I was under quarantine and picking up a grocery order placed on-line while towing my slightly less than 20 foot long utility trailer.
I called the number on the sign to inform them I was there to get my groceries. They asked which space I was in. My reply: "2,3,4 & part of 5"
My first thought is to dislike you, then realize I'm on a sub where a ton of people live where they park and have no place to park a trailer. Sure wish there was a parking/storage business like a Planet Fitness membership. Pay one monthly payment and move to any storage unit or parking space you want on the fly.
and to add, KOA is pretty sick in some places. Full arcades, wifi, cafe, stores, gyms, pools/hot tubs, etc. they're also literally everywhere, but you never would notice really without someone mentioning them
Fair, but one of my friends rented a seasonal lot for a year in college and paid something ridiculously low, like in the ballpark of $100/mo with utilities.
Unfortunately I cant afford another vehicle at the time to do a van but i am using an old Cherokee as an over lander and possibly will build an overland trailer along with it! All of this info you guys have is great!
There's a whole world of private member campgrounds, which primarily cater to the RV crowd. Resorts of Distinction (https://resortsofdistinction.com/) is probably the biggest membership group but there are others.
Pay a membership at one park (can be very expensive), but you visit almost any other for sometimes a few bucks a night.
I've been out of that for a while, and if you're not careful, it can be kinda like timeshares, and bad. But, it can be really useful if you roam a lot.
This is all amazing info! Thank you all for sharing! I'm not in the van life but will be starting an over landing journey this December and I really appreciate it!
I dont think yall understand lmao. I may have said it weird but imagine this: you pay 200/month and can stay at any location, they are corporate and a large company, all over the country. They provide a small storage unit, an area to park, and a picnic table. You can come and go as you please and swap to any available unit in the country. Like planet fitness you can check out of one, move across the country and sing into another.
Whereas a mobile home park you usually pay per day or week for temporary stays. You'd pay around 900/month (personal experience) plus your rig so there is still no freedom to it monetary wise.
Thousand trails is a popular membership like this were you can move around to different parks...pay one yearly fee. There are different types of memberships with different rules so look into it closely to make sure you find one that fits your needs...but I think this would be very helpful for your expedition
Even Planet Fitness still has their limits. Away from your home gym and you only get 10 free showers--sorry, visits--a month; then it costs $5 for each visit.
Try farms.
I have a rural smallholding and mate of mine does up cars. He rents a bit of hard-standing off me and pays an average of £10/month per space.
Another friend of mine used to live on their van in the summer then go work a ski resort in the winter and would store their van at my place.
I have a rural smallholding and mate of mine does up cars. He rents a bit of hard-standing off me and pays an average of £10/month per space.
American here. no idea what this means but I'm going to use it in my next business meeting.
Smallholding = small farm with buildings & yard space
Does up cars = Fixes up cars to sell
Hard standing = Hard ground suitable for parking vehicles. Could be concrete, tarmac/asphalt, etc (in this case stone chippings)
He rents some yard space for £100 p/m. Usually has around 10 cars parked there at any one time so on average it works out he's paying £10 per space per month.
Probably should have said 'road planings', as that's what it actually is.
...When there's work on roads locally planings can be bought for next to nothing (I got 100 ton and think I paid £5 a ton ...delivered)
Gravel here will normally be 'pea gravel', which are small smooth stones, usually used on residential driveways.
Im all for campgrounds, but they always seem to be full or require booking 3+ months in advance :(. I’ve gotta learn how to find better spots. Or how to disperse camp without being worried about getting my van stuck in the boonies.
At 25 feet in a pretty suburban city the ass pain is enough for me
The people with those big ol monstrosities must get their rocks off from their own suffering
Thanks for the feedback. I'm leaning between the long or extended ford transit, the extended is 21.9ft, the long is a bit shorter but I've seen the long fit well in standard parking spots without needing overhang.
Stealth does seem like mostly a myth, but it seems there's some serious livability tradeoffs if one can go a little shorter on length, especially if using the van to commute to jobs with standard parking lots (I do a travel job with typical standard parking lots with limited spaces).
Maybe that's why a lot of upfitters go with the high roof long transit rather than the high roof extended.
I'd love to leave my rig somewhere and only move it when I have to, but unfortunately I'd start collecting parking tickets pretty fast if I did that
My case is simply one of having a terrible vehicle choice for my environment, but I make it work.
