"Stealth" type van living

In My Humble Opinion
1

For some reason Youtube suggested a video about living out of a van to me, and I found myself watching several of them in fascination.

To be clear, the vans I’m talking about look like ordinary panel vans, like what a plumber or electrician might show up driving. (I hear serial killers prefer them in white…) Not those gigantic RVs or trailer. Ordinary vans. That are supposed to still look like ordinary vans from the outside, so you can just park it on a street and sleep wherever without being ‘hassled’ by cops or the residents in areas where sleeping in your car is illegal.

Basically they start with an empty box, and then customize it with whatever they consider to be the necessities for living. The ones I saw ranged from just plopping a mattress on the floor and hanging a cargo net to hold all your belongings, up to ones with built in furniture, propane heaters, air conditioners, satellite hookups for TVs and internet, and even full (tiny) kitchens.

The idea was that their owners lived out of these vans full time, not just using them for short trips with a regular house/apartment to return to.

Is this honest to god practical? I mean, none of them gave dimensions, but to my eye they look maybe the size of a prison cell. At least two of the vids showed the inhabitants as couples PLUS a pet dog. And these people are not just sleeping in them, but were working remotely out of them! 24 hours a day? In a space that small? With a medium sized dog lounging on your bed all day and night? (Because where else could he be, if he was on the floor no one could move about at all.) I don’t want to think what the inside of the van must smell like after a few days. And I bet the funk gets into all the clothes and such, and the people walk around smelling like wet dog though their own noses are probably blind to it.

Oh, but not quite 24 hours a day, because of the need to find plumbing. One guy had a five gallon bucket with lid and lots of plastic bags as his solution, another couple had this short little portapotty type thing but lots seemed to basically mooch off businesses/libraries/restaurants and the like. Several mentioned having memberships to gym chains for showering purposes.

Actually, there seemed to be a lot of mooching built in their way of life. Parking in the lots of stores and hotels – one couple in particular mentioned how they liked to park in the lots of ‘three star type’ hotels because then they could take advantage of the free breakfast buffets most had for their guests.

I dunno. I guess I can see it for people whose other choice was homelessness or couch surfing or the like, but these people looked healthy, young, educated, middle class folks in their 20s and 30s.

So … what do you all think? Actually, has anyone here ever lived out of a van, full time or even just for a week vacation or something? Did it work for you?

2

I met a dude who installed a refrigerator and shower in the back of a Volkswagen Kombi, so apparently it can be done. This was for multiple weeks of touring and bicycling around Europe. No “stealth” involved, though, and this was one single guy, not a family of six. I never tried it myself, so cannot comment how it was after a while on the road, but it was no five-star hotel suite, of course. Recommended for adventurous types, not for city living.

3

There was a sink and a little stove. I don’t remember about the toilet, heating, etc

4

I have a single female friend, aged 57, who just purchased a van for this express purpose. From the pics I saw, it is kitted out nicely with cabinets, even a wee drop-down table.

She owns a little house outright but simply can’t settle, feels like the experiences of life are passing her by. There are places and things she wants to see before she is too old and infirm to see them. She also likes the freedom to visit her family members more often but without living on top of them.

She is currently sussing out communities of caravans made up of older folks who travel like this in packs, moving around the country at their whim and according to their weather/locale preferences. I am glad she plans not to travel on her own except when necessary.

She works remotely now and when she outfits her van, it will have solar power for her laptop/mobile phone/lighting, etc. She already uses a Hot Logic Mini to cook meals while traveling. She is quite comfortable “bathing” in half a gallon of water.

She’ll embark on her maiden voyage in a couple of weeks. If it works out, she plans to sell her little house and live full time in this fashion. I’ll give you updates in this thread of her experiences, if you like. I don’t think her plans are especially “stealthy,” but they sound an awful lot like what you’re interested in learning.

Oh, and she will soon have a dog along. Her old doggie companion recently died and a new one is settled upon, but she has to make a longish voyage to go collect him. So we’ll learn about that part of it, too.

5

These are popular videos on youtube. I got recommended them too because I had started looking at some RV review videos when I was bored. Like the OP mentions these are small panel vans of the sorts you see sitting in the parking lots of businesses in industrial parks.
I personally see these as falling into two camps. The first camp - and the smallest - seems to be about those people who are doing some activity and need a self-sufficient way of living on the go.
They are kind of like the adventurer going on an extended trip for hiking, fishing or some sort of extreme sport.
The second kind of videos are more disturbing. They are honest to god people living out of vans and they are excited to tell you how to do it too. These videos show them doing all sorts of neat things and being all adventurous showing us how they find their ideal places to park for the night.
They also warn to get up early and move on so you don’t attract too much attention.
I am not judging anyone but these videos make me think that these people are essentially homeless no matter how fancy their portable toilets/sinks are or how efficient their solar panels seem to be.
My own opinion is that certain areas of the country are too expensive for these sorts of people to actually live and that this is a compromise that allows them to stay in a city like a San Francisco etc and just occasionally pay for the odd shower.
I find the second kind of videos kind of disturbing. I can’t believe that these people ever actually thought in life that they wanted to live in a van hoping to stay out of sight and off grid in order to survive.
The weird part is there seems to be some sort of market cropping up around supplying these people with the means to continue.
I may be wrong but these types of videos give me that Amazon.com “mechanical Turk” vibe where businesses contract out small difficult for computers to do tasks for humans to fill in at pennies on the dollar. It seems like a life with a bleak future.
I could be wrong though.

