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Things I wish I’d known before fulltime RVing (2017)

265 points by cf100clunk 3y ago

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theandrewbailey 3y ago
(2011)
- pengaru 3y ago
  > Pre-Post Note/ Nov 2017. Although this post was written in 2011 > it’s still my most popular post ever (!!), so I’m refreshing it > as part of our 8th year on the road. See my updates in italics > below the original text on each topic.
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digdugdirk 3y ago
Anyone living the nomadic lifestyle on here who would be willing to share their general setup, monthly costs, and any tips/tricks/advice?
- oregoncurtis 3y ago
  Also curious. I was looking locally for some sort of meetup/show where I could see people builds, ask about cost, etc. Sadly I just missed an expo the previous weekend.
- kylixz 3y ago
  I did this for about 2 years across the United States. If you’re employed, make sure your manager is supportive/already remote friendly. Get good internet. I found Verizon to be the best for cellular and this was before Starlink Mobile was available. Get a directional cellular antenna and mount (not a repeater/amplifier) and learn how to point the antenna at towers if you plan to do any “boondocking” out in the west of the US. Otherwise, everywhere else these days likely has internet. Compost Toilet is a win in my book. Very little maintenance and no nasty tanks to deal with. But, it’s not for everyone. Decide if you need showers in your wheeled home or not. That drives the cost of your rig significantly. Most RVs are absolute trash for quality south of $50k.
  - carabiner 3y ago
    > south of $50k "South" to mean down or below, and likewise for north, drives me up a wall. If you are standing at the south pole, north is down. There's also no concept of up/down in space, and so northern hemisphere normalcy is false. To Australians, North America is below!
    - GlumWoodpecker 3y ago
      On a conventionally oriented map, south is always down, and north is always up. "Down south" and "up north" are also very common phrases when discussing relative geographical locations, due to the same reason.
    - EA-3167 3y ago
      Up a wall? Why not down a wall or across it?
    - karaterobot 3y ago
      And yet you know exactly what they mean when they say it, indicating maybe it's a useful convention, even if imperfect.
    - technothrasher 3y ago
      And if you turn around, left and right change places... woah. Snide comment aside, it's obviously in reference to standard map orientation. Maps had to be oriented somehow, unless you're advocating for the chaos of arbitrary individual map orientations.
    - post-it 3y ago
      Having trouble with figures of speech has been linked to schizophrenia. e.g. https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2018.00670/full https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2018.0067...
    - prawn 3y ago
      I'm Australian and don't know anyone here who wouldn't consider North America "above". Can't imagine having the time to be that pedantic. Using "north of $50k" to describe something more expensive than $50k is very standard here too.
- shrubble 3y ago
  It's going to be more expensive than you think, if you try to live in it the way you would in a regular apartment or house. The need for lightness in construction means there are compromises that you will have to work around. I found Visible to be fast enough at 5mbps for most things. I hooked up a Wifi router to serve as a client for those cases where I wasn't tethering. I think it is tougher when you try to work a remote job, since you basically do everything in the same small space. Eat cook work sleep read etc all in the same x square feet.
- mattmaroon 3y ago
  It really depends! I mean you can get by for not much money, or you can live in a million dollar RV at a $200/night park in the keys with a private dock and cabana. You can get a pretty decent truck/camper combo for under $100k.
- poorman 3y ago
  See my post here https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36408382 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36408382
- neftaly 3y ago
  We've been in a 20-year old class-C for a year, it requires regular handyman maintenance (we bounce down a lot of dirt roads) but it has been very mechanically reliable. Upgrading to 200ah of LiFePO4, adding a 140L water tank on the hitch, and plumbing in an external hose for beach showers really improved our quality-of-life. The only thing that will kill them is roof leaks, make sure you replace the rubber roof every 5 years or so. Give it a few months before you start accessorising, we've kept it to a couple of ebikes, camp chairs+table, and a paddleboard. Don't bother with Starlink unless you need to be online 24/7, and if you do get it, consider it only as a supplimentary to a good rugged dual-sim 4G modem. Back home (NZ) we were in a almost-new Sprinter, which was great on fuel, but less fun once you wanted to go off-road or abuse it in any way. Our 2WD Ford goes places people don't dare bring their shiny new 4x4s. I wouldn't go over 22' long, especially in Mexico and the fun parts of Canada, otherwise you'll just be touring RV parks with all the other people towing F150s and jetskis and bouncy castles.
- deleted 3y ago
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- dmattia 3y ago
  I'm in a Leisure Travel Vans Wonder Rear Twin bed, which is a 25 foot "Class B+" RV built on a Ford Transit Chassis. For internet, we use a combo of Verizon (via a Wineguard antennae on our roof) and Starlink (the not-mounted, mobile version) and it's worked wonderfully. Verizon works great near cities. Starlink works great in more remote settings as long as there aren't trees, but the extra long starlink cable makes it pretty easy to find spots where I can connect. We largely moochdock (staying in family/friends driveways), but when we travel we will alternate spending a week or two in remote parks, then parks nearer a city, etc. so that we get a good combo of civilization and nature. Parks near cities normally run us around $40 per night, and more remote places are largely either free or around $20 per night. There are a surprising number of random costs that have popped up over time, and our budget typically is cheaper than when we owned/rented different houses, but not by that much. My wife and I can comfortably make it about 7 days without any hookups before we need to go to a park. We have solar + a gas generator, so we never have issues with electricity. It's usually either running out of fresh water or filling our black tank that will limit our remote stays. There are high highs and low lows with RVing. Highs include being able to work comfortably from literal caves and beaches with nobody in sight (Red Rock Park in CA is gorgeous and nobody goes there, as an example). Lows include being stuck in a place we didn't like for two months after we needed unexpected window/body repairs and couldn't drive. Having your house be your mode of transportation can be extremely limiting. We don't tow a car or have the tow capacity to in our current RV, but I wish we did. My biggest piece of advice is to meet new people and to see old friends/family as much as possible. Hot tubs and hiking are my go tos for meeting new people, and I've made some incredible friends doing each. But it's different than before I was nomadic. I meet people, and two days later we're hiking together, and three weeks later we're hiking in Hawaii together staying in the same AirBnb, and then one of us goes to the midwest and the other to California and we don't see each other for months/years. It's fast paced and fun, but it can also do a number on your mental health if you need consistency in your life. A therapist helps me, as do frequent trips to see family/friends, as does having friends at my place of work that I chat with remotely, but coordinating in-person meeting can be hard when many of my nomad friends could be in any of 48 states most of the time. I love my RV, and choose to live in it even when I have other options available (like if we're at a cabin, hotel, etc.). If you can make an RV your happy place, it can be a lot of fun touring the world.
- ke88y 3y ago
  > nomad I travel for months at a time but have a "real" property to land at, so not completely nomadic. YMMV especially if full-time. > share their general setup I own a mid-sized SUV that gets 25-30 MPH. Think RAV4/CRV/Forester/Rogue/etc -- it's all the same just buy whatever you can get a good deal on (definitely RAV4 hybrid if you plan on lots of city driving; otherwise financially it's a wash until you get to $5/gal or so). - bed platform in the back. - Passenger seat is converted into a desk. - onboard storage under the bed, in the back foot wells, and a battery in the spare tire well. - outboard storage (including spare tire and water) on the roof rack. Solar panels over that stuff. Ran a cable from the panels to the battery. - I have a little tent setup on the side which is nice when you have a place to land and want to... stand up. > monthly costs When on the road, I make due on about $500/mo and live quite luxuriously. I eat out and drink, even. Not counting the cost of the car or health insurance. That number is going up over time due more to lifestyle creep than inflation. I try to keep my monthly expenses below one twelfth of 4% of 30% of my liquid post-tax assets. > any tips/tricks/advice? People spend stupid amounts of money to avoid renting and dependency on others. Don't buy a bunch of shit. Instead, invest and rent! Case-in-point: showers. You can blow $50K extra to have a setup that gives you indoor showers. Or, you can buy notes and have 50000*.05/12 = $200/mo = at least a few showers per week AND you get to keep the principal!!! (and that's just the winter months -- for the cost of one hour/month of cold water showering for 9 months you get an extra $1800/yr to reinvest!) If you are young and single, anything bigger than Transit Connect is unnecessary. Honestly, I've seen people live in priuses for years at time quite comfortably. As that number as gone up, so too have the number of lobsters/cocktails/burgers/dates. Try not to work from the car. A transit connect or RV beats an SUV you want to work from the car, but I promise you would prefer to work from a coffee shop or by following the weather and working outside as much as possible. You'll end up avoiding work days in the rig even if you have the space, so why blow stupid amounts of money? You live out of a car; I promise you won't want to also work out of a car.