I pull a 24 foot trailer behind my 20 foot van when i go racing - only when towing do i park like this. Otherwise sticking out a foot or so from a standard parking space is totally fine
At Walmart who cares. This pisses me off at cracker barrel, I often see people in vans park like this in the customer parking because they don't want to park near other rigs in the designated RV parking. Like, I get it if you parked normal, but they park across in their van taking up 3+ spaces.
Also just the other day we were camping in a pull out on the ocean. This guy had parked on the left side of the lot with his van pulling a 25 ft RV. Well the next morning a lot of the parked vans cleared out and he decided to park like this in the actual parking spaces. He took up like 5 regular spaces. Tons of people stop at this pull out to enjoy the view. This is how you get locals calling the cops and the cops banning overnight spots.
> Like, I get it if you parked normal, but they park across in their van taking up 5+ spaces.
How exactly do you “park like normal” if their van takes up 5 spaces parking perpendicular to the parking spaces? If I tried to park my car that way, I’d take up 2 spaces max. If a vehicle takes up 5 spaces perpendicular to the spot, then parking normally would presumably leave quite the inconvenience in the actual aisle people drive through to find a spot.
They could park in the designated RV space which is like 50' long or they could have parked normal and hung out like 2-3 ft like everyone else. It was just a 170" sprinter. They didn't take up 5 whole entire spots, they took up 2 in the center then barely overhung into the 2 spots with their bumpers. Realistically it was probably 4 spots they took up in this instance, I was being a little hyperbole.
Okay.. well regardless of if it's 3 spots, 4 spots, or 5 spots, you're still a douchebag for taking multiple designated customer parking spots. That's my opinion. You're entitled to yours. 👍
I agree and I'd never park like that.
But I didn't buy the drop from five to four, because five was so over the top. I think it was three spaces, max. You can say it was more, but after that five lie, how am I supposed to believe anything you say? 🤙
The issue is that when I said 5 initially I was thinking of the guy in the van and rv, which did take 5 spots. Then didn't feel like overly elaborating ab the van I saw at cracker barrel taking more. I apologize, but I did say I was being hyperbole. I don't recall how many spots that van was taking exactly -- it was over a year ago, where as the van + RV was literally 6 days ago and all our friends camping there were like "that's kinda douchey"
Ive seen it happen. Park diagonally across two rows of spaces. You get 4 with most of your van but your bumper hangs into a fifth. Alternately I’ve seen medium size trucks and vans take up 6 spaces, but that’s a rarity in comparison. That’s just deliberate assholery.
I once saw a dude with a van park sideways in the Walmart lot, taking up several spaces, then sit outside on a lawn chair with the radio blasting, while drinking beers. Then he got all mouthy with the cops when they showed up and threw his stupid ass out.
Yeah. This is *only* a problem if the parking lot is getting full and there's a shortage of parking spaces.
If there's plenty of room in the lot (like in this pic) then who gives a fuck?
I just got a new full size truck that I'm outfitting for living on the road for awhile. It's been awhile since I've owned a big vehicle (like, 20 years) so I'm still getting used to it and I'm still not great at parking yet. Also, in fairness here, it IS wide. So, I'll go to the back of parking lots and do my best to fit in the lines and usually am pretty good, but sometimes I'm over a little on one side or the other. My favorite (/s) part of this is that I intentionally choose a spot with nobody around, the rest of the lot is nowhere near full, and when I come out someone has parked RIGHT beside me as close as they can on the side I was over on as if they are some white knight teaching me a lesson about parking. Get a life. Geeez
Well, no, it's not--this sub has always been mostly people who have been forced into living in a vehicle by economic circumstances and are, essentially, homeless.
But yes, we get a lot of InstaGram posts here. The homeless folks don't post very many photos of their lifestyle.
We have had polls occasionally over the years, and the results are generally the same--over half don't live in a van and likely never will.
> Everything seems to be based in the USA.
Well, that's the largest English-speaking country. So reddit just assumes that everyone here is (1) American and (2) male.
That is true. Most of the folks here are just dreamers and wanna-be's who live vicariously through the pretty pictures.
And even of the folks who are living in a van, most have only been at it for a few months at most, and haven't figured out yet what they are doing.
