired the two of us up for some event and we hit it off. when covid happened we both got laid off from our wagie jobs and decided to take some time off from college. late summer of 2020 she went out and bought a van and guilt tripped me into traveling the country with her since I didn't really want to do that at the time. spent two or three weeks building out the van and getting out shit in order before heading out west in the beginning of october. lots of memories made during that time that I'll cherish for ever. I'm still dating the girl and we've been at it now for almost 6 years.
she's gained a bit of weight since then but she's always been pretty skinny, she has the physique of a long distance runner.
no
>apart
>cross country ski club
yeah so your parents are rich, got it.
I don't think he's saying he was a member of a country club but more like he joined a ski club in college, which is accessible to a wide range of income levels.
Literally anyone can do this shit in college, moron. I was a broke fricking redneck and I was still part of a "sailing club"
You're a goof.
No, I’m just sick of everyone on the entire internet thinking that anything anyone else does is impossible without being born rich, and thinking that it’s a character flaw to boot. It’s an obnoxious and jealous mentality, nevermind completely inaccurate.
I feel ya bro. Everyone has such a defeatist mentality, they've all been conditioned to demoralization.
skiing and cross country skiing are not known for being poor people sports
I’m aware. Neither is sailing. This kind of thing is gatekept by geography far more than income level when you’re in college, which the guy in question was.
I'm here to seethe at this because it's true.
Downhill skiing is insanely expensive, but skiing can be relatively cheap. The initial investment is high, though you can get 2nd hand gear for relatively little if you are lucky. And the gear will easily last you 20-30 years and trail access is either free or very cheap.
I'm the guy that posted that.
>yeah so your parents are rich, got it.
no no no, not that kind of club lol. it was an extra curricular club offered at our college. skis were free to use, but many people had their own. all we had to do was pay a $50 entrance fee to join. we'd meet up at a building on campus and get bussed out to a nearby park usually. sometimes we just bummed around on campus. we didn't compete or anything like that, it was just something to do to make friends and pass time.
I went to college in minnesota, it's popular in the upper midwest.
>I went to college in minnesota, it's popular in the upper midwest.
and what I mean by "popular" is all income levels do it. all you need is a pair of skis for cross country skiing and you can do it anywhere for free. actual skiing though you'd probably want to buy a season pass for a dedicated skiing/snowboarding resort, which can be costly.
>skiing
>expensive
you know you can buy a full set of ski gear for under $100 and get season passes for free right?
ski bums literally exist for this reason.
plenty of c**ts out there who've been skiing the same hill for 20 years and never paid a cent.
Just keep posting frogs from indoors I'm sure everything will work out
Okay anon thanks for the advice
>How does this unemployed guy living in NOT EVEN HIS OWN FRICKING VAN have a girlfriend and I don't
hippie chicks are famous for banging literally anyone. just be the cool quiet cuck dude who has the weed/shrooms and just follow her to whatever dumb shit she forces you to do (usually getting high and going to festivals/the mountains/a multi day hike)
>just become a smelly degenerate for the purpose of getting smelly degenerate puss from smelly degenerate women
Actually I'll pass thanks.
More hairy pussy for me
do not worry fren, women's standards are totally fricked.
they say they want one thing;
then frick guys living in rat infested shitholes.
it comes down to their narcissism, if they admitted they've gotten with a bad guy, they'd have to admit fault, but they could never be at fault! their every fleeting impulse is perfect and right in every way!
He's probably goofy, best way to get a girl is make her laugh
He definitely a goofy
i don't know what it is but literally i had the most lucky with the ladies at the lowest points in my life (no job, no money, at one point living in my car, etc.) and as soon as my life turned around it's been a dry period
granted i'm a lot more careful when it comes to devoting myself to a woman these days and i personally feel like relationships i don't see myself marrying them are a waste of time so that could be it
Are you the one that watched your girlfriend get railed by a meth head?
>phone data is good but if you really really need the internet, look into mobile hotspots
what do you think mobile hotspots are.
Phones have reduced network priority. A mobile hotspot has better antennas and higher priority meaning faster speeds and more reliable connection.
Do you have a source to back up this claim, because it sounds like completely bullshit.
>Do you have a source to back up this claim
I worked at Vodafone
It's true, I work in telecoms engineering for BT Group. Your phone has hotspotting capabilities but it's more of a "hey we can do this" rather than an intentional design feature.
Hotspotting from your phone to a laptop or tablet provides a far weaker signal and slower speeds than hotspotting from a dedicated 4G/5G router.