  - virtualwhys 3y ago
    > Passenger seat is converted into a desk. Got any pics of your rig?
    - 3y ago
- timmaah 3y ago
  My wife documented all our adventures for the last decade. Sadly we sold the Airstream last week. https://www.watsonswander.com/ https://www.watsonswander.com/
- mallocs13 3y ago
  I'm not fully nomadic, but I generally do a month on the road and a month back at a place I rent for cheap. I've been slowly building out a 10-foot cargo trailer similar to this: https://www.trailersplus.com/Nevada/Las_Vegas/6-Wide-Cargo-Trailers/trailer/4RAVS1016RK091532/ https://www.trailersplus.com/Nevada/Las_Vegas/6-Wide-Cargo-T... I got laid off at the start of Covid, but I had enough money saved up that I wasn't in a hurry to get a new job. I looked at lots of manufactured trailers and considered vans as well. Vans are great because you always have everything with you, but that also means you always have everything with you. Trailers are great because you can drop them and just have a normal car, but then you have to find somewhere to drop them. In the end, I went with a trailer because they're a lot cheaper and I didn't want to go cutting holes in van. I'd initially planned on getting a manufactured trailer, but all the ones I looked at didn't seem worth the money. The real deal breaker for me was I wanted to do a lot of camping near ski areas and cheaper trailers (sub-$50k) all have plumbing outside the insulated area. I didn't really want to spend $30-50k and then not be able to use the plumbing. Driving back from an RV dealership, I saw someone pulling a U-Haul and that got me wondering. Sure enough, there's tons of content on youtube of people building out cargo trailers. I actually started by renting a U-Haul for a week and camping out of it in the middle of winter. It wasn't great, but it worked. At this point, I'm pretty happy with the choice I made, but it's been a ton of work and lots of uncertainty. It's a lot less stressful cutting a hole in a $5k trailer vs a $20-70k van, but it's still pretty stressful. I basically knew nothing about building when I started out. You can just start camping in a cargo trailer right away and it's still better than a tent ... or a teardrop trailer imo. I've come up with lots of tricks along the way and at some point I'll blog about them. I still have a million ideas I want to try building too though. I have some pics and stories on my photoblog (another thing I'm working on): https://photoblog.mallocs.net/ https://photoblog.mallocs.net/
- yencabulator 3y ago
  From when we fulltimed with a class A: https://thedogisdriving.com/six-months/ https://thedogisdriving.com/six-months/ https://thedogisdriving.com/one-year-of-travel/ https://thedogisdriving.com/one-year-of-travel/ https://thedogisdriving.com/two-years-on-the-road/ https://thedogisdriving.com/two-years-on-the-road/
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mikestew 3y ago
One thing that has changed a lot since this article was written and everyone bought RVs during COVID: good luck just showing up and finding a camp spot. Pre-2020, we'd either just show up to a state park on a Friday night, or maybe reserve a spot a couple of days before. Not anymore; I booked all of the spots we might want, or at least could even find available, in March or so and even then we had to schedule around available spots, and not the weekends we necessarily wanted. Now, maybe it's just WA state, but if we hit the road for an extended period I'd be reserving spots ahead of time even at places far less popular than, say, Yellowstone.
- mattmaroon 3y ago
  It’s not just WA. It’s everywhere. New campgrounds are popping up fast and people are becoming disenchanted with the failure-prone covid wagons, so I don’t think it’ll be this way for long.
  - mikestew 3y ago
    Figured it wasn't just WA, my parents in FL don't camp as much as they used to, but they're saying the same thing on the occasions that they do go out. I imagine it'll die off because as you point out, folks will find out that RVs always need something, and in a lot of ways are kind of a pain-in-the-ass. But, man, thought it would have happened by now.
    - luddit3 3y ago
      Combining your house with your car is the pinnacle of need.
    - j2bax 3y ago
      I'm knocking on wood real hard with this one, but I'm going on about 20k miles in my 2013 Airstream with no incidents (bought in 2020). Only major thing I did since getting it was change the original tires and get the wheel bearings repacked. Cross country road trips was what led us to go with an Airstream and so far I haven't regret it a bit.
- 3y ago
dylan604 3y ago
The best RVing advice I was given was to not buy an RV and buy a pull trailer instead which somewhat correlates to the TFA's "bigger is not always better". RVs get horrible gas mileage, and are not easy to drive around. This is why you see a lot of RVs pulling trailers with a smaller car on it. The trailer route allows you to drop off the trailer and then use the pulling vehicle separately. I'm sure it's confirmation bias, but people I know that have RVs use them less than the people I know that have trailers.
- carabiner 3y ago
  Just get a Tacoma or Tundra and put a Kimbo on it. Drive everywhere, even the cities.
  - dieselgate 3y ago
    Tacomas have small beds compared to other trucks. It’s all trade offs though. Slide in campers can b nice but are more difficult to decouple from the vehicle than a bumper pull. Bumper pulls or even fifth wheel campers have the benefit of being much larger when people need more space.
    - dylan604 3y ago
      Yeah, Tacomas are weird hybrid trucks. It's a full sized truck in every way except the bed. The loss of the smaller truck like the S-10 makes me sad. I miss my S-10.
      - ehnto 3y ago
        Not entirely joking, have you considered importing a ute/sport truck from Australia? Or is that too small? Japan also has the Hilux and the Navara, both turbo diesels similar to a sprinter or similar small diesel van. I hadn't thought about it at first but I guess those two locations would be right hand driv
        dieselgate 3y ago
jetsnoc 3y ago
I don't full-time or even part-time RV. I own a class-a 36' diesel pusher. During the summer, I spend one month on the Oregon coast, and during the winter, I go to Twenty-Nine Palms or Palm Springs for one or two months. This allows me to fully immerse myself in an area and explore national parks and new places for an extended period. I wish I would have known how stressful it can be. For me, It feels like there is always a drag of stress - maybe a 30% overhead of stress. If you suddenly don't have hot water, it is on you to fix it because when you are "living" in it for that period, someone won't be able to come to help you repair it for several weeks. You can't even throw money at it, they just are too busy and can't come out. Driving can be stressful too. You get experienced to it after a while but driving at night down a two-lane highway with diesel trucks behind you, in front of you (another lane), and directly to your left where the vortex pulls you in all while you're trying to keep it in the lane can be stressful. Pulling into a truck stop to fuel can be stressful. I like to stick to around < 300 miles per day. I prefer to arrive before it's dark. This means a 12-hour drive I would make in my car can end up taking 2-3 days in the RV. I don't mind taking the time now. I relax, unplug and enjoy it. It now relaxes me. I would rather it take time than to worry about driving at night or pulling into a spot at night. The last few times we went we had two older dogs. One was having seizures. We didn't know it yet but she had kidney failure and had quit eating as much. We didn't notice her feeding habits at home since the other dog was a jerk, eating her portions without us knowing. The trip was fortunate because we got to see everything up close and in person. I have a slight deficiency in object permanence and for them to be right there in my face, we were able to see it. The other dog -- nicknamed Pigbert now -- was having serious issues with his arthritis. He would randomly screech due to pain. A steroid for two weeks solved it quickly. If you combine those things with the 30% constant drag of stress it can be very unpleasant. No hot water, caring for dogs in crisis, and stressful drives all lead to something that is quite unmanageable. My advice is to just be aware of managing stressors and ensuring you have as few as possible on travel days. My other advice is - if it sounds like it is for you - DO IT. I have backpacked Europe and traveled to very nice resorts. None of them top the amazing experiences I have had on the road. I won't personally live in that small of a space full-time or part-time but I admire those that do it.
- jetsnoc 3y ago
poorman 3y ago
I've been doing van life for over a year while being a Director of Engineering. This has involved a large amount of being on Zoom calls. I figured it would be helpful for any engineers (or managers) for me to break down some of my costs. Internet 1. Starlink internet [50GB/mo priority data, unlimited non-priority] - $250 monthly / $2000+ for flat mount hardware. I had/have the less-expensive RV/home dish (non-mobile) before the mobile flat mount high performance dish came out. I can quickly attach it to the Harbor Freight flag pole and hoist it above most tree canopy if needed. 2. T-mobile hotspot [50ish GB/mo] - Roughly $55 monthly. Works great in cities with 5G. 3. Verizon mobile router (Peplink) [300GB/mo] - $150 monthly for the data plan from: https://mobilemusthave.com/ https://mobilemusthave.com/ The reason I have all these is because I need redundant connections to do my job. It's not acceptable to not have internet one day. Also I use MultipathTCP to bond all my connections together so my Zoom calls never drop (which used to be a problem with Starlink, but less so now these days). Fuel Costs This is my greatest expense. I have a very heavy Sprinter van that I built out myself. I get about 14 MPG diesel. It really depends what State you are in on what the costs are and how much you travel. The general consensus between all the people I've met on the road (working full time) is that they put about 35k miles on their vehicle per year. Campgrounds Really only pay for for these when on the East Coast since there isn't as much BLM or USFS land. Power I have 600 amp hours of batteries with about 800 watts of solar on my roof, 1320 watts of portable panels that I can set up when I need to (mostly when I want to run the air conditioner 24 hours a day). I also have a 3360 watt auxiliary alternator that will charge the batteries real fast. The truth is I run a ton of computer equipment and never really worry about power. This lifestyle has been amazing. I used to feel stuck being an engineer behind my desk all day. Now when I get tired of a town I can simply move onto the next one. There's also some amazing groups out there and I've actually made loads of friends across the country doing this same lifestyle so we'll often meet up in places. For example, Trent (who arguabily started the "Van Life Gamers" movement) has a discord full of people that live this lifestyle https://discord.gg/d4xsZEVH https://discord.gg/d4xsZEVH. I would also say having a Sprinter Van has been so much better than an RV because it's much easier to go places with the van than a huge RV. I can park at a trail head for example in a normal parking spot.