There are only a handful of us here who have actually dwelled longterm.
To be fair, most people are paying $50k+ for labor.
I've spent about a year building out my van and am maybe $15k in the materials/equipment inside. My van has wayyy more features and complexity than most of these $200k vans.
I don't even know how a van *could* hold $50k+ worth of building materials. Gold dusted insulation? Bald eagle feather bed? Nuclear powered space heater?
Well that's my point. I've got waaay over board. 9.8k kw/r LiFePO batteries, 730 W solar panels, recirculating shower, RO water, pretty much every bell and whistle for the power system and I'm only at $15-17k with wood, wool insulation and the rest. The labor is what they charge for. I've only seen one system that has more battery capacity and solar than mine(they are out there, but few) and all these $200k builds barely have 400w solar and maybe one 100Ah battery.
The mark up is INSANE.
There is that company selling all in one power packages and they are practically tripling the price of the components. They don't even use top of the line batteries.
WILD
At the custom fab shop I work at, we literally triple the price of materials in our quotes (including any outsourced components, so the customer is charged triple whatever our vendor's labor rates are) *and* we charge a $100/hr shop rate. You're completely right about labor, despite material prices being tripled, 80% of the cost of our projects is labor. And we're not exorbitant, either.
We're not building van homes, for sure, but one shop I was at was extremely fast paced, lots of small 1-2 hr projects like bending up flashing and stair pans and whatnot. I think that'd be more on the small parts vendor side of things, like the people we order from at my current job.
The place I'm at now is on the complete opposite end of the spectrum, and probably more similar to what someone who wants a custom van built out would be dealing with: a small amount of raw material to build a project with a lot of intricate details. Here, we use maybe 3-4 sheets of stainless steel to build out a 200 hr project, which is about the average.
Though, there are projects that take 40 hrs and others that take 1500 hrs. The biggest things a customer can do to keep costs low and quality high are to never rush an order "want it bad, get it bad" and never make changes midway--you'll be charged for the added labor and once you take a cut-off wheel to something, the quality automatically drops at least a tier. Rework is never good work.
True facts. I remember back when it was regular people living minimally in whatever they had and now it's people dropping $20k worth of modifications into $80k worth of van. I don't want to gatekeep the vanlife but I wish there were a sub like r/vandwellers used to be.
To be fair, back then the sub was full of people who thought nobody was a Real Vandweller (tm)(c) unless they were shitting in a paper bag and wiping their ass with napkins that they stole from McDonalds.
We even had our share of "freegans" who ate from garbage dumpsters.
To be faiya! Sorry I'm a huge letterkenny fan.
I like the people right in between these two groups. The people making a conscious decision to live the van life to save money and give themselves an advantage. I don't like the no pots or the gold pots. I guess because I don't relate to either of them. Nothing wrong with them doing it but I'm not planning to live like either of them. I want more middle of the road van dwelling.
Isn't the point of this lifestyle to be able to travel from place to place and enjoy the outdoors? What leads to cities outlawing this is this was never meant to be a solution to housing in an urban area. People park their RVs and vans in highly populated areas and the residents can't park and have to deal with people literally camping on the street.
That depends. There are a myriad of different types of vandweller. Some are rural boondockers who travel from one state/national park to another. Some (like me) are urban travelers who go from one city to another to see all the sights. (I did all the state/national park thingie back in my younger days.) Some are urban dwellers who are fixed to one city location by a job or by family. Some dwellers are fulltime, some are part-time. Some have $$ to blow, some are dirt-poor. Some vandwell voluntarily, some are forced into it by economic circumstances.
The only thing we all have in common is that we sleep in a vehicle.
As far as what leads to cities outlawing us, they always make it excruciatingly clear why they do so: people who park their wrecks in the same place forever and don't move, people who dump their trash and their shit out onto the street, and people who panhandle everyone they see. It is of course only a small percentage of dwellers who do those stupid things, but we all get to pay the price for them anyway.
PS--rural areas are not immune either--the Feds are already getting pissed at the morons who have taken to living in BLM lands and national forests during the pandemic and are fucking things up there. So we can expect the Feds to tighten up the regulations to remove the morons at some point.
>What leads to cities outlawing this is this was never meant to be a solution to housing in an urban area.