There's also network-side throttles. "Unlimited max speed" or anything like that is never truly unlimited, but there's a big difference between a standard tariff 100Mb/s speed cap and the "unlimited" 999Mb/s cap. You'll never actually get a gigabit speed over the air anyway because of so many different factors in the geology of the area, architecture of the van, etc, but the more speed the merrier.
As for priority it goes down entirely to how the back end of the telecoms network is configured, so it'll differ between carriers.
I'm also wondering this, my situation:
>Have spreadsheet govt slave job, work from home 3 days a week, full time job, good benefits, pay is not great
>Saving 2/3rds of my wages for mortgage
>Can't save fast enough to really get anywhere (property market going crazy here rn)
>Have two options: Buy van and basically live in it, go around the coast etc. 5 days a week, and touch base at home two days a week
>Or rent slum flat from local bloodsucking parasite
>Cost for rent for a year and cost for a van kitted out and insured is basically the same
>Not stupid enough to think I can live full time in a van in our climate, but am curious about it and don't want to deal with another scummy landlord
>Staying at home driving me insane
>Plenty of vans available here
>No pets, no other bills, no debt, about 2 year's gross pay in savings (mostly in investments, some in cash, some in a government scheme)
>Have gym membership and access to showers/a couple of friends have holiday places in the area I could shower at/go to some of the time
Where do you live? I'll marry you and we can go in on a house together
No homosexual btw
Ireland, and tbh I'm almost desperate enough to do something like that but I'm still clinging to my last shred of self respect
Huh and I thought it was bat in America
I wish I lived in America I'd go buy land in the middle of bumfrick nowhere, Wyoming or something, and put a little prefab cabin on it.
you say that like it that's a thing in the US you can do easily. 5-10 acres in bum frick nowhere is still 100k and another 100k+ to install power, drill a well, and put in a septic tank. the good old days of saving up 30 to 50 grand and getting land and making a simple life have been forever ruined by shitty boomer financial policies like everything else.
just how completely fricked everyone who didn't own property before 2020 is has just started to set in.
>200k dollars for a house + land + amenities.
That's only like 180k euros, frick me you guys have it good. Probably would be hard to get a mortgage for a prefab, though...
A trailer costs like $60-100k here. You could pay that off with a fricking car loan tier apr in like 5-7 years.
>hurdur, dur dur dur hur
You do know these are landlocked properties right? There's no road to them and you can't actually get to them unless you hike in and or helicopter in your stuff. So until you spend the money to build a road access you're not gonna be drilling or installing anything there.
>There's no road to them
>ignores giant white arrow and label reading "Access Road" on first picture
moron
I specifically did not post the cheaper properties in the Red Desert region of WY which are well known for being worthless due to no access. Every property in that picture has legal access. You can even see one of them noting it in the fricking picture. Dimwit.
Damn you're right, it's a shame that there don't exist any vehicles that can on terrain that are not paved surfaces
>5-10 acres
that's under 10k in bumfrick nowhere USA
Still looking into getting a van and I think simpler is probably better.
I'm going to get a small van and just put a bench in the back, air mattress and sleeping bag ontop, storage bins beneath, spray insulation on the walls and cover them with something, marine carpet maybe, large USB power bank that I can charge while driving, maybe a hinged table on one wall to have a place to eat/work/do table things, idk. Not messing about with camping batteries or lots of furniture or running water.
I don't think living in a van long term is sustainable for most people, certainly not in our climate, really all I want is to be able to go on longer trips and stay in nice places without paying for hostels or sleeping in my car/ a tent. I like camping, but sometimes I just want to do stuff in the daylight then have a place to relax at night without any more work. Likewise, it'd be nice to be able to do a weekend of hiking then have somewhere to relax, change, sleep before heading to work on Monday morning, extend the trip for another 12 hours.
All of the stuff about having a tiny home on wheels or flushing toilets or whatever seems misaimed, it isn't a house replacement, its a little base camp on wheels, you use it to enable doing other shit, passively spending a load of time in a metal box sounds like something that would drive you quickly insane
RVs, campers, and vans aren't sustainable. The fuel and repair costs will bankrupt you. The only way to live in a vehicle long term is to get the total weight of everything you own below 100 pounds and live in a Japanese hatchback car or compact SUV. The costs of traveling in a full size van are the same as living in a studio apartment and commuting in a used civic.
