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Two Years of Vanlife: A Retrospective
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- 3fe9a03ccd14ca5 7y agoInteresting story and lifestyle choice. No mention of health insurance. Especially with mountain biking and snow sports that could have been really ugly. Glad it turned out okay.
- wcameronmiller 7y agohttps://faroutride.com/travel-medical-insurance/ https://faroutride.com/travel-medical-insurance/ They're Canadian, so it's not as big an issue for them.
- rb808 7y agoYeah I laugh when people think that free healthcare in US will unleash a wave on entrepreneurs. More like people will retire early and take time off. Not that there is anything wrong with that, but it isn't a money spinner.
- Cerium 7y agoThe people in the article seem to be entrepreneurs. They mention that the website is paying them enough to continue full time.
- hanniabu 7y agoSo are you telling me you think people shouldn't receive free healthcare because it's more difficult to make money off of them? If so, what is this world coming to....
- dominotw 7y agocanada :\
- RileyJames 7y agoiOverlander is such an awesome app. It’s the barebones required to do exactly what is needed. Minimal design. Links to other apps for directions, etc. no bloat. It uses OSM, and I believe it contributes data back to OSM (not 100% clear how that works, but it eludes to it) I was using freecampsites.net, but once I found iOverlander I never looked back. I dread the day of a “massive update” destroying all that is beautiful about it.
- Pigo 7y agoThey make almost all of their money from affiliate marketing on Amazon? I'm amazed they can make enough to cover gas with that, they must be pretty good promoters of products.
- dyeje 7y agoAffiliate marketing is big money, entire businesses are built off it.
- jacquesm 7y agoLarge fortunes have been built off it. That and lead generation are very effective ways to amass relatively large amounts of money if you are good at it.
- ryanmercer 7y agoI have a single blog post about a handful of Masonic books that is good for 5-10$ a month, one time someone bought one of the books which was nice for a couple of bucks but also bought an expensive snow blower that I got a 40$ and change taste of. There's definitely money to be made there with even relatively low conversion rates, after that snow blower bounty I started keeping a mental list of any podcasts or other content creators I like have amazon affiliate links on their sites and I always drive my larger Amazon purchases through by clicking one of their links first.
- leggomylibro 7y agoI'm not surprised that this is such a popular "quarter-life crisis" for my generations (millennial / genZ). There's no point in trying to settle down in a world where it is impossible to meet people or build communities. And it's not expensive. Personally, I spent less than $25k on a DIY RV, and that included solar power and a new motorcycle. I wouldn't say that I'm happy - it's still harrowingly lonely. But I'm less unhappy than I was when I was working in a big city. There's something calming about nature, and the US is enormously beautiful. And I think that, ironically, there are a lot of people like me out there. People who feel disgusted with our current culture, who don't judge new acquaintances by their mutual friends list entries, and who are genuinely interested in improving the state of the world and the experiences of the people around us. But we have no way to connect, so we wander off and bide our time in the vain hope that someday we will find a world ready to accept us. Until then, there's really nothing to do but smell the roses. One thing I didn't see called out is how often you'll be without cell signal, but I've only skimmed the article so far. I'd recommend getting a satellite beacon if you decide to do this, if only so that you can reliably get weather reports and send messages in an emergency.
- mdszy 7y ago>There's no point in trying to settle down in a world where it is impossible to meet people or build communities. this attitude is exactly WHY it's so hard to meet people or build communities.
- leggomylibro 7y agoWell, personally I spent about 5 years trying in Seattle. Endless meetups, volunteering, local events, you name it. But without a Facebook presence, trying to make friends or date or build a life is like trying to make water flow uphill. There's only so long that you can try and so much that you can do before you give up in despair. At some point, you have to acknowledge that you cannot be part of a community without the participation of other people.
- mdszy 7y ago
- imbusy111 7y agoWe did the same: https://www.lukas.travel https://www.lukas.travel Except we have a baby so our activities and spare time are more limited.