- hypatiadotca 3y ago
brightball 3y ago
We did the RV thing for about 4 years and it was fun. Then covid hit and it got so popular that everything was crowded and it wasn't fun anymore. Mostly agree with this list though: 1. Size: 35ft should be your absolute limit. There are a lot of reasons for this that you'll discover as you get into it. 2. Hard mounted satellite: This was my favorite feature, but we got a dish that would keep the signal when you were driving. I took a trip from Florida to South Carolina on a Saturday in the fall. We had College Gameday on when we left and didn't miss a beat for most of the day. For me, this makes the drive a lot more enjoyable. Nothing better than getting up to make a sandwich while the game is on while stuck in a traffic jam. 3. Never tried the camping clubs, but they didn't seem worth it. 4. This makes sense, but wasn't anything we ever had an issue with. 5. Completely agree. 6. Also true. We used Dish Network on a month-to-month 7. Taking your time is pretty much the point. Enjoy the drive. Stop and see interesting things. We started actively looking for random billboard activities to chase down. Visited the Luray Caverns, Hershey Park and almost chased down the bigfoot museum but it was a little too far off the route. 8. Totally correct. You don't need a lot, but it will still feel good to be prepared. Like anything, it's a learning experience. 9. I can see this, but YMMV. 10. Costs are certainly interesting. We had 2 different RVs over 4 years. We started out with a 20 year old rig that we got cheaper than a used car and fixed it up. It wasn't perfect but we loved it. Didn't have much fancy stuff on it. Then we upgraded to something that was about 7 years old with a lot more bells, whistles and computers. It was much nicer but was in the shop constantly because something was always broken. In retrospect, you don't need half the fancy systems on these things. Push button shades, automatic leveling systems (it's not that hard to level). Demand went up so much that we sold both for more than we paid for them initially, except for our maintenance costs. The biggest thing is winterizing. If a sudden cold snap happens before you've winterized, you're going to be in for some bills. We still miss the RV life, but half the fun for us we just deciding at the last minute that we'd go somewhere that weekend. As it got more popular, all of the places we'd try to go were booked up 6 months in advance. We had some great family vacations and it was a lot of fun for sporting events. Clemson never lost a game that we came to in the RV (including the 2016 championship), so I like to think we were good luck. Disney's Fort Wilderness is by far the best RV stop that we found on the east coast.
__MatrixMan__ 3y ago
I occasionally camp with van people and they make it look so stressful. I can't imagine having a whole RV worth of things to worry about. I'm glad people are happy with 'em, but the more I learn about that lifestyle the more I love my small pickup truck and hammock.
seattle_spring 3y ago
Question for all the RVers here on HN: why do so many of you refuse to use designated pull outs? The ones specifically created for vehicles like yours to move over and let the dozen+ cars behind you pass so they can go more than 20 under the speed limit. Many RVs I encounter even go out of their way to prevent passing. I don't really understand it, and it seems like an RV-specific behavior.
- balderdash 3y ago
  I don’t think it’s RV specific - there are two types of people in this world people who drive in the passing lane and the people that hate them, some of them just own RVs…
- psytrx 3y ago
  These lanes and pull outs aren't common everywhere. When I visited NZ, it took me a day or two to realize they had a purpose. RVers usually are not driving in their home country. I just recently tried to use the side lane in DK to let others pass (set signal, decelerate, pull over as far as possible). It actually confused the other drivers so much that they didn't dare to take over, even when there was lots of space to do so.
  - seattle_spring 3y ago
    They’re all over the western US, very frequently with several signs notifying drivers that one is coming up.
    - activiation 3y ago
      I never seen those in the US or Canada... I've been mostly on the east coast though
      - MSFT_Edging 3y ago
        Seconded, I was really confused until I watched a video shared. Never seen one of those in my life and I've done a lot of back road driving on the east coast. Typically we'll just have labeled passing zones.
xwdv 3y ago
What I wish I knew, don’t bother with the RV. Get something like a nice airstream trailer and a capable vehicle to pull it.
- j2bax 3y ago
  Second this! We also found an added benefit of not going longer than the 22 footer (assuming a F150 with short bed towing) is that you can typically fit across two parking spots which opens up your options when you stop quite a lot.
  - iancmceachern 3y ago
    Third this!
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
coding123 3y ago
Wow, this really should be updated to 2023. Here's what my list would be: (full time for 7 years, now building a house so I don't need full time RVing ever again). 1. RV parks are full, they converted almost all the nightly sites to monthlys to guarantee revenue. RV Parks are the new mobile home park but with monthly RVers who got wind of the "Gone with the Wynns" blog and cheaper cost of living. 2. RV Park nightly rates have literally gone from $35 a night to $70 a night during the 2020s -> 2023s. A lot of the time you're the one that showed up paying $70 per day and all the loud blubs next door are paying $10 per night at the monthly rate. 3. Free camping areas are getting shut down after sites like "campendium" have advertised them to everyone. Most of the problems are related to illegal gray and black tank dumping on public lands. 4. Quartzsite is an absolute shit-show now, it's still probably worth going, but it's crowded. I wouldn't be surprised if they shut down the free areas in the next few years over the same gray/black tank issues. 5. Internet problems are 1000% solved with Starlink now. 6. Solar does not power the A/C. To power the A/C you need 10+ residential solar panels and a $2000 inverter on a 48 volt system. There are ways to have a 48 volt battery and down-regulate to 12v for the rest of your RV. People that run A/C off solar have "special ways" to have that many residential panels, typically involving fold outs and trailers. 7. Gas prices have skyrocketed in CA so it's not worth going anywhere near the state - let alone find a park that's cheap. RV Progression Cedar Creek 5th Wheel (2 years) -> Arctic Fox TC 1150 (5 years) -> Alliance Paradigm (1 year) -> building house
- iancmceachern 3y ago
  We live in California, have an RV, and use it regularly. #7 is weird as California has some of thr most amazing things and places to see with your rv.
- poorman 3y ago
  > 6. Solar does not power the A/C. To power the A/C you need 10+ residential solar panels and a $2000 inverter on a 48 volt system. There are ways to have a 48 volt battery and down-regulate to 12v for the rest of your RV. People that run A/C off solar have "special ways" to have that many residential panels, typically involving fold outs and trailers. I have not found this to be true. I run a Cruise N Comfort 12v AC and it works great (most it uses is about 60amps at 12v which I run off my solar panels). See my post here https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36408382 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36408382
chayesfss 3y ago
Love our GMC MotorCoach, still holds land speed record and wowza that 455 is amazing!!!
- quesera 3y ago
  I vouched for your post, because you're right. Classic GMC motorhomes are pieces of work, but the 455s run and run and run and run.
varelse 3y ago
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jokoon 3y ago
Living in a van is either a necessity if you're very poor, or it's a luxury if you're rich. If you really understand what living in a RV or a van really involves, you quickly realize several things: * If you plan a long journey, it's still a lot of time spent on the road, and gas money. So it's not about just living in the wild, it's just driving and sleeping, which is not that great, and it's not what people mean when they mean to live in a van. It's a home that can move, but it's not meant to travel. * It's better to keep a real home, use a station wagon to sleep in it or carry stuff, a bicycle, a tent etc, and not go too far from your home and still enjoy the wilderness, and do this for several months and still enjoy being in the wild without using a RV or van. A station wagon is not the full luxury, but it's still pretty nice. The trend is on vans which are smaller RVs, but I really thing using a station wagon is largely enough.
- voisin 3y ago