I do it for extended periods at work and it fricking sucks for any time longer than a couple of weeks. I'm sure people that have daydreamed about it will interject but if it was a choice between live in a van with enough to get by for the rest of my life or lifer at mcdonalds and live in a shitty apartment I'd take the latter.
I'm pretty sure converting your van to live in will invalidate your autoinsurance, possibly even liability.
Just don't report it. I never had any issue when I was living in my Van, traveled all over the states. I eventually just stopped paying for insurance all together, so long as you drive safe and park in decent areas you can avoid cops all together, and some cops you can BS and just say "I'm broke, can't afford insurance" and they'll just give you a warning.
I've been living in automobiles for 5 years and two of those have been in a hatchback car. If you need a 50,000 dollar conversion van that gets 9mpg to survive then I guarantee you you aren't going to make it. Focus on downsizing your material possessions rather than getting a huge house wheels. Your goal should be to be capable of loading everything you own into/onto a large pack and being capable of physically lifting it. And that's just for starters.
>what's the "smartest" way to do something like this?
I don't understand how this is the norm, and how this never gets mentioned when van life is brought up but the stupidest way to do it is to dedicate most of your space to a gigatic useless bed.
So much space wasted for something so unimportant, just have a sleeping bag you can put way when not in use.
I slept in the hardwood floor for years when I first moved because I kept delaying acquiring a matress since its not something necessary.
I can't understand how someone would be fine living in essentially a bed on wheels and having to go to burger king every time you want to piss and a gym to take a bath.
Having a toilet would bring you much more comfort and convenience, yet the RVs that do have toilets usually barely have enough space to stand inside and then you have a triple king sized bed taking 2/3 of the living space.
A toilet is just as much a waste of space as a bed. Just use an empty water jug. The rare occasions I've had to shit in the middle of the night I just used a large ziplock bag and wrapped it in several grocery bags and threw it away the next day at a gas station. I have never had any desire for a better toilet option and I've lived this way for almost five years continuously. If you can't even do something as basic as relieve yourself without something that weighs 50 pounds and has only existed for. 0001% of human history than this lifestyle definitely isn't for you.
If I were in the middle of nowhere, then yes, I'd have no problem shitting in a hole and bathing with a wet rag. But van life isn't usually about staying in nature, if that was the case it'd be no different than camping with a car.
If I'm gonna be spending time in concrete jungles and I'm gonna do it in a van that has space for some of the features of a home, then I'd like to dedicate part of it to have comfortable means of hygiene.
>A toilet is just as much a waste of space as a bed
Neither of those are a waste of space by default, space is there to be used. My point is that a bed is a waste of space when it means you won't have a bathroom because of it. Sleeping in a sleeping bag, hammock, cot or any other bed-substitute that takes little space is only slightly more uncomfortable than sleeping in a bed.
Using bags and public toilets to shit and rags and gyms to bathe is considerably more uncomfortable and inconvenient than having your own bathroom.
Nobody who lives this life for more than a year has a fricking toilet. Or a van for that matter. We sleep in hatchbacks and compact SUVs.
This, its not a real toilet either if its not connected to a fricking septic system. You still have to empty that shit, and thats way more inconvenient/nasty then just doing your business in the outdoors or going to the gas-station,
You really need to have strong background in primitive camping to make it long term in this lifestyle. You have to undergo a dramatic psychological transformation and unlearn modern sensibilities. I'm well into year 5 doing this, I live in an Impreza hatchback, I feel great, and I don't have a fraction of the shit that YouTube vanlife people claim is a necessity. I haven't even modified the vehicle in any way other than to remove the passenger seat. I sleep on a few cheap foam pads over a sheet of plywood with the rear seat folded down and this has been my system for years. I sleep great and in my mid 30s I don't know what back pain is. The vanlife movement is full of so much ridiculous steaming bullshit I can't even listen to it anymore.
>not having a composting bucket.
NGMI
>I slept in the hardwood floor for years when I first moved because I kept delaying acquiring a matress since its not something necessary.
My brother in christ, a hammock is $20 and wall anchors for it are $5
Kek, I did get a hammock actually, a cheap artisanal one, eventually it ripped and only then I got the matress and a bed
hammocks are gay. and frick up my back
smartest way is to get a camper and a pickup truck. If you have some sort of catastrophic repair like engine failure on the van, you need to fix it or you are out of a place to stay. With a pickup, you can just buy another shitty ass cheap pickup if it fails. They are cheap and everywhere. This also lets you go more places as 4wd +camper is more mobile than 2wd van. 4wd vans are super expensive, AWD minivans are also expensive but an okay option if you really don't want to tow something.