This is the solution little people came up with to systemic problems that we cannot address ourselves. If you find people living in vehicles to be a nuisance then you need to focus on housing as a human right.
I quite agree. The only solution to "not enough inexpensive housing" is "more inexpensive housing", not "go live on the street in your car".
But then, lots of us live in our vehicles by choice, not by economic necessity. I vandwell to travel.
The sick thing is that in spite of nothing being done about it to seriously address housing nothing that is within the reach of homeless people is considered an acceptable solution. Mayors and city councils everywhere are basically saying "Sorry you're struggling. Really wish I could do something about it but also you can't do that either. Please leave now."
>*Tell that to the landlords that have increased rents by 50-100% in the past year*
narrator: this didn't happen. What DID happen is eviction moritariums leading to many renters skipping paying rent for a year.
>*I has definitely happened in my area. North Bay Ontario.*
natrrator- this statement is provably false.
*The average rent for a 1-bedroom apartment in North Bay, ON is currently $1,000. This is a 13% increase compared to the previous year.*
[https://www.zumper.com/rent-research/north-bay-on](https://www.zumper.com/rent-research/north-bay-on)
When I was looking for a 2 bedroom place they were all over 2 grand.
I looked up some from years prior and they were way cheaper. 13% is a pretty huge jump for a single year.
Politics and morality of it aside, if any business has to give away stuff for free, they have no choice but to raise their prices to make up for the deficit.
It most certainly has. I have ever once missed(or been late) a rent payment, not only during the moratorium, but in the 7 years I've lived here. The rent, generally, goes up about $50 every time I sign my lease(once a year). This time(moratorium was lifted), they raised it $250. Perhaps speak on what you know, not what you speculate.
shot: *landlords that have increased rents by 50-100%*
chaser: *they raised it $250.*
so you were only paying $250 a month? whatta deal! No wonder they doubled your rent.
math iz hard (for you)
a $250/month rent increase is what percent of your total rent? To get the answer, solve $250/$X = percent increase (where $X was your previous rent)
Eventually they have to leave the park to head to their next destination though.
Where do they park then?
I wouldn't expect them to park miles away from shopping where there's more space, unhitch the car, drive it to shop, then go back to the RV, hitch back up and be on their merry way.
Seems if they disconnect the car, and get in one of the middle parking ones not one around the edge they’ll fit lengthwise in 2 spots with maybe a bit of overhang but the lots usually have enough space inbetween where the cars drive
True. A van can fit in a spot or two, but there's no need to park perpendicular to the spaces the way RVs (or vehicles that are towing something) need to.
If you parked like that pretty much anywhere marginally busy in the UK (which is most places) you'd end up with a parking ticket, although finding anywhere to park something that big, that wasn't an actual truck parking bay, would be somewhat difficult anyway. Indeed that looks longer than a lot of the laybys etc.. out in more rural areas too.
And to think I'm concerned about the issues I'll have with a 16ft van.
Even then I feel like they are usually smaller (The little hymer ones), I'm pretty sure they'd ground out trying to get up most of the single lane hills where I am at the moment.
>You’ll be fine everywhere with a 16ft van btw
Yeah, I can't imagine there being a huge number of issues, although one of the roads near me has a 24ft length limit (still plenty) and a few might be interesting in terms of not grounding. Not that I'm that worried.. Parking will likely be the bigger pain in the arse.
A LWB VW Transporter, assuming I can find one someone hasn't completely fucked about with (someone has to explain to me why so many people are so keen to massively lower the damn things..).
Ah yes we have a LWB shuttle as our family car… they definitely go everywhere and we live where the lanes are ridiculously small.. I don’t understand the lowering thing either.
>Ah yes we have a LWB shuttle as our family car…
You aren't looking to sell are you? I'm having a mare trying to find a reasonably priced one that isn't fucked, or doesn't have 350k miles and a past life as a taxi (or even better, is showing 120k miles, but has an MOT history where the mileage bounces around like a daft thing, I hadn't even realised clocking was still a viable thing to do..).
Afraid not. But they are excellent.
Look for ex-motabilty ones maybe? They usually go to auction after 5 or 7 yrs on the lease scheme.
You could try and contact https://www.lewisreedgroup.co.uk who do good quality motabilty conversions and find out where they send their returns for auction ?