6

This sort of thing somehow frightens me.
I see all these discussions of tiny homes, of living in a van and so on. It sort of appeals to me as I have lived most of my life in small furnished rooms. But surely the underlying cause of all this is that Americans are less and less able to afford real homes. What exactly is the difference between a hip adult co-living hostel and a flophouse?

7

Down by the river, under a bridge…

8

its called “vanning” and it started out as the hippie version of rv’ing…now it’s mainly a way to bum around off-grid snd has a seedy element to it now …

9

Traveling in a fried out Kombi, on a hippie trail, head full of zombie?

10

A lot of truck stops offer showers and laundry facilities (in addition to toilets) so if I was living out of a van those are what I would base my travels around.

Which would be the attraction for me. I don’t see why anyone would rather live in a van than in an apartment if you’re staying in one place. But I think I would enjoy being able to travel around the country without having to check into hotels every night.

11

I think for folks who prefer this to hotels, or anyone who likes to go camping they’re fine. But I personally would start screaming at the tinyness of it.

We get these - and RVs - trying to stay at our hotel sometimes. They’re all plugged into our electrical sockets and get all indignant when we say “no hotel reservation, no parking overnight” and tell us they’re not doing anything. Well, except for using our electricity and trying to sneak into our fitness center to shower. Guests only, buddy! They caught an RV trying to dump its sewage once, too. Ewww. Just no.

Plus, you’re not exactly being honest about living off the grid when you’re sponging off of someone else who has power.

12

I saw a video a few months ago. This video..
Its getting traction cause she is hot.

I can imagine doing something for a few months, God knows as a poor student I did a lot of penny pinching. But chicks got a six day a week job. An apartment won’t be a bettwr option? She can keeo the van for road trips.

13

I’ve gotten curious about these as well, and ended up watching several videos. I was planning a lengthy dry-camping* trip in our RV and was searching for off the grid tips. Youtube linked me to several of these van-life videos. There’s also a group that do this out of small cargo trailers, which sort of makes sense. Assuming you can secure it, you’re able to take short trips with your tow vehicle without rearranging everything for travel. Many of them use national parks out west and stay (legally) 2 weeks at a time between moves. It’s touted as an alternative for those without sufficient retirement funds to keep a house (assumes a small SS check).

Without Bound is a video by the (apparent) guru of this movement. It’s pretty interesting.

*RV camping, but with no electricity or water hookups. Just self contained.

14

My parents have a small RV and they have considered getting one of these when it comes time to replace it. They don’t want to live in the thing, but they like to travel and stay state and national parks. The converted van has the advantage of being so much easier to drive and deal with than even a small RV. The downside, obviously, is less space. But as long as the two of them each have a place for a seat and a place to put a laptop/tablet, they are pretty content with cozy. They also tend to be outside a lot: they like to set up camp chairs and watch the sunset. I have noticed in some camps, the people in the big RVs never come out. We were in Yellowstone this summer and we mostly never saw out neighbors.

15

Not necessarily. Living ultra-cheaply is also appealing to people who want to work less or “retire” at age 30, say.

16

I have many friends who have conversion vans, although not the stealth kind. They are clearly camper vans from the outside if you know what you’re looking at. To make a comfortable one involves some key features that distinguish the van from a cargo van. But all of my friends’ vans are for camping/hiking/biking, no one lives in theirs full time. It’s an easy, comfortable, portable escape pod.

17

Yeah, I can see that … as a vacation option.

But it seems to me that living that way full-time would leave you really isolated, totally disconnected from, well, call them the ‘casual level’ of knowing people. Yes, you can keep in touch with family and old friends via skype or whatever, but the whole level of ‘acquaintances’ would seem to vanish. You wouldn’t ever be a regular at the local sandwich shop or beauty salon, you wouldn’t know the clerks at ‘your’ grocery or hardware or drug store, you wouldn’t belong to a church or a slot-car racing club or have neighbors you nod to on your daily walks.

There’d be you, and maybe the companion you share your van with, and…then who? I’m not saying I love all my neighbors or hang out with them or anything, but they’re there. When my husband was laid up with sciatica, the neighbor snowblowed our driveway. When a different neighbor traveled to attend her son’s wedding, I fed her pets and brought in the mail and such. You know? The small interactions that keep us meshed into a society larget than just our immediate family.

These travelling van dwellers seem more like permanent tourists, just passing through, with no ties or commitment to the people around them.

18

True story: While summertime camping in a Texas State Park, we walked past a big motorhome after sunset. As you said, we’d not seen the occupants outside at all. When I looked in their big window, I could see then both sitting on the couch. They were watching a video of a fire on their flat screen TV.

For some reason this cracked me up.

19

Okay, I was guessing you were linking to this woman. Apparently ‘attractive women living in vans’ is a genre.

20

I haven’t run the numbers but I have my doubts. I feel that anyone who can afford to own a van and make it livable can probably afford to rent an apartment.

So I see this more as a lifestyle choice rather than an economic necessity being forced on people.