Buying an rv. The weight on those homemade ones is always fricked to shit to where you can't climb a hill anymore.
get this instead OP
Looks heavy and cumbersome. Backpack and bike is much more versatile.
I like the idea od using an old school bus. They have lots of room once you pull out the seats. The older busses have pretty basic engines that are maintainable.
The key is having a place you can park it long term. High fuel prices put a dagger in the whole "van life" idea. You end up getting back to needing a long term parking spot. Which means you need a spot of land. At which point you may as well build out living spaces on the ground.
>what's the "smartest" way to do something like this?
truck with a bed topper and old twin mattress thrown in the back.
get a Toyota Landcruiser
get one of the canopies that goes over the back
put a bed, storage, a cooler, solar panel on the roof, some lights etc inside
make a kitchen/workbench you can fold out.
or just get a van. they're dirt cheap in fall and winter. when it starts getting cold all the hippie european backpackers are in a rush to sell them before they leave the country, can usually pick one up for $3~5k.
ultra poorgay mode would be just getting a 2nd hand riceburner Station Wagon off of trademe or something for under $2k
>what's the "smartest" way to do something like this?
first thing: no dog. too much extra hassle.
second: get a good reliable van that is not tiny. knew someone who did this in a tiny shit van, overheated and fricking broke down after a tiny distance when carrying 4 people and all the camping gear.
would recommend : VW, toyota, iveco, however i am not a driver, these are just the brands everyone raves about.
think about: insulation, ventilation and heating.
some really good ideas from aaron fletcher: 123homefree.org i love his weed-sprayer shower.
gaaaaaaaaaaay
ive been on week long trips where I would sleep in a 2 door honda civic during winter for continuous ice climbing and it was perfectly adequate at it. I just put the back seats down and slept with my feet in the trunk. much comfier than any tent (unless you got a stove in it).
Just make do with whatever vehicle you have. cook outside your door with the blankets over you or better yet park at places with nice sheltered places to cook and clean yourself. Life is already expensive enough and the people who do these vanlife things crave the amenities of 21st century american homes. Maybe its just me but I feel like even the most humble and small american home is too large for a persons true means. Whatever you have now can fill it.
I'm also wondering this, my situation -
You've got a great base, don't give it up and go backwards my friend. I get that money is tight and bills are high, but trying to cut back and save won't get you anywhere. You're thinking like our parents, but in their case being smart with your money and watching your spending actually worked because the economy wasn't completely screwed. Once upon a time you could have a regular job, get married, buy a car cash, and buy a proper house. The way things are going many people are finding they work and slave for $2000/month only to be forced to share a bedroom with 3 students from India and a full house of Punjab's. The American dream has never been so real.
Do what I did, get a commercial trucking license and drive a gravel truck or concrete truck. The pay is great, $36/hr plus overtime and double time after 12 hours. You basically sit in your ride half the day, no labour and no bosses breathing down your neck. Total freedom and financial liberty. Save $100k and then you can start a business in something you're interested in and THEN you can buy a sick van fully stocked and equipped for the road and enjoy your free time.
Peace 🙂
I'd just get a sailboat. Costs about the same. You can get a nice 40 footer for 20k, or a catamaran for like 30-50k
Some of these vanlifers drive around in 200k sprinters and still need to shit in a bucket or at gas stations.
Stealth minivan is the way to go.
These days you can get legitimate batteries straight from Amazon and run anything you want.
With battery isolators, solar panel, and an electric driven a/c compressor ($1000 installed by mechanic) you can have climate control and infotainment system running with the car off.
I’d recommend 100% tint on the back windows and a rear view mirror cam.
You can get a diesel heater for the winter too.
3 gallon water jugs with a usb pump for fresh water and another to catch grey water.
Get a 12v cooler and just run it all the time off the house batteries.
Use an iPad as a tv/gaming system, bring a laptop too.
You can run a 1200w k-cup off of the house battery for single cups of coffee/hot water. You can get a 300w hot plate for reheating sausages or egg bites. You can get a usb-c powered ninja blender.
3 x $100 pieces of sanded plywood for cabinets and a $100 “trucker” mattress.
Basically an $8k minivan, $1k a/c compressor, $2k battery and $1k of Amazon plug and play type stuff, plus bring your own devices. Remove all the seats, build cabinets and bed platform to fit.
Add a shitty little hideaway rv toilet and technically you have a full legal rv conversion which means insurance is like $25 per month.