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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 ind

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.

grecy 10y ago
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.
- gnarcoregrizz 10y ago
  Stealth camping is nerve racking, and its never that stealth, you can always tell when someone is sleeping in their van.
- protomyth 10y ago
  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.
- kxyvr 10y ago
  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 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/ 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.
artimaeis 10y ago
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.
mikestew 10y ago
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.
- hx87 10y ago
  > 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.
  - mikestew 10y ago
    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).

grecy 10y ago

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.

gnarcoregrizz 10y ago
Stealth camping is nerve racking, and its never that stealth, you can always tell when someone is sleeping in their van.
protomyth 10y ago
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.
kxyvr 10y ago
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 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/ 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.

artimaeis 10y ago

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.

mikestew 10y ago

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.

hx87 10y ago
> 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.
- mikestew 10y ago
  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).