Researching Van Life

Concept

Rent expensive, live out of van. Instead of paying to live, that money is spent on a depreciating asset you own. Lower living expenses to the bare minimum. Save money for later in life. Travel to national parks. Explore life a little bit.

Part of brainstorming ideas for surviving my early 20s. I would not really start executing on this plan for another 2-3 years (2025-2026).

Requirements

There are certain standards that I would like to live by. If this idea is to work, I need to make it fit these criteria:

Concerns

Work

I would have to either find a remote position, or live within a certain distance of 'the office'.

Relationships

I guess its kind of hard to date if you live in a van. Major hippie vibes. Not much room for hanging out.

To be fair, A) Not like it would be much different from other situations and B) it doesn't completely absolve me.

Living Alone

I'm not too worried about the idea of living alone. In most cases I may prefer it, however I can say that I really appreciate living with other people that I love and respect.

Extreme Temperatures

I want to be ready for extreme weather. Such as the coldest, and hottest weather in the year. Just in case I'm stuck in an extreme weather situation. (Such as the cold freezes in Texas, and the recent heat advisory.)

Still

Why does this sound appealing? I wonder, or perhaps more importantly fear, that this lifestyle is apart of a larger mental bug that had developed during my childhood. I am very familiar with the feeling of always being on the move. I've moved roughly 38 times. In the past 3 years I've moved 5 times. Not by choice, but by situation.

There is a fear that this has become my default. Bringing a travel bag with me to school every Friday as I transitioned from moms house to dads. That was my default for nearly 10 years growing up.

For the first time in my life, right now, I have the possibility of being in a single house[3] for longer than a year. Something I have been looking forward to for a long time. Something I didn't realize I haven't truly done yet.

Now I'm thinking/researching living out of a van.

Why does living out of a van sound better than paying rent? Probably because paying rent is expensive. The 'real world' still scares me a little bit. If I'm in a van, I have control over my situation. My experience with housing so far is that renting means moving every year at the end of the lease.

Is it such a bad thing to be more comfortable on the move? It depends.

I believe that the cause of discontentment remains through significant 'desirable' changes. Be it distance, body or relationship status. If you're unhappy without, having won't change that. Expecting your mentality and perspective to change because the situation has changed is foolish. I believe that to a certain extent, discontentment is not directly attached to what we assign it to.

Yet, as I say this I also respect that temperament can, and in many cases is, a result of situation. Which means that I have come to a hole in my beliefs[4].

In this case, If I have this worry about living expenses, it will follow onto a van.

Pacing

This may be trivial, however I need space to think. Pacing is one of my outlets for thinking through emotional and logical problems. I want to be considerate of this when making a lifestyle change.

Cost

Ideally, the entire van + conversion would cost less than rent + utilities for 1 year. Average rent for 1 bedroom apartment in USA is $1,700/month[1]. Plus utilities of $130[2] = $1,830/month. 1 Year is $21,960.

(Which is way more than I have to spend...)

I could sell the car that I own in order to afford the van. The van should cost less than $5,000 and be in a good, running condition.

The Van

I've been doing a casual amount of window shopping for cargo vans, and already converted buses. So far it looks like I could get an older van with more than 100k miles on it for somewhere between $2,500 and $8,000. If it needs engine or transmission work thats another $2,000 at least. If I get just the van, then I would need to add on the conversion costs.

But, if I get an already converted van, then I won't have to. I've found a handful for them on marketplace for around $8,000 to $25,000. There would be a significantly lower conversion cost, yet I expect that I'll want to re-arrange things to my use. Who knows what the condition will be in, so there may be some repair costs to get it up and running.

Also don't forget standard vehicle costs, such as insurance, and monthly repair budget.

Conversion Costs

Very variable, depending on what you want to do with it. I'm not sure about the whole 'kitchen' or 'bathroom' idea yet. Definitely need power, and temperature control. I don't have a time-table, so I don't mind doing the conversion work myself. I will need someone for the mechanical work however.

Utilities/Amenities

This is going to be practically all of the costs to make the van livable, and running. Internet, Water, Power, etc. This will include gas and parking costs.

Living Costs

This is everything that I would have outside of the van. So regardless of living out of a van, bus, apartment, or basement. food, life insurance, cell phone plan etc.

Van Sharing?