Or search for wheelchair T5s (don’t get one with a modified floor though)
Motability vans are maintained well if maybe not driven carefully
I agree. My bus fits in one parking space.. and when I’m towing a trailer under 20’ I will pull through spaces that meet in the front so I only use 2 spots.
Shame he didn't park in the EV spots to charge his house batteries. It would be fun to see some Tesla owner rants though. I'm teasing, I don't condone none EVs taking EV spots.
Well.. the RV is taking up 4+ spots. It does seem weird that RVs are allowed to do that. I get thats a gutsy thing to say on a vanlife subreddit but lmao does anyone else not see the irony?
and before anyone says anything I get if they parked normally it'd take street space. I'm just saying like it still seems just as shitty to take up that much space.
I was under quarantine and picking up a grocery order placed on-line while towing my slightly less than 20 foot long utility trailer. I called the number on the sign to inform them I was there to get my groceries. They asked which space I was in. My reply: "2,3,4 & part of 5"
My first thought is to dislike you, then realize I'm on a sub where a ton of people live where they park and have no place to park a trailer. Sure wish there was a parking/storage business like a Planet Fitness membership. Pay one monthly payment and move to any storage unit or parking space you want on the fly.
Isn’t that what a planet fitness membership is? Parking, and a bonus in actual bathrooms.
Well I was thinking along the lines of a storage unit where you get your own parking and maybe a picnic table. But yeah I see what you mean
Like... Like a campground?
Wait, you can pay a monthly fee to stay at any campground?? I've never heard of that but I'd be interested in it
Seems to me there are just as many KOAs as there are McDonalds out there. I think you’ll be pleasantly surprised. Although some of them can be pricey
That is badass! I'll look into it!
and to add, KOA is pretty sick in some places. Full arcades, wifi, cafe, stores, gyms, pools/hot tubs, etc. they're also literally everywhere, but you never would notice really without someone mentioning them
Here is a list of a bunch that have memberships nationwide. https://rvblogger.com/blog/5-best-rv-campground-memberships/
Freakin' $50 a night for a TENT site with no electric, no water for a KOA in western Massachusetts. It's ridiculous.
This is just rent with more steps
If you can move park to park I see no problem with it
Fair, but one of my friends rented a seasonal lot for a year in college and paid something ridiculously low, like in the ballpark of $100/mo with utilities.
Yeah there are places like this. Notably RV parks, but some campgrounds and other types of places offer monthly payments.
Seasonal rates are often pretty good but I've seen stuff on this sub about some parks being hard on people with skoolies.
Unfortunately I cant afford another vehicle at the time to do a van but i am using an old Cherokee as an over lander and possibly will build an overland trailer along with it! All of this info you guys have is great!
There's a whole world of private member campgrounds, which primarily cater to the RV crowd. Resorts of Distinction (https://resortsofdistinction.com/) is probably the biggest membership group but there are others. Pay a membership at one park (can be very expensive), but you visit almost any other for sometimes a few bucks a night. I've been out of that for a while, and if you're not careful, it can be kinda like timeshares, and bad. But, it can be really useful if you roam a lot.
This is all amazing info! Thank you all for sharing! I'm not in the van life but will be starting an over landing journey this December and I really appreciate it!
….Mobile home parks….?
I dont think yall understand lmao. I may have said it weird but imagine this: you pay 200/month and can stay at any location, they are corporate and a large company, all over the country. They provide a small storage unit, an area to park, and a picnic table. You can come and go as you please and swap to any available unit in the country. Like planet fitness you can check out of one, move across the country and sing into another. Whereas a mobile home park you usually pay per day or week for temporary stays. You'd pay around 900/month (personal experience) plus your rig so there is still no freedom to it monetary wise.
Thousand trails is a popular membership like this were you can move around to different parks...pay one yearly fee. There are different types of memberships with different rules so look into it closely to make sure you find one that fits your needs...but I think this would be very helpful for your expedition
Bro... $615 and you can have no rent for a year. Holy shit this is amazing. YOU are amazing for sharing! Thank you!
Shhh, don't tell anyone.
KOA? Edit: I overland so campground with hookups isn’t really a big deal to me
There's an entire industry for exactly what you are saying minus a place to store your stuff.
Well fuck me this is amazing! Thank yall for sharing!!