  > and gas money I cannot stress enough how absurdly expensive it is to keep an RV moving on the road. They are built in by far the least weight efficient manner imaginable and consume gas or diesel as if prices hadn’t changed since 1986. It is wild how little manufacturers have spent on R&D to come up with more weight efficient solutions.
  - numbsafari 3y ago
    It’s wild how little manufacturers have invested in anything, like basic quality. It’s a garbage industry full of garbage vendors selling unremarkable trash, YoY.
  - nightfly 3y ago
    "Tiny houses" take that inefficiency up a notch. Using materials and designs with no regard for road weight.
    - cultofmetatron 3y ago
      tiny houses are not typically expected to move around often. the wheels are generally a formality to get round certain zoning rules. that you can move them is a side benefit.
justinlloyd 3y ago
Not a full-timer, just a casual enjoy-er about four days a month of an RV kitted out how I want it. An older model 38ft Class A diesel pusher with low mileage that has no slides. These were specific choices. If I did it over, it'd be a 32ft-er instead. No slides. Slides can fail. And the interior design is often made purposefully cramped until you deploy the slides. My RV is basically an open plan office & kitchen with tile & wood flooring throughout. Though I am in the process of ripping out the carpet in the bedroom because - it is time. Not sure if I will go with tile, wood or tatami mats. My RV sits two comfortably and sleeps two comfortably. Me and my wife. Everybody else can walk. We simply don't take passengers or ride alongs. We pulled out the dinette, the built-in ice maker, the couch that reclines and folds down into another bed, and every other accoutrements that would accommodate six to eight people for a two week vacation. Now there is so much more space for activities. The dinette area turned in to a prep area with a custom built cabinet underneath with lots of shallow drawers. I can quite categorically state that the kitchen and prep area in the RV is larger than the one in our condo and has way more storage. The bathroom/dressing room is pretty comfortably sized too. I pulled out the shower enclosure and put in a Japanese soaking tub and a simple curtain rail for showers. Interior is an eclectic mix between boho and traditional Japanese. Full height sliding shoji screens with reinforced lexan inserts (just in case someone left something on a countertop and I need to slam on the brakes) that separate cockpit from living area for privacy. Sliding shoji screen doors on bathroom and bedroom. Sliding shoji screen window covers. All the 1980's era country kitchen knobs, handles and pulls got replaced with either custom made pulls or an eclectic mixture of cabinet pulls we have found on our travels. Replaced all the external cabinet door hinges interior euro-hinges. All the country kitchen woodwork got sanded and repainted to a neutral white. Replaced all the terrible "we cut a lot of corners" drawer slides with push to open/soft-close slides. We went with reasonably high-end appliances; GE Profile fridge/freezer, cook top, microwave, dishwasher, Gaggenau high BTU wok unit converted to propane, and a Bosch washer/dryer combo unit in the bathroom. Wolf counter top oven (which also doubles as our toaster). And then the usual collection of small appliances that every kitchen has; rice maker, food mixer, food processor, immersion blender, Wega Polaris 2 group machine, teppanyaki grill plate that sits over the regular cook top. Built a vented (to the outside) cat litter box into a cabinet in the bathroom. Bunch of solar on the roof (that I need to get up there and clean) and a lot of lithium in the basement to power all the electronics. The one thing we don't have in our RV is a regular TV screen, which means we don't have anything to point any of our furniture at. Have been contemplating a composting toilet, which would reduce our black water tank to pretty much just grey water storage. I put in two sit-to-stand electric desks, with Humanscale monitor arms, and a Humanscale laptop arm. Both desks have dual 4K curved displays and wireless accessories. Amazon has some nice mesh workstation chairs that fold down and slide right under the desks when not in use. Custom 19" rack mount cabinet. Ubiquiti Dream Machine Pro SE with a couple of WiFi APs and a G3 doorbell camera. APC LiIon UPS. ~24TB (30TB physical, 22.something TB actual) flash-only Synology media server (music, movies & TV shows) that automatically syncs to the Synology in the condo whenever the RV connects to specific WiFi networks. We have a WiFi booster antenna that will form a bridge for us to distant networks - use a LinkSys with OpenWRT and some custom scripts to make that happen. And we have a cellular booster for our T-Mobile phones & hotspot with about 100GB of data per month. Couple of e-bikes in the storage bay, my wife's reflector telescope, and a tool chest of accessories and tools for RV maintenance and those "aw, shit" moments of life, e.g. air filters, emergency fluids, power washer, cordless drill, full set of wrenches. We travel reasonably light (for an RV); no camping gear, no deck chairs, very few clothing items, not a lot of extra stuff that many RV'ers haul around with them. I will agree with the article, you don't need anywhere near the amount of stuff you think you need. I only have AAA and Good Sam for the recovery/break down options, and some extra insurance in case of a complete failure. Obviously remote work has made using the RV a lot more possible than it did pre-COVID, though the number of RV'ers has skyrocketed since before the pandemic.
nickls 3y ago
What are some good options for a standing desk while traveling in an RV, travel trailer or van?
- iancmceachern 3y ago
  You can pretty much put anything you want in, the furniture isn't usually special unless it's a class b or something. Lots of people just go to ikea to upgrade their furniture, lots of people just put standard desks and sit stand stuff, whatever fits
- yencabulator 3y ago
  If you have an RV big enough to have a reasonably normal kitchen, just put some stands on the counter: https://thedogisdriving.com/standing-desk/ https://thedogisdriving.com/standing-desk/
jasonmarks_ 3y ago
> 9/ Follow the Weather Road trip weather apps are out there these days. You can check your drive forecast ahead of time! Avoid the bad weather! Get departure time recommendations! https://www.weatherthetrip.com/download https://www.weatherthetrip.com/download iOS and Android
leksak 3y ago
Question to RVers/van-lifers: is it conceivable to build a van that supports living in a Nordic/Scandinavian coastal city to sustain climbing through most of the year while also being equipped enough to go to Norway for snowboard trips in the winter months? I worry about humidity/condensation and rust mostly, but are there other things I should be mindful of? I'd prefer the smaller size of a van to get to climbing crags even if that means losing out on shower opportunities although showering would be nice. Most skiing/snowboarding destinations I've been to do not seem to have dress rooms so I guess if push to shove one can always self-clean using snow brr
- jonasdegendt 3y ago
  > I worry about humidity/condensation You can open the doors every day for some natural ventilation or install active ventilation that uses fans to pull outside air in and push the stale air out. The latter is probably preferable in winter, although it all depends on what you're able to tolerate I guess. As for rust, I haven't experienced any significant amounts of undercarriage or panel rust on any of my 20+ year old vehicles in Western Europe, but we don't get as much snow (and salted roadways as a consequence) as Scandinavia does. You can look into undercarriage coatings for this though.
- jhives 3y ago
  I would say definitely with the right van build. I lived in a self-converted van for two years with my partner, and we spent both winters ski bumming in the Northeast US and Colorado. We saw temperatures down to -14F and could keep the van a balmy 65 inside. We heated the van with an externally exhausted 16k BTU propane furnace (blew dry heat) and that thing could really crank out warmth. As for showering, we never did in the winter because external grey tanks freeze. We did have a showerpan embedded flush in the floor so it didn't take up any space normally day to day. We would just have to set up shower curtains around it before we did. I actually showered more outside of the van for that reason. Mostly we would just clean ourselves with hot towels for a few days before we had to wash our hair.
- poorman 3y ago
  Definitely should be able to. I'd recommend getting a professional to spray closed cell foam insulation. I have a diesel heater. It's hooked up to a heat exchanger with my engine coolant loop, runs to my hot water heater, also to the forced air fan, and also throughout the entire floor. I laid pex down in the floor so I have floors that I can get up to 80 degrees F. I rarely use the forced air as the diesel heater barely sips fuel and keeps the floors nice and toasty. The advantage of the heated floors in van is that it's a thicker radiant heat, so it heats the cabinets and the walls. Then when you open the door it doesn't let all the heat out.
Helmut10001 3y ago
We were on a camping trip for the last 3 weeks through Sweden and Denmark with our VW T4 Van (Caravelle, Long Version - Not sold in US). We're usually the smallest car on campgrounds. It is incredible to see how big these RVs are getting. We try to find campgrounds with spaces without electricity because these massive campers need the electricity to power all their gear. Otherwise, we often will look at 5+ m plastic walls to both sides of us. Our T4 on the other hand can fit in everywhere, we often stay in Sweden where regular RVs are forbidden, but car-sized is allowed. It fits 2x 200x80 cm standard matrasses behind the backseats, enough for 2 adults and kid. We even packed 2 Windsurfboards _inside_ the car.
unkulunkulu 3y ago
Thank you, HN! This site is like a complete handbook to my dream :)
londons_explore 3y ago
One little trick: If you are the kind of person to set off on a drive without having even picked a destination like me, then it's a good idea to use the weather to decide which direction to drive. A few hours drive north might have beautiful clear skies, while a few hours south will be a thunderstorm. If you don't care where you end up, you might as well have nice weather while you do it.