I shared this idea with my best friend, and he was interested in joining me for a few months. He even went so far as to give me a 'serious-score' of about 7.5/10. This might change the size of the van I would get, but it could be a really fun experience to travel with him. Most of this is still in that vague idea phase, so I don't have any numbers to work with. My goal would be to make it an even split of utility costs during the time of his stay. (which, if I do it right, should be just be internet, power, and water)

The Fun Stuff

Now that we've talked about a lot of my concerns going into this idea, let's talk about some of the stuff I would be looking forward to.

National Parks

While I don't consider myself a travel bug, I do appreciate visiting national parks. My respect and appreciate of nature has grown over the past few years. I've realized how nice it can be to hike for a few hours.

Living out of a van would give me the mobility to hop from one national park to the next. I would also have enough time there to be able to explore all of the trails that I would like, and don't have to feel rushed to leave.

Volunteering?

I had this idea of being able to travel and volunteer at various places around the country. I think it could be a fun and meaningful time. There is this community called Workaway, which allows travelers to work for ~5 hours a day in exchange for a place to stay. I bring this up, because there is also volunteering opportunities that could be done while living out of a van[5]. Yet the majority of the opportunities look to be international. So I would be limited to the ones I could reach on wheels.

Of course, if I were to be completely realistic, this is quite the life shift. I don't currently make time for volunteering. I've trying finding places to volunteer in the past, yet most of the opportunities I was looking for were full. I love the idea of traveling and volunteering, but it would require me to start doing polar bear plunge into social events. I would need to be able to do something small so that I can dip my toes in first, before I try traveling and volunteering.

All of that to say, the opportunity exists, and it could be fun to give back every few weeks.

Idle Pondering

I want to really get a clear understanding of my motivation behind making this big of a lifestyle change. I feel like there is something so compelling about this possibility. Yet, there also feels like there is something nearly sinister behind it as well.

I feel the same way towards van life, as I did when I was first learning about minimalism. It was like identifying a problem I didn't know I had, then seeing that problem everywhere. Suddenly, stuff without intentional possession becomes junk. However, in this case, paying rent becomes throwing money away.

I have really enjoyed my transition to minimalism. I think its among my top ten personal lifestyle changes I have made. It wasn't a silver bullet. Through minimalism I have basically exchanged a consistent need to clean and tidy with a consistent need to purge what isn't used or valued.

Experiment

I've continued to think about and ponder this idea of living out of a van. It has been on mind for the past 3 weeks now. I notice the different types of vans when driving and question whether or not they could fit me.

At this point I think that it would be worth it to conduct an experiment to test the lifestyle out. Although this test would have to be as controlled as I could make it.

Here is how I would think about conducting this experiment:

Hypotheses

Null Hypothesis: There is no significant change in the level of perceived stress, wellness or comfort between living out of a van and living within an apartment.

Alternate Hypothesis: There is a significant difference in the level of perceived stress, wellness or comfort between living out of a van and living within an apartment.

Variables

I'm going to do some research and see how other studies measure the dependent variables. Most of the time its just a survey that participants will self-assess.

Independent Variable: Living location: out of a van OR in a building

Dependent Variable: Perceived stress, wellness, and comfort

Control Variables

I would have to control a few things to keep my lifestyle as consistent between van and building as possible. Some things like time spent outdoors, exercise, and time socializing often have a big effect on perceived stress and comfort levels.

I also want to control for my own bias as much as I can, but the nature of this study is about my personal preference, and stress levels. I don't know how much time I'll have to conduct this experiment. My hope is to try and keep my lifestyle as similar as possible between the two environments, to focus on the environment change, rather than the lifestyle change.

Time: 2 weeks each

Location: X

Utilities: Internet, Power, Water

Food: $200/month

Work: 40 hours/week

Exercise: 3 times/week

Hygiene: 3 showers/week

Social: 2 times/week

Outdoors: 2 times/week

Footnotes:

  1. Average Rent In USA
  2. Average Utilities In USA
  3. * Without going back and forth between parents houses. Without the hanging fear of moving in a few months.
  4. This will require further research and introspection. To avoid going off on a tangent, I have decided to leave it for now. NOTE FOR FUTURE CHRISTIAN: Look into Acceptance (pillar of joy, stage of grief), compare with contentment. Look into locus of control, compare with Zen approach.
  5. Workaway: Van Life Volunteering Guide