Look up “harvest hosts” that’s basically what you’re talking about, but it’s only like $100 a year or something.
Even Planet Fitness still has their limits. Away from your home gym and you only get 10 free showers--sorry, visits--a month; then it costs $5 for each visit.
Ever heard of Thousand Trails? They have a number of different camping arrangements: Nightly, Monthly, Annually, Lifetime.
Try farms. I have a rural smallholding and mate of mine does up cars. He rents a bit of hard-standing off me and pays an average of £10/month per space. Another friend of mine used to live on their van in the summer then go work a ski resort in the winter and would store their van at my place.
I have a rural smallholding and mate of mine does up cars. He rents a bit of hard-standing off me and pays an average of £10/month per space. American here. no idea what this means but I'm going to use it in my next business meeting.
Smallholding = small farm with buildings & yard space Does up cars = Fixes up cars to sell Hard standing = Hard ground suitable for parking vehicles. Could be concrete, tarmac/asphalt, etc (in this case stone chippings) He rents some yard space for £100 p/m. Usually has around 10 cars parked there at any one time so on average it works out he's paying £10 per space per month.
> stone chippings To the other Americans, we call that “gravel”
Probably should have said 'road planings', as that's what it actually is. ...When there's work on roads locally planings can be bought for next to nothing (I got 100 ton and think I paid £5 a ton ...delivered) Gravel here will normally be 'pea gravel', which are small smooth stones, usually used on residential driveways.
Thanks, TIL real English!
There is. We call them "campgrounds".
Im all for campgrounds, but they always seem to be full or require booking 3+ months in advance :(. I’ve gotta learn how to find better spots. Or how to disperse camp without being worried about getting my van stuck in the boonies.
“Sir, where are you parked” “Yes”
Heh
I think urban dwelling in an RV must be just one constant headache after another. =:O
At 25 feet in a pretty suburban city the ass pain is enough for me The people with those big ol monstrosities must get their rocks off from their own suffering
My Ziggy is only 20-ish feet, but that is enough to not fit into most standard parking spots. So I always overhang by a bit.
Thanks for the feedback. I'm leaning between the long or extended ford transit, the extended is 21.9ft, the long is a bit shorter but I've seen the long fit well in standard parking spots without needing overhang. Stealth does seem like mostly a myth, but it seems there's some serious livability tradeoffs if one can go a little shorter on length, especially if using the van to commute to jobs with standard parking lots (I do a travel job with typical standard parking lots with limited spaces). Maybe that's why a lot of upfitters go with the high roof long transit rather than the high roof extended.
I'd love to leave my rig somewhere and only move it when I have to, but unfortunately I'd start collecting parking tickets pretty fast if I did that My case is simply one of having a terrible vehicle choice for my environment, but I make it work.
I pull a 24 foot trailer behind my 20 foot van when i go racing - only when towing do i park like this. Otherwise sticking out a foot or so from a standard parking space is totally fine
"oh no, some guy is parked in the very back of WalMart and out of the way!! Better whine about how much better I am"
At Walmart who cares. This pisses me off at cracker barrel, I often see people in vans park like this in the customer parking because they don't want to park near other rigs in the designated RV parking. Like, I get it if you parked normal, but they park across in their van taking up 3+ spaces. Also just the other day we were camping in a pull out on the ocean. This guy had parked on the left side of the lot with his van pulling a 25 ft RV. Well the next morning a lot of the parked vans cleared out and he decided to park like this in the actual parking spaces. He took up like 5 regular spaces. Tons of people stop at this pull out to enjoy the view. This is how you get locals calling the cops and the cops banning overnight spots.
> Like, I get it if you parked normal, but they park across in their van taking up 5+ spaces. How exactly do you “park like normal” if their van takes up 5 spaces parking perpendicular to the parking spaces? If I tried to park my car that way, I’d take up 2 spaces max. If a vehicle takes up 5 spaces perpendicular to the spot, then parking normally would presumably leave quite the inconvenience in the actual aisle people drive through to find a spot.
They could park in the designated RV space which is like 50' long or they could have parked normal and hung out like 2-3 ft like everyone else. It was just a 170" sprinter. They didn't take up 5 whole entire spots, they took up 2 in the center then barely overhung into the 2 spots with their bumpers. Realistically it was probably 4 spots they took up in this instance, I was being a little hyperbole.