265 points by cf100clunk 3y ago

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theandrewbailey 3y ago

(2011)

pengaru 3y ago
> Pre-Post Note/ Nov 2017. Although this post was written in 2011 > it’s still my most popular post ever (!!), so I’m refreshing it > as part of our 8th year on the road. See my updates in italics > below the original text on each topic.

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digdugdirk 3y ago

Anyone living the nomadic lifestyle on here who would be willing to share their general setup, monthly costs, and any tips/tricks/advice?

oregoncurtis 3y ago
Also curious. I was looking locally for some sort of meetup/show where I could see people builds, ask about cost, etc. Sadly I just missed an expo the previous weekend.
kylixz 3y ago
I did this for about 2 years across the United States. If you’re employed, make sure your manager is supportive/already remote friendly. Get good internet. I found Verizon to be the best for cellular and this was before Starlink Mobile was available. Get a directional cellular antenna and mount (not a repeater/amplifier) and learn how to point the antenna at towers if you plan to do any “boondocking” out in the west of the US. Otherwise, everywhere else these days likely has internet. Compost Toilet is a win in my book. Very little maintenance and no nasty tanks to deal with. But, it’s not for everyone. Decide if you need showers in your wheeled home or not. That drives the cost of your rig significantly. Most RVs are absolute trash for quality south of $50k.
- carabiner 3y ago
  > south of $50k "South" to mean down or below, and likewise for north, drives me up a wall. If you are standing at the south pole, north is down. There's also no concept of up/down in space, and so northern hemisphere normalcy is false. To Australians, North America is below!
  - GlumWoodpecker 3y ago
    On a conventionally oriented map, south is always down, and north is always up. "Down south" and "up north" are also very common phrases when discussing relative geographical locations, due to the same reason.
  - EA-3167 3y ago
    Up a wall? Why not down a wall or across it?
  - karaterobot 3y ago
    And yet you know exactly what they mean when they say it, indicating maybe it's a useful convention, even if imperfect.
  - technothrasher 3y ago
    And if you turn around, left and right change places... woah. Snide comment aside, it's obviously in reference to standard map orientation. Maps had to be oriented somehow, unless you're advocating for the chaos of arbitrary individual map orientations.
  - post-it 3y ago
    Having trouble with figures of speech has been linked to schizophrenia. e.g. https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2018.00670/full https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2018.0067...
  - prawn 3y ago
    I'm Australian and don't know anyone here who wouldn't consider North America "above". Can't imagine having the time to be that pedantic. Using "north of $50k" to describe something more expensive than $50k is very standard here too.
shrubble 3y ago
It's going to be more expensive than you think, if you try to live in it the way you would in a regular apartment or house. The need for lightness in construction means there are compromises that you will have to work around. I found Visible to be fast enough at 5mbps for most things. I hooked up a Wifi router to serve as a client for those cases where I wasn't tethering. I think it is tougher when you try to work a remote job, since you basically do everything in the same small space. Eat cook work sleep read etc all in the same x square feet.
mattmaroon 3y ago
It really depends! I mean you can get by for not much money, or you can live in a million dollar RV at a $200/night park in the keys with a private dock and cabana. You can get a pretty decent truck/camper combo for under $100k.
poorman 3y ago
See my post here https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36408382 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36408382
neftaly 3y ago
We've been in a 20-year old class-C for a year, it requires regular handyman maintenance (we bounce down a lot of dirt roads) but it has been very mechanically reliable. Upgrading to 200ah of LiFePO4, adding a 140L water tank on the hitch, and plumbing in an external hose for beach showers really improved our quality-of-life. The only thing that will kill them is roof leaks, make sure you replace the rubber roof every 5 years or so. Give it a few months before you start accessorising, we've kept it to a couple of ebikes, camp chairs+table, and a paddleboard. Don't bother with Starlink unless you need to be online 24/7, and if you do get it, consider it only as a supplimentary to a good rugged dual-sim 4G modem. Back home (NZ) we were in a almost-new Sprinter, which was great on fuel, but less fun once you wanted to go off-road or abuse it in any way. Our 2WD Ford goes places people don't dare bring their shiny new 4x4s. I wouldn't go over 22' long, especially in Mexico and the fun parts of Canada, otherwise you'll just be touring RV parks with all the other people towing F150s and jetskis and bouncy castles.
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dmattia 3y ago
I'm in a Leisure Travel Vans Wonder Rear Twin bed, which is a 25 foot "Class B+" RV built on a Ford Transit Chassis. For internet, we use a combo of Verizon (via a Wineguard antennae on our roof) and Starlink (the not-mounted, mobile version) and it's worked wonderfully. Verizon works great near cities. Starlink works great in more remote settings as long as there aren't trees, but the extra long starlink cable makes it pretty easy to find spots where I can connect. We largely moochdock (staying in family/friends driveways), but when we travel we will alternate spending a week or two in remote parks, then parks nearer a city, etc. so that we get a good combo of civilization and nature. Parks near cities normally run us around $40 per night, and more remote places are largely either free or around $20 per night. There are a surprising number of random costs that have popped up over time, and our budget typically is cheaper than when we owned/rented different houses, but not by that much. My wife and I can comfortably make it about 7 days without any hookups before we need to go to a park. We have solar + a gas generator, so we never have issues with electricity. It's usually either running out of fresh water or filling our black tank that will limit our remote stays. There are high highs and low lows with RVing. Highs include being able to work comfortably from literal caves and beaches with nobody in sight (Red Rock Park in CA is gorgeous and nobody goes there, as an example). Lows include being stuck in a place we didn't like for two months after we needed unexpected window/body repairs and couldn't drive. Having your house be your mode of transportation can be extremely limiting. We don't tow a car or have the tow capacity to in our current RV, but I wish we did. My biggest piece of advice is to meet new people and to see old friends/family as much as possible. Hot tubs and hiking are my go tos for meeting new people, and I've made some incredible friends doing each. But it's different than before I was nomadic. I meet people, and two days later we're hiking together, and three weeks later we're hiking in Hawaii together staying in the same AirBnb, and then one of us goes to the midwest and the other to California and we don't see each other for months/years. It's fast paced and fun, but it can also do a number on your mental health if you need consistency in your life. A therapist helps me, as do frequent trips to see family/friends, as does having friends at my place of work that I chat with remotely, but coordinating in-person meeting can be hard when many of my nomad friends could be in any of 48 states most of the time. I love my RV, and choose to live in it even when I have other options available (like if we're at a cabin, hotel, etc.). If you can make an RV your happy place, it can be a lot of fun touring the world.
ke88y 3y ago
> nomad I travel for months at a time but have a "real" property to land at, so not completely nomadic. YMMV especially if full-time. > share their general setup I own a mid-sized SUV that gets 25-30 MPH. Think RAV4/CRV/Forester/Rogue/etc -- it's all the same just buy whatever you can get a good deal on (definitely RAV4 hybrid if you plan on lots of city driving; otherwise financially it's a wash until you get to $5/gal or so). - bed platform in the back. - Passenger seat is converted into a desk. - onboard storage under the bed, in the back foot wells, and a battery in the spare tire well. - outboard storage (including spare tire and water) on the roof rack. Solar panels over that stuff. Ran a cable from the panels to the battery. - I have a little tent setup on the side which is nice when you have a place to land and want to... stand up. > monthly costs When on the road, I make due on about $500/mo and live quite luxuriously. I eat out and drink, even. Not counting the cost of the car or health insurance. That number is going up over time due more to lifestyle creep than inflation. I try to keep my monthly expenses below one twelfth of 4% of 30% of my liquid post-tax assets. > any tips/tricks/advice? People spend stupid amounts of money to avoid renting and dependency on others. Don't buy a bunch of shit. Instead, invest and rent! Case-in-point: showers. You can blow $50K extra to have a setup that gives you indoor showers. Or, you can buy notes and have 50000*.05/12 = $200/mo = at least a few showers per week AND you get to keep the principal!!! (and that's just the winter months -- for the cost of one hour/month of cold water showering for 9 months you get an extra $1800/yr to reinvest!) If you are young and single, anything bigger than Transit Connect is unnecessary. Honestly, I've seen people live in priuses for years at time quite comfortably. As that number as gone up, so too have the number of lobsters/cocktails/burgers/dates. Try not to work from the car. A transit connect or RV beats an SUV you want to work from the car, but I promise you would prefer to work from a coffee shop or by following the weather and working outside as much as possible. You'll end up avoiding work days in the rig even if you have the space, so why blow stupid amounts of money? You live out of a car; I promise you won't want to also work out of a car.
- virtualwhys 3y ago
  > Passenger seat is converted into a desk. Got any pics of your rig?
  - 3y ago
timmaah 3y ago
My wife documented all our adventures for the last decade. Sadly we sold the Airstream last week. https://www.watsonswander.com/ https://www.watsonswander.com/
mallocs13 3y ago
I'm not fully nomadic, but I generally do a month on the road and a month back at a place I rent for cheap. I've been slowly building out a 10-foot cargo trailer similar to this: https://www.trailersplus.com/Nevada/Las_Vegas/6-Wide-Cargo-Trailers/trailer/4RAVS1016RK091532/ https://www.trailersplus.com/Nevada/Las_Vegas/6-Wide-Cargo-T... I got laid off at the start of Covid, but I had enough money saved up that I wasn't in a hurry to get a new job. I looked at lots of manufactured trailers and considered vans as well. Vans are great because you always have everything with you, but that also means you always have everything with you. Trailers are great because you can drop them and just have a normal car, but then you have to find somewhere to drop them. In the end, I went with a trailer because they're a lot cheaper and I didn't want to go cutting holes in van. I'd initially planned on getting a manufactured trailer, but all the ones I looked at didn't seem worth the money. The real deal breaker for me was I wanted to do a lot of camping near ski areas and cheaper trailers (sub-$50k) all have plumbing outside the insulated area. I didn't really want to spend $30-50k and then not be able to use the plumbing. Driving back from an RV dealership, I saw someone pulling a U-Haul and that got me wondering. Sure enough, there's tons of content on youtube of people building out cargo trailers. I actually started by renting a U-Haul for a week and camping out of it in the middle of winter. It wasn't great, but it worked. At this point, I'm pretty happy with the choice I made, but it's been a ton of work and lots of uncertainty. It's a lot less stressful cutting a hole in a $5k trailer vs a $20-70k van, but it's still pretty stressful. I basically knew nothing about building when I started out. You can just start camping in a cargo trailer right away and it's still better than a tent ... or a teardrop trailer imo. I've come up with lots of tricks along the way and at some point I'll blog about them. I still have a million ideas I want to try building too though. I have some pics and stories on my photoblog (another thing I'm working on): https://photoblog.mallocs.net/ https://photoblog.mallocs.net/
yencabulator 3y ago
From when we fulltimed with a class A: https://thedogisdriving.com/six-months/ https://thedogisdriving.com/six-months/ https://thedogisdriving.com/one-year-of-travel/ https://thedogisdriving.com/one-year-of-travel/ https://thedogisdriving.com/two-years-on-the-road/ https://thedogisdriving.com/two-years-on-the-road/

