There are many reasons not to live in a van. Some are as simple as accessibility to showering and summer is complicated as losing a sense of self. Let’s talk about it!
Disclaimer I live full-time in myself converted van and I love it. But I know that this lifestyle is not for everybody. Show with that being said let’s talk exactly about why you may not want to live in a van.
The first big thing is access to a shower. This one will make most people cringe when they think about it. I know before I started van life I showered twice a day and that seemed incredibly excessive to my wife and looking back on it now it was pretty excessive. When you work a nine-to-five and you have people you need to impress a shower is a good way to boost your confidence and allow for a better self-image. Not to mention if you live in a decently hot place you’re probably going to want to shower pretty frequently. There are ways around that for van life but the bottom line is you’re not going to be able to shower anywhere near as much as you used to.
The weather is a huge factor. If changing the thermostat 5° drives you crazy then you may not want to live in a van. Ultimately you are subject to what temperature it is outside. If it’s hot outside it’s going to be hot in your van. As I write this we’re wrapping up a series of 100 degree days and it sucked. I didn’t spend all the time in the van during the day. Once night came, however, it was difficult to go to sleep because it took until 11 pm to drop all the way down to 60 degrees. So there is quite a bit of getting used to temperature changes. Ultimately it took me about two months to be able to sleep in the heat. The silver lining to this though is that you’re going to be forced to go to places you’ve never been before because you just want to get out of your hot van. This is more relevant during the summer more than it is during the winter. If your self converting a van then you should probably get a diesel heater because they’re not super expensive and that makes living in the van during the winter so much better.
Finding where you’re going to park your van can be pretty difficult. It’s surprisingly hard to find free parking if you hadn’t been doing it for very long. I remember when we first started it was terrifying and we drove around cities for hours trying to find where we were going to set up camp. Fortunately, this does get easier however the first couple of months are going to be kind of difficult just to hone the skill of where you should park and where you probably should avoid. The nice part is that there is no shortage of information out there for tips to parking and such.
Feeling isolated can be a huge problem with this lifestyle. You’re going to be moving around a lot which means you’re going to be having to make new friends and say goodbye to old ones. I don’t know how many times we’ve pulled into a campsite with no one around for miles and just felt lonely. If you’re the type of person that loves to be outside and loves to be alone then you’re not going to have a problem with this. But if you’re a social butterfly you may think twice about moving into a van. With that being said you definitely can thrive in van life it’s just going to be different. Such as maybe you’re going to go to a bar instead of going to a hiking trail.
Limited space. Yeah, this is the obvious one if you’re downsizing your 1200 square foot apartment for a 25 square foot home, you’re going to be in for quite a few surprises and with that comes so many other obstacles you have to overcome. Such as I have no idea why, but for some reason, I lose things so much more frequently in the van than I ever did living in an apartment. I can guarantee you everything I’ve lost has always been within 25 ft of myself. it also goes without saying that if you have large items that you don’t want to get rid of then you’re probably going to have to store them which also sucks because it costs money to store that and you’re not getting any use out of it.
Continuing with that having limited space also means that if you’re living with somebody you’re going to be very intimate with them. Now I know that sounds kind of fun but think about when you have beans and you go out to your patio to crop dust the heck out of that thing. You don’t really have a patio especially if your stealth camping in a town. So if you’re planning on doing this solo this isn’t necessarily an issue but living in a confined space with somebody else is eye-opening.
The Big kahuna is definitely laundry. This is something that was probably made worse by the fact that I didn’t have a spot designated in my van to put the laundry bag. So it seems like I’m always tripping over that darn thing. Very similar to not being able to shower every day, you’re also not going to be able to do laundry every day. that means when most people can just throw their dirty pants in the hamper and then do laundry on Sundays you’re going to have to throw your laundry in your laundry bag, or wherever you decide to put it, and then go to a laundromat to have your laundry washed. This honestly sucks.of all of the sacrifices I’ve had to make for Van life this is probably the one that was the hardest for me. Not that I wear a lot of clothes or that my wardrobe is ridiculous, just the fact that you have to make time to do laundry where is before it just kind of happened when I got home I press start on the washer.
I’m going to add an edit to this. This weekend I changed the wheel bearings and wheel seals on the van, ultimately this meant I got more oily than the gulf after BP. Luckily we were at my parent’s house, meaning, I was able to literally walk into the laundry room throw my clothes straight into the washer. If I was doing this on the side of the road, I honestly don’t know what I would have done with those oily clothes. Back on to the rest of the article.
Not to mention the toilet. if you have enough money to build in a toilet in your van then good for you. However, most vanlifers opt for no toilet. This is mainly because everywhere has toilets. You go to Starbucks there’s a toilet, you go to dinner there’s a toilet, you go to the grocery store to buy your groceries, there’s a toilet. The problem is there’s no toilet in your home. So that super spicy taco that you ate may provide some difficulty when you wake up clenching your stomach at 2 a.m.
So just to put it into perspective the natures head composting toilet is the go-to pooper right now they are $960 on amazon. If you want to see what they cost now click the button below.
I actually wrote a full post about where you pooping van life and tell a funny story about what happened. Hint: it was tacos however I would 100% eat them again even if it meant that happened again!
Getting into a car accident basically makes you homeless. Now van life is innately houseless but you will never be homeless when you’re living in your van until you get into a car accident. when that happens you are at the mercy of the insurance company and or the repair shop. There’s always the chance that a repair shop will let you stay in their parking lot in your van until the repairs can be done, but much more likely that’s going to be too much of a risk and they’re not going to want to accommodate you. So getting into a car accident when you’re living in a van is incredibly detrimental to everything that you’ve built and you’ve done. More than likely you’ve secured everything so that they can deal with the day-to-day drive. But it’s almost impossible to plan for a potentially fatal car accident. It may mean pulling the plug on Van life for you.
Van life has so many good things going for it however there’s not sunshine without any rain. I personally wouldn’t change whether or not I live in the van but there are so many times that I have been frustrated yelling into my pillow at something.
Recent Comments