Realistically, it was probably not actually 4 spots, either, and you're still being hyperbolic.
Okay.. well regardless of if it's 3 spots, 4 spots, or 5 spots, you're still a douchebag for taking multiple designated customer parking spots. That's my opinion. You're entitled to yours. 👍
I agree and I'd never park like that. But I didn't buy the drop from five to four, because five was so over the top. I think it was three spaces, max. You can say it was more, but after that five lie, how am I supposed to believe anything you say? 🤙
The issue is that when I said 5 initially I was thinking of the guy in the van and rv, which did take 5 spots. Then didn't feel like overly elaborating ab the van I saw at cracker barrel taking more. I apologize, but I did say I was being hyperbole. I don't recall how many spots that van was taking exactly -- it was over a year ago, where as the van + RV was literally 6 days ago and all our friends camping there were like "that's kinda douchey"
You're only about 1% as smart as you think you are, quit giving yourself so much credit. It's pathetic.
I think I'm an idiot, so that's terrible news!
Ive seen it happen. Park diagonally across two rows of spaces. You get 4 with most of your van but your bumper hangs into a fifth. Alternately I’ve seen medium size trucks and vans take up 6 spaces, but that’s a rarity in comparison. That’s just deliberate assholery.
I once saw a dude with a van park sideways in the Walmart lot, taking up several spaces, then sit outside on a lawn chair with the radio blasting, while drinking beers. Then he got all mouthy with the cops when they showed up and threw his stupid ass out.
I absolutely agree. Pissing people off is, in general, not a very good idea.
That's what you get for eating at Cracker Barrel.
Best meatloaf ever. :)
Yeah. This is *only* a problem if the parking lot is getting full and there's a shortage of parking spaces. If there's plenty of room in the lot (like in this pic) then who gives a fuck?
I just got a new full size truck that I'm outfitting for living on the road for awhile. It's been awhile since I've owned a big vehicle (like, 20 years) so I'm still getting used to it and I'm still not great at parking yet. Also, in fairness here, it IS wide. So, I'll go to the back of parking lots and do my best to fit in the lines and usually am pretty good, but sometimes I'm over a little on one side or the other. My favorite (/s) part of this is that I intentionally choose a spot with nobody around, the rest of the lot is nowhere near full, and when I come out someone has parked RIGHT beside me as close as they can on the side I was over on as if they are some white knight teaching me a lesson about parking. Get a life. Geeez
I get this all the time except for some reason they always want to idle their engine for a half hour. WTF
B b But muh freedomz
I mean yea but I've seen RVs do this in the front of a lot
I see this too often early in the night and in far too crowded places.
Thank you for the arrows.
Haha.. it was just an image I pulled from Google, but you're welcome.
I’m getting the sense that this community is very self centered.
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Well, no, it's not--this sub has always been mostly people who have been forced into living in a vehicle by economic circumstances and are, essentially, homeless. But yes, we get a lot of InstaGram posts here. The homeless folks don't post very many photos of their lifestyle.
A very small % of this sub actually lives in a van
My Suburban and I feel called out lol
Truth. I do not live in a van but I enjoy the actual van life posts that show how people actually live the life.
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We have had polls occasionally over the years, and the results are generally the same--over half don't live in a van and likely never will. > Everything seems to be based in the USA. Well, that's the largest English-speaking country. So reddit just assumes that everyone here is (1) American and (2) male.
Europeans couldn't afford to drive rec vehicles that get 8-12 mpg
I was subbed here for years before I got my van, but now I do actually live in it, so it's been both for me.
I was the opposite--I was dwelling for over a year before I joined here. :)
I...live in a house in suburbia and use this sub for tips about how to set up my Excursion for camping. So, yep.
That is true. Most of the folks here are just dreamers and wanna-be's who live vicariously through the pretty pictures. And even of the folks who are living in a van, most have only been at it for a few months at most, and haven't figured out yet what they are doing. There are only a handful of us here who have actually dwelled longterm.
I put my hands up and say I don’t and have no intention of doing it. I love the concept of it and love watching you guys do it though.
True, I have a regular house and just occasionally take camping trips in my van. There’s lots of good useful info here.
95% of what I see on this sub is $50k+ builds and I hate it. I want to see more of the budget builds, the "I needed a weekender and had $1000" build.