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mikestew 3y ago

One thing that has changed a lot since this article was written and everyone bought RVs during COVID: good luck just showing up and finding a camp spot. Pre-2020, we'd either just show up to a state park on a Friday night, or maybe reserve a spot a couple of days before. Not anymore; I booked all of the spots we might want, or at least could even find available, in March or so and even then we had to schedule around available spots, and not the weekends we necessarily wanted. Now, maybe it's just WA state, but if we hit the road for an extended period I'd be reserving spots ahead of time even at places far less popular than, say, Yellowstone.

mattmaroon 3y ago
It’s not just WA. It’s everywhere. New campgrounds are popping up fast and people are becoming disenchanted with the failure-prone covid wagons, so I don’t think it’ll be this way for long.
- mikestew 3y ago
  Figured it wasn't just WA, my parents in FL don't camp as much as they used to, but they're saying the same thing on the occasions that they do go out. I imagine it'll die off because as you point out, folks will find out that RVs always need something, and in a lot of ways are kind of a pain-in-the-ass. But, man, thought it would have happened by now.
  - luddit3 3y ago
    Combining your house with your car is the pinnacle of need.
  - j2bax 3y ago
    I'm knocking on wood real hard with this one, but I'm going on about 20k miles in my 2013 Airstream with no incidents (bought in 2020). Only major thing I did since getting it was change the original tires and get the wheel bearings repacked. Cross country road trips was what led us to go with an Airstream and so far I haven't regret it a bit.
3y ago

dylan604 3y ago

The best RVing advice I was given was to not buy an RV and buy a pull trailer instead which somewhat correlates to the TFA's "bigger is not always better". RVs get horrible gas mileage, and are not easy to drive around. This is why you see a lot of RVs pulling trailers with a smaller car on it. The trailer route allows you to drop off the trailer and then use the pulling vehicle separately. I'm sure it's confirmation bias, but people I know that have RVs use them less than the people I know that have trailers.

carabiner 3y ago
Just get a Tacoma or Tundra and put a Kimbo on it. Drive everywhere, even the cities.
- dieselgate 3y ago
  Tacomas have small beds compared to other trucks. It’s all trade offs though. Slide in campers can b nice but are more difficult to decouple from the vehicle than a bumper pull. Bumper pulls or even fifth wheel campers have the benefit of being much larger when people need more space.
  - dylan604 3y ago
    Yeah, Tacomas are weird hybrid trucks. It's a full sized truck in every way except the bed. The loss of the smaller truck like the S-10 makes me sad. I miss my S-10.
    - ehnto 3y ago
      Not entirely joking, have you considered importing a ute/sport truck from Australia? Or is that too small? Japan also has the Hilux and the Navara, both turbo diesels similar to a sprinter or similar small diesel van. I hadn't thought about it at first but I guess those two locations would be right hand driv
      - dieselgate 3y ago

jetsnoc 3y ago

I don't full-time or even part-time RV. I own a class-a 36' diesel pusher. During the summer, I spend one month on the Oregon coast, and during the winter, I go to Twenty-Nine Palms or Palm Springs for one or two months. This allows me to fully immerse myself in an area and explore national parks and new places for an extended period. I wish I would have known how stressful it can be. For me, It feels like there is always a drag of stress - maybe a 30% overhead of stress. If you suddenly don't have hot water, it is on you to fix it because when you are "living" in it for that period, someone won't be able to come to help you repair it for several weeks. You can't even throw money at it, they just are too busy and can't come out. Driving can be stressful too. You get experienced to it after a while but driving at night down a two-lane highway with diesel trucks behind you, in front of you (another lane), and directly to your left where the vortex pulls you in all while you're trying to keep it in the lane can be stressful. Pulling into a truck stop to fuel can be stressful. I like to stick to around < 300 miles per day. I prefer to arrive before it's dark. This means a 12-hour drive I would make in my car can end up taking 2-3 days in the RV. I don't mind taking the time now. I relax, unplug and enjoy it. It now relaxes me. I would rather it take time than to worry about driving at night or pulling into a spot at night. The last few times we went we had two older dogs. One was having seizures. We didn't know it yet but she had kidney failure and had quit eating as much. We didn't notice her feeding habits at home since the other dog was a jerk, eating her portions without us knowing. The trip was fortunate because we got to see everything up close and in person. I have a slight deficiency in object permanence and for them to be right there in my face, we were able to see it. The other dog -- nicknamed Pigbert now -- was having serious issues with his arthritis. He would randomly screech due to pain. A steroid for two weeks solved it quickly. If you combine those things with the 30% constant drag of stress it can be very unpleasant. No hot water, caring for dogs in crisis, and stressful drives all lead to something that is quite unmanageable. My advice is to just be aware of managing stressors and ensuring you have as few as possible on travel days. My other advice is - if it sounds like it is for you - DO IT. I have backpacked Europe and traveled to very nice resorts. None of them top the amazing experiences I have had on the road. I won't personally live in that small of a space full-time or part-time but I admire those that do it.

jetsnoc 3y ago

poorman 3y ago

I've been doing van life for over a year while being a Director of Engineering. This has involved a large amount of being on Zoom calls. I figured it would be helpful for any engineers (or managers) for me to break down some of my costs. Internet 1. Starlink internet [50GB/mo priority data, unlimited non-priority] - $250 monthly / $2000+ for flat mount hardware. I had/have the less-expensive RV/home dish (non-mobile) before the mobile flat mount high performance dish came out. I can quickly attach it to the Harbor Freight flag pole and hoist it above most tree canopy if needed. 2. T-mobile hotspot [50ish GB/mo] - Roughly $55 monthly. Works great in cities with 5G. 3. Verizon mobile router (Peplink) [300GB/mo] - $150 monthly for the data plan from: https://mobilemusthave.com/ https://mobilemusthave.com/ The reason I have all these is because I need redundant connections to do my job. It's not acceptable to not have internet one day. Also I use MultipathTCP to bond all my connections together so my Zoom calls never drop (which used to be a problem with Starlink, but less so now these days). Fuel Costs This is my greatest expense. I have a very heavy Sprinter van that I built out myself. I get about 14 MPG diesel. It really depends what State you are in on what the costs are and how much you travel. The general consensus between all the people I've met on the road (working full time) is that they put about 35k miles on their vehicle per year. Campgrounds Really only pay for for these when on the East Coast since there isn't as much BLM or USFS land. Power I have 600 amp hours of batteries with about 800 watts of solar on my roof, 1320 watts of portable panels that I can set up when I need to (mostly when I want to run the air conditioner 24 hours a day). I also have a 3360 watt auxiliary alternator that will charge the batteries real fast. The truth is I run a ton of computer equipment and never really worry about power. This lifestyle has been amazing. I used to feel stuck being an engineer behind my desk all day. Now when I get tired of a town I can simply move onto the next one. There's also some amazing groups out there and I've actually made loads of friends across the country doing this same lifestyle so we'll often meet up in places. For example, Trent (who arguabily started the "Van Life Gamers" movement) has a discord full of people that live this lifestyle https://discord.gg/d4xsZEVH https://discord.gg/d4xsZEVH. I would also say having a Sprinter Van has been so much better than an RV because it's much easier to go places with the van than a huge RV. I can park at a trail head for example in a normal parking spot.