- chrismckleroy 7y agoAs a skier and mountain biker, this content is incredible!!! Thank you. I imagine pinkbike would post this on their home page in and instant!! This is awesome, if you make it to SF, try to ride Pacifica, and Skeggs, and Fairfax.
- mark_l_watson 7y agoGreat lifestyle and impressive that their site holds up to the HN front page effect with heavy media assets. I think this kind of lifestyle will only get more common and popular as younger people decide that the middle class dream of a large home and life in an office is not what they want. I made a similar decision to this couple, but instead of living in a van, my wife and I sold an expensive house on the beach and bought a very small house in the mountains (Sedona Arizona) 21 years ago. Except for working onsite for Google and Capital One for a total of just a few years, most of my time was enjoying life with occasional consulting work. Like the couple in this article, my wife and I decided that “leaving money on the table” and working much less was a good idea. As the nomad life style becomes more popular, I wonder if traditional RV park businesses will start to cater to people traveling and living in smaller vans.
- lm28469 7y ago> as younger people decide that the middle class dream of a large home and life in an office is not what they want. A lot (most?) young middle class people can't afford a large home anymore and I think that's one of the reasons all these alternative lifestyles are popping up in the last decade. edit: https://www.investmentwatchblog.com/where-the-american-dream-goes-to-die-changes-in-house-prices-rents-and-incomes-since-1960-by-region-metro/ https://www.investmentwatchblog.com/where-the-american-dream...
- madaxe_again 7y agoMy wife and I made the same decision - I sold most of my equity in my business, stuck the apartment in the city on Airbnb, and moved to an ancient water mill in the countryside near a backwater of a backwater. We spent three years wandering the earth, before settling down here - it’s only been a few months, but walking out straight into nature is glorious, rain or shine. I do a bit of consulting, maybe 20 days a year, and the Airbnb pays the mortgage and overheads at the apartment - a residential let wouldn’t, unfortunately. It’s a simple and quiet life, but we’re both less stressed and happier than we ever were in mechanistic life. I think we are at a tipping point - we have the technology and the means to make this kind of lifestyle possible. Only a few years ago having power and internet access here would have been impossible. Now, solar is cheap and easy, as is hydro (next project!), and sticking an LTE relay mast up a hill was a trivial job. We are still following an old way of thinking, in general, while we could instead be reaping the benefits of the technical uplift our society has realised, and living a life we left so long ago we barely remember it - but with modern comforts. This is a small home - a bedroom, a bathroom, a living room, a shed - 90sqm total. It’s everything we need. If we have a family, we build a cabin, or a yurt, and we expand our infrastructure as needed. We have hot and cold running water, more power than we can use, fast internet, underfloor heating (next week - working on it), and we’ve only been working and living here for two months. I can see myself living here indefinitely, and as a result of our vastly reduced overheads, even our reduced income gives us a sizeable budget for travel. I think it’s crazy to live any other way. So do an awful lot of others who have done or are doing the same as us - we’re far from alone in our direction.
- philg_jr 7y agoIn their write-up about Internet vanlife, they mention that they use Google Maps location sharing, which does work. If anyone needs an open source, non-google solution for sharing and tracking your location with others, OwnTracks works great. It needs a server set up somewhere with a web server, app, database and MQTT, but it works well. I love it for tracking my travels. https://owntracks.org/booklet/guide/whathow/ https://owntracks.org/booklet/guide/whathow/
- RileyJames 7y agoLegend! Exactly what I’ve been looking for. I had been using Maps.me, but it only tracks for 24 hours, which leads to a lot of manual labour to permanently record the data.
- gwbas1c 7y agoI find these articles (and videos on Youtube) fascinating! > “with all these amenities, you’re trying to replicate an RV; that’s not what’s Vanlife is about. You’re not gonna like it.“ For some, that's the point. A lot of people who do this park in places where an RV attracts unwanted attention. Some people like being able to park somewhere and no one has any clue that someone's living inside. In my case, my HOA prevents RVs. These kind of articles are fascinating, because I can park a van in my driveway. Maybe some day I'll convert a van into a "stealth" RV so I don't violate my HOA! Thanks to whoever posted the link!
