
Two Years of Vanlife: A Retrospective - dsego
https://faroutride.com/two-years-vanlife/
======
leggomylibro
I'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.

~~~
ryanmercer
>And it's not expensive. Personally, I spent less than $25k

That's _quite expensive_ to a large percentage of the country. 19% of the
country grosses less than that annually [1].

Van life, living in a THOW (tiny house on wheels) etc is very much a luxury in
the vast majority of cases (probably why you tend to see a lot of CS/tech
types with individual salaries 2-3x the median household income doing it).

> it is impossible to meet people or build communities.

That really just depends on what you choose to do with your free time. If you
are at all religious, regularly attending religious services where you live is
all but certain to give you the opportunity (unless you go to a 'mega'
church).

There are things like Freemasonry, Independent Order of Odd Fellows,
CrossFit/barbell clubs/strongman facilities, organized bowling leagues,
Toastmasters, LUGs (Lego User Groups - adult lego groups), vintage computer
clubs, game stores that have regular tabletop and trading card game playing
times, the SCA (Society for Creative Anachronism - period accurate medieval
reenactment), other living history groups, adult softball/basketball leagues,
supper clubs, etc.

[1] [https://wallethacks.com/average-median-income-in-
america/#Me...](https://wallethacks.com/average-median-income-in-
america/#Median-Household-Income-US-Census)

~~~
bronco21016
Keep in mind that $25k for the van is for a home and transport. Where else can
you get a home/transportation combo for that price? Sure there can be fees for
places to park but the overall total cost to live has to be significantly
lower than all of us in the rat race paying city rent or McMansion mortgages.

~~~
neaden
A lot of places? There is a pretty significant portion of the country where
you can get a downpayment on a house for $10k and pick up a nice enough used
car for a couple thousand. There are more options then living in an expensive
city, a mcmansion, and a van.

~~~
sokoloff
Is a _downpayment_ on a house the same as _buying outright_ an RV?

~~~
neaden
RVs need gas, maintenance, and a place to be all of which generally cost
money. Especially if you want access to sewer, water, and electricity.

~~~
sokoloff
Do those things generally cost more than a mortgage, insurance, property tax,
and utilities on a house that you made a $25K downpayment on?

I don't own an RV, but I've owned two houses and I'm guessing the RV monthly
expenses will be quite a bit lower.

~~~
neaden
I'm not trying to argue whether or not an RV or a cheap house is going to be
less expensive, a question I am not interested in. It's in disputing the
assertion that you can't afford a home and transportation for less than $25k
and the idea that your only choice is an expensive inner city apartment, a
mcmansion, or a van.

~~~
sokoloff
My mistake. I thought you were answering bronco21016's question of "Where else
can you get a home/transportation combo for that price?"

------
philg_jr
In 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
Legend! 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.

------
dangus
The 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
Your 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.

------
jnwatson
The 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.

------
primitivesuave
I 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
"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
I'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
There'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.

------
3fe9a03ccd14ca5
Interesting 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
[https://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
Yeah 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
The people in the article seem to be entrepreneurs. They mention that the
website is paying them enough to continue full time.

------
ericmcer
The 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
It 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.

------
mark_l_watson
Great 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.

~~~
madaxe_again
My 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.

------
imbusy111
We 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.

~~~
dkural
Doing it with a baby is ten times more impressive. I was thinking back of my
head this won't work with kids.

~~~
imbusy111
It works until they start going to school, in my opinion.

------
RileyJames
iOverlander 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.

------
gwbas1c
I 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
_no 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.

~~~
gwbas1c
A box truck or minivan is much less conspicuous than an RV, especially in
areas where it's common for people to park overnight.

~~~
ip26
Yes, but a shiny Sprinter with solar panels, aggressive tires, and a 4x4
emblem isn't fooling anyone.

------
Pigo
They 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
Affiliate marketing is big money, entire businesses are built off it.

~~~
jacquesm
Large 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.

------
chrismckleroy
As 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.

------
thatfrenchguy
> ~16 L/100KM

Pfiou, that's more gas than the three cars in my extended family :-/

~~~
SigmundA
My 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.