hypatiadotca 3y ago

brightball 3y ago

We did the RV thing for about 4 years and it was fun. Then covid hit and it got so popular that everything was crowded and it wasn't fun anymore. Mostly agree with this list though: 1. Size: 35ft should be your absolute limit. There are a lot of reasons for this that you'll discover as you get into it. 2. Hard mounted satellite: This was my favorite feature, but we got a dish that would keep the signal when you were driving. I took a trip from Florida to South Carolina on a Saturday in the fall. We had College Gameday on when we left and didn't miss a beat for most of the day. For me, this makes the drive a lot more enjoyable. Nothing better than getting up to make a sandwich while the game is on while stuck in a traffic jam. 3. Never tried the camping clubs, but they didn't seem worth it. 4. This makes sense, but wasn't anything we ever had an issue with. 5. Completely agree. 6. Also true. We used Dish Network on a month-to-month 7. Taking your time is pretty much the point. Enjoy the drive. Stop and see interesting things. We started actively looking for random billboard activities to chase down. Visited the Luray Caverns, Hershey Park and almost chased down the bigfoot museum but it was a little too far off the route. 8. Totally correct. You don't need a lot, but it will still feel good to be prepared. Like anything, it's a learning experience. 9. I can see this, but YMMV. 10. Costs are certainly interesting. We had 2 different RVs over 4 years. We started out with a 20 year old rig that we got cheaper than a used car and fixed it up. It wasn't perfect but we loved it. Didn't have much fancy stuff on it. Then we upgraded to something that was about 7 years old with a lot more bells, whistles and computers. It was much nicer but was in the shop constantly because something was always broken. In retrospect, you don't need half the fancy systems on these things. Push button shades, automatic leveling systems (it's not that hard to level). Demand went up so much that we sold both for more than we paid for them initially, except for our maintenance costs. The biggest thing is winterizing. If a sudden cold snap happens before you've winterized, you're going to be in for some bills. We still miss the RV life, but half the fun for us we just deciding at the last minute that we'd go somewhere that weekend. As it got more popular, all of the places we'd try to go were booked up 6 months in advance. We had some great family vacations and it was a lot of fun for sporting events. Clemson never lost a game that we came to in the RV (including the 2016 championship), so I like to think we were good luck. Disney's Fort Wilderness is by far the best RV stop that we found on the east coast.

__MatrixMan__ 3y ago

I occasionally camp with van people and they make it look so stressful. I can't imagine having a whole RV worth of things to worry about. I'm glad people are happy with 'em, but the more I learn about that lifestyle the more I love my small pickup truck and hammock.

seattle_spring 3y ago

Question for all the RVers here on HN: why do so many of you refuse to use designated pull outs? The ones specifically created for vehicles like yours to move over and let the dozen+ cars behind you pass so they can go more than 20 under the speed limit. Many RVs I encounter even go out of their way to prevent passing. I don't really understand it, and it seems like an RV-specific behavior.

balderdash 3y ago
I don’t think it’s RV specific - there are two types of people in this world people who drive in the passing lane and the people that hate them, some of them just own RVs…
psytrx 3y ago
These lanes and pull outs aren't common everywhere. When I visited NZ, it took me a day or two to realize they had a purpose. RVers usually are not driving in their home country. I just recently tried to use the side lane in DK to let others pass (set signal, decelerate, pull over as far as possible). It actually confused the other drivers so much that they didn't dare to take over, even when there was lots of space to do so.
- seattle_spring 3y ago
  They’re all over the western US, very frequently with several signs notifying drivers that one is coming up.
  - activiation 3y ago
    I never seen those in the US or Canada... I've been mostly on the east coast though
    - MSFT_Edging 3y ago
      Seconded, I was really confused until I watched a video shared. Never seen one of those in my life and I've done a lot of back road driving on the east coast. Typically we'll just have labeled passing zones.

xwdv 3y ago

What I wish I knew, don’t bother with the RV. Get something like a nice airstream trailer and a capable vehicle to pull it.

j2bax 3y ago
Second this! We also found an added benefit of not going longer than the 22 footer (assuming a F150 with short bed towing) is that you can typically fit across two parking spots which opens up your options when you stop quite a lot.
- iancmceachern 3y ago
  Third this!
deleted 3y ago
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coding123 3y ago

Wow, this really should be updated to 2023. Here's what my list would be: (full time for 7 years, now building a house so I don't need full time RVing ever again). 1. RV parks are full, they converted almost all the nightly sites to monthlys to guarantee revenue. RV Parks are the new mobile home park but with monthly RVers who got wind of the "Gone with the Wynns" blog and cheaper cost of living. 2. RV Park nightly rates have literally gone from $35 a night to $70 a night during the 2020s -> 2023s. A lot of the time you're the one that showed up paying $70 per day and all the loud blubs next door are paying $10 per night at the monthly rate. 3. Free camping areas are getting shut down after sites like "campendium" have advertised them to everyone. Most of the problems are related to illegal gray and black tank dumping on public lands. 4. Quartzsite is an absolute shit-show now, it's still probably worth going, but it's crowded. I wouldn't be surprised if they shut down the free areas in the next few years over the same gray/black tank issues. 5. Internet problems are 1000% solved with Starlink now. 6. Solar does not power the A/C. To power the A/C you need 10+ residential solar panels and a $2000 inverter on a 48 volt system. There are ways to have a 48 volt battery and down-regulate to 12v for the rest of your RV. People that run A/C off solar have "special ways" to have that many residential panels, typically involving fold outs and trailers. 7. Gas prices have skyrocketed in CA so it's not worth going anywhere near the state - let alone find a park that's cheap. RV Progression Cedar Creek 5th Wheel (2 years) -> Arctic Fox TC 1150 (5 years) -> Alliance Paradigm (1 year) -> building house

iancmceachern 3y ago
We live in California, have an RV, and use it regularly. #7 is weird as California has some of thr most amazing things and places to see with your rv.
poorman 3y ago
> 6. Solar does not power the A/C. To power the A/C you need 10+ residential solar panels and a $2000 inverter on a 48 volt system. There are ways to have a 48 volt battery and down-regulate to 12v for the rest of your RV. People that run A/C off solar have "special ways" to have that many residential panels, typically involving fold outs and trailers. I have not found this to be true. I run a Cruise N Comfort 12v AC and it works great (most it uses is about 60amps at 12v which I run off my solar panels). See my post here https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36408382 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36408382

chayesfss 3y ago

Love our GMC MotorCoach, still holds land speed record and wowza that 455 is amazing!!!

quesera 3y ago
I vouched for your post, because you're right. Classic GMC motorhomes are pieces of work, but the 455s run and run and run and run.

varelse 3y ago

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jokoon 3y ago

Living in a van is either a necessity if you're very poor, or it's a luxury if you're rich. If you really understand what living in a RV or a van really involves, you quickly realize several things: * If you plan a long journey, it's still a lot of time spent on the road, and gas money. So it's not about just living in the wild, it's just driving and sleeping, which is not that great, and it's not what people mean when they mean to live in a van. It's a home that can move, but it's not meant to travel. * It's better to keep a real home, use a station wagon to sleep in it or carry stuff, a bicycle, a tent etc, and not go too far from your home and still enjoy the wilderness, and do this for several months and still enjoy being in the wild without using a RV or van. A station wagon is not the full luxury, but it's still pretty nice. The trend is on vans which are smaller RVs, but I really thing using a station wagon is largely enough.