- ip26 7y agono one has any clue that someone's living inside The secret is out these days, you can camp quietly but people will know what you are up to.
- thatfrenchguy 7y ago> ~16 L/100KM Pfiou, that's more gas than the three cars in my extended family :-/
- SigmundA 7y agoMy Winnebago motorhome gets about 7mpg or about 33L/100km and has a 80 gallon tank, but its 32ft long and I tow my Jeep behind it. 14.7 mpg would be amazing.
- jnwatson 7y agoThe important bit is at the beginning: "ask for RAMQ coverage". The reason their whole is not irresponsible is that Quebec is paying for their healthcare. The number of entrepreneurships and startups that don't happen in the US because of lack of affordable employment-independent healthcare is uncountably high. Your choices are: roll the dice or marry someone with a "regular" job.
- dangus 7y agoThe whole idea doesn’t seem sustainable without the affiliate marketing link clicks. So if your lifestyle website isn’t popular, well, this isn’t an option. Anyone else would just run out of money (and you have to be in the top 10% of earners to have the flexibility to try this idea in the first place). The website authors think they aren’t like those Instagrammers who “somehow” afford to do this, but in a lot of ways, they’re the same: they’re selling an idea and a dream that is not realistic for most people.
- ip26 7y agoYour point is a good one, although there are always portable jobs like author/writer, software development, or field service. You can also work a regular seasonal job & migrate with the weather, e.g. raft guiding & ski patrolling. I once came across a guy who delivered camper trailers cross country as a job.
- primitivesuave 7y agoI recently bought a Ford transit connect, which is the compact version of the transit van they described. I’ve been converting it into a weekend camper and having so much fun in the process. DIY resources for van conversions are abundant (the vanual, YouTube, etc) and I ended up designing a system of hinges and moving panels to hold a bed (actually two large Purple pet mattresses joined together) and organize my climbing/camping gear. I still wanted a home in SF, but was disillusioned by how much I was willing to pay for a glamorous apartment in a Soma high rise. I first used the van to move out and sell the things I didn’t need, which turned out to be almost everything. I’m renting a small room in a cheaper part of town now that only has a mattress on the floor, and I drive the van to work on weekdays and to Yosemite on the weekends. I’ve become a much stronger climber and rediscovered simple joys of life. I didn’t need to save the money but I certainly did need to save my health and happiness.
- scarecrowbob 7y ago"only has a mattress on the floor," I've got a bedroom in an apartment in Durango and a pickup with a topper... the mattress on the floor is some foam that I got cut to fit where I sleep in the topper. I moved out to SW CO from Austin, and I haven't bothered getting a "real" bed. For a while I thought I was sleeping poorly cause of the mattress setup but I started taking magnesium and (possibly psychosomaticly) that's resolved. My climbing has gotten much, much better, too. And it's finally ski / ice climbing season.
- hanniabu 7y agoI've lived in mid-north Austin and have been considering a move to Colorado. How would you compare the social life in each area outside of climbing?
- scarecrowbob 7y agoThere's a lot going on here, though obviously not as much as in Austin. I've found folks to play music with, found a software dev meetup, and made a couple of friends through my roommate. If I were looking to find a partner, I think it might be a bit thin on resources. But for finding a bunch of people who are into outdoor sports and living in a small town, I think that it'd be hard to find much of a better spot.
- ericmcer 7y agoThe website is working under heavy load but holy cow is it not optimal. A 32mb webpage with 17mb of just javascript? Is this the power of a mature wordpress site? Im not a no script person, but this page murdered my 4 year old mobile phone.
- jjice 7y agoIt would be nice to see blog tempting services move more towards being more minimal in their resource usage. I can't blame the bloggers themselves if they aren't technical, I can only hope that themes or templates that don't over use unnecessary JS grow in popularity.