voisin 3y ago
> and gas money I cannot stress enough how absurdly expensive it is to keep an RV moving on the road. They are built in by far the least weight efficient manner imaginable and consume gas or diesel as if prices hadn’t changed since 1986. It is wild how little manufacturers have spent on R&D to come up with more weight efficient solutions.
- numbsafari 3y ago
  It’s wild how little manufacturers have invested in anything, like basic quality. It’s a garbage industry full of garbage vendors selling unremarkable trash, YoY.
- nightfly 3y ago
  "Tiny houses" take that inefficiency up a notch. Using materials and designs with no regard for road weight.
  - cultofmetatron 3y ago
    tiny houses are not typically expected to move around often. the wheels are generally a formality to get round certain zoning rules. that you can move them is a side benefit.

justinlloyd 3y ago

Not a full-timer, just a casual enjoy-er about four days a month of an RV kitted out how I want it. An older model 38ft Class A diesel pusher with low mileage that has no slides. These were specific choices. If I did it over, it'd be a 32ft-er instead. No slides. Slides can fail. And the interior design is often made purposefully cramped until you deploy the slides. My RV is basically an open plan office & kitchen with tile & wood flooring throughout. Though I am in the process of ripping out the carpet in the bedroom because - it is time. Not sure if I will go with tile, wood or tatami mats. My RV sits two comfortably and sleeps two comfortably. Me and my wife. Everybody else can walk. We simply don't take passengers or ride alongs. We pulled out the dinette, the built-in ice maker, the couch that reclines and folds down into another bed, and every other accoutrements that would accommodate six to eight people for a two week vacation. Now there is so much more space for activities. The dinette area turned in to a prep area with a custom built cabinet underneath with lots of shallow drawers. I can quite categorically state that the kitchen and prep area in the RV is larger than the one in our condo and has way more storage. The bathroom/dressing room is pretty comfortably sized too. I pulled out the shower enclosure and put in a Japanese soaking tub and a simple curtain rail for showers. Interior is an eclectic mix between boho and traditional Japanese. Full height sliding shoji screens with reinforced lexan inserts (just in case someone left something on a countertop and I need to slam on the brakes) that separate cockpit from living area for privacy. Sliding shoji screen doors on bathroom and bedroom. Sliding shoji screen window covers. All the 1980's era country kitchen knobs, handles and pulls got replaced with either custom made pulls or an eclectic mixture of cabinet pulls we have found on our travels. Replaced all the external cabinet door hinges interior euro-hinges. All the country kitchen woodwork got sanded and repainted to a neutral white. Replaced all the terrible "we cut a lot of corners" drawer slides with push to open/soft-close slides. We went with reasonably high-end appliances; GE Profile fridge/freezer, cook top, microwave, dishwasher, Gaggenau high BTU wok unit converted to propane, and a Bosch washer/dryer combo unit in the bathroom. Wolf counter top oven (which also doubles as our toaster). And then the usual collection of small appliances that every kitchen has; rice maker, food mixer, food processor, immersion blender, Wega Polaris 2 group machine, teppanyaki grill plate that sits over the regular cook top. Built a vented (to the outside) cat litter box into a cabinet in the bathroom. Bunch of solar on the roof (that I need to get up there and clean) and a lot of lithium in the basement to power all the electronics. The one thing we don't have in our RV is a regular TV screen, which means we don't have anything to point any of our furniture at. Have been contemplating a composting toilet, which would reduce our black water tank to pretty much just grey water storage. I put in two sit-to-stand electric desks, with Humanscale monitor arms, and a Humanscale laptop arm. Both desks have dual 4K curved displays and wireless accessories. Amazon has some nice mesh workstation chairs that fold down and slide right under the desks when not in use. Custom 19" rack mount cabinet. Ubiquiti Dream Machine Pro SE with a couple of WiFi APs and a G3 doorbell camera. APC LiIon UPS. ~24TB (30TB physical, 22.something TB actual) flash-only Synology media server (music, movies & TV shows) that automatically syncs to the Synology in the condo whenever the RV connects to specific WiFi networks. We have a WiFi booster antenna that will form a bridge for us to distant networks - use a LinkSys with OpenWRT and some custom scripts to make that happen. And we have a cellular booster for our T-Mobile phones & hotspot with about 100GB of data per month. Couple of e-bikes in the storage bay, my wife's reflector telescope, and a tool chest of accessories and tools for RV maintenance and those "aw, shit" moments of life, e.g. air filters, emergency fluids, power washer, cordless drill, full set of wrenches. We travel reasonably light (for an RV); no camping gear, no deck chairs, very few clothing items, not a lot of extra stuff that many RV'ers haul around with them. I will agree with the article, you don't need anywhere near the amount of stuff you think you need. I only have AAA and Good Sam for the recovery/break down options, and some extra insurance in case of a complete failure. Obviously remote work has made using the RV a lot more possible than it did pre-COVID, though the number of RV'ers has skyrocketed since before the pandemic.

nickls 3y ago

What are some good options for a standing desk while traveling in an RV, travel trailer or van?

iancmceachern 3y ago
You can pretty much put anything you want in, the furniture isn't usually special unless it's a class b or something. Lots of people just go to ikea to upgrade their furniture, lots of people just put standard desks and sit stand stuff, whatever fits
yencabulator 3y ago
If you have an RV big enough to have a reasonably normal kitchen, just put some stands on the counter: https://thedogisdriving.com/standing-desk/ https://thedogisdriving.com/standing-desk/

jasonmarks_ 3y ago

> 9/ Follow the Weather Road trip weather apps are out there these days. You can check your drive forecast ahead of time! Avoid the bad weather! Get departure time recommendations! https://www.weatherthetrip.com/download https://www.weatherthetrip.com/download iOS and Android

leksak 3y ago

Question to RVers/van-lifers: is it conceivable to build a van that supports living in a Nordic/Scandinavian coastal city to sustain climbing through most of the year while also being equipped enough to go to Norway for snowboard trips in the winter months? I worry about humidity/condensation and rust mostly, but are there other things I should be mindful of? I'd prefer the smaller size of a van to get to climbing crags even if that means losing out on shower opportunities although showering would be nice. Most skiing/snowboarding destinations I've been to do not seem to have dress rooms so I guess if push to shove one can always self-clean using snow brr

jonasdegendt 3y ago
> I worry about humidity/condensation You can open the doors every day for some natural ventilation or install active ventilation that uses fans to pull outside air in and push the stale air out. The latter is probably preferable in winter, although it all depends on what you're able to tolerate I guess. As for rust, I haven't experienced any significant amounts of undercarriage or panel rust on any of my 20+ year old vehicles in Western Europe, but we don't get as much snow (and salted roadways as a consequence) as Scandinavia does. You can look into undercarriage coatings for this though.
jhives 3y ago
I would say definitely with the right van build. I lived in a self-converted van for two years with my partner, and we spent both winters ski bumming in the Northeast US and Colorado. We saw temperatures down to -14F and could keep the van a balmy 65 inside. We heated the van with an externally exhausted 16k BTU propane furnace (blew dry heat) and that thing could really crank out warmth. As for showering, we never did in the winter because external grey tanks freeze. We did have a showerpan embedded flush in the floor so it didn't take up any space normally day to day. We would just have to set up shower curtains around it before we did. I actually showered more outside of the van for that reason. Mostly we would just clean ourselves with hot towels for a few days before we had to wash our hair.
poorman 3y ago
Definitely should be able to. I'd recommend getting a professional to spray closed cell foam insulation. I have a diesel heater. It's hooked up to a heat exchanger with my engine coolant loop, runs to my hot water heater, also to the forced air fan, and also throughout the entire floor. I laid pex down in the floor so I have floors that I can get up to 80 degrees F. I rarely use the forced air as the diesel heater barely sips fuel and keeps the floors nice and toasty. The advantage of the heated floors in van is that it's a thicker radiant heat, so it heats the cabinets and the walls. Then when you open the door it doesn't let all the heat out.

Helmut10001 3y ago

We were on a camping trip for the last 3 weeks through Sweden and Denmark with our VW T4 Van (Caravelle, Long Version - Not sold in US). We're usually the smallest car on campgrounds. It is incredible to see how big these RVs are getting. We try to find campgrounds with spaces without electricity because these massive campers need the electricity to power all their gear. Otherwise, we often will look at 5+ m plastic walls to both sides of us. Our T4 on the other hand can fit in everywhere, we often stay in Sweden where regular RVs are forbidden, but car-sized is allowed. It fits 2x 200x80 cm standard matrasses behind the backseats, enough for 2 adults and kid. We even packed 2 Windsurfboards _inside_ the car.

unkulunkulu 3y ago

Thank you, HN! This site is like a complete handbook to my dream :)

londons_explore 3y ago

One little trick: If you are the kind of person to set off on a drive without having even picked a destination like me, then it's a good idea to use the weather to decide which direction to drive. A few hours drive north might have beautiful clear skies, while a few hours south will be a thunderstorm. If you don't care where you end up, you might as well have nice weather while you do it.