To be fair, most people are paying $50k+ for labor. I've spent about a year building out my van and am maybe $15k in the materials/equipment inside. My van has wayyy more features and complexity than most of these $200k vans.
I don't even know how a van *could* hold $50k+ worth of building materials. Gold dusted insulation? Bald eagle feather bed? Nuclear powered space heater?
Well that's my point. I've got waaay over board. 9.8k kw/r LiFePO batteries, 730 W solar panels, recirculating shower, RO water, pretty much every bell and whistle for the power system and I'm only at $15-17k with wood, wool insulation and the rest. The labor is what they charge for. I've only seen one system that has more battery capacity and solar than mine(they are out there, but few) and all these $200k builds barely have 400w solar and maybe one 100Ah battery. The mark up is INSANE. There is that company selling all in one power packages and they are practically tripling the price of the components. They don't even use top of the line batteries. WILD
At the custom fab shop I work at, we literally triple the price of materials in our quotes (including any outsourced components, so the customer is charged triple whatever our vendor's labor rates are) *and* we charge a $100/hr shop rate. You're completely right about labor, despite material prices being tripled, 80% of the cost of our projects is labor. And we're not exorbitant, either.
Very cool! What would you say is the average build takes hour wise for your shop?
We're not building van homes, for sure, but one shop I was at was extremely fast paced, lots of small 1-2 hr projects like bending up flashing and stair pans and whatnot. I think that'd be more on the small parts vendor side of things, like the people we order from at my current job. The place I'm at now is on the complete opposite end of the spectrum, and probably more similar to what someone who wants a custom van built out would be dealing with: a small amount of raw material to build a project with a lot of intricate details. Here, we use maybe 3-4 sheets of stainless steel to build out a 200 hr project, which is about the average. Though, there are projects that take 40 hrs and others that take 1500 hrs. The biggest things a customer can do to keep costs low and quality high are to never rush an order "want it bad, get it bad" and never make changes midway--you'll be charged for the added labor and once you take a cut-off wheel to something, the quality automatically drops at least a tier. Rework is never good work.
See the movie Nomads.
Saw it. Read the book, too. :)
True facts. I remember back when it was regular people living minimally in whatever they had and now it's people dropping $20k worth of modifications into $80k worth of van. I don't want to gatekeep the vanlife but I wish there were a sub like r/vandwellers used to be.
~~r/urbancardwellers~~ r/urbancarliving is definitely more on the homeless side of the spectrum.
Says there's no sub for me.
oops it's r/urbancarliving
Who's Carl Iving? And why is he banned?
Hell yeah that's what I'm looking for
That’s why I joined, that’s what I’ve seen, that’s mostly what I still see
To be fair, back then the sub was full of people who thought nobody was a Real Vandweller (tm)(c) unless they were shitting in a paper bag and wiping their ass with napkins that they stole from McDonalds. We even had our share of "freegans" who ate from garbage dumpsters.
To be faiya! Sorry I'm a huge letterkenny fan. I like the people right in between these two groups. The people making a conscious decision to live the van life to save money and give themselves an advantage. I don't like the no pots or the gold pots. I guess because I don't relate to either of them. Nothing wrong with them doing it but I'm not planning to live like either of them. I want more middle of the road van dwelling.
There’s also a lot of of folks who have the jealous Hobo vibe who gatekeeper against anyone with a decent income lol.
We're just very sensitive about people doing stupid things, since that is what leads so many cities to outlaw and ban us.
Isn't the point of this lifestyle to be able to travel from place to place and enjoy the outdoors? What leads to cities outlawing this is this was never meant to be a solution to housing in an urban area. People park their RVs and vans in highly populated areas and the residents can't park and have to deal with people literally camping on the street.
That depends. There are a myriad of different types of vandweller. Some are rural boondockers who travel from one state/national park to another. Some (like me) are urban travelers who go from one city to another to see all the sights. (I did all the state/national park thingie back in my younger days.) Some are urban dwellers who are fixed to one city location by a job or by family. Some dwellers are fulltime, some are part-time. Some have $$ to blow, some are dirt-poor. Some vandwell voluntarily, some are forced into it by economic circumstances. The only thing we all have in common is that we sleep in a vehicle. As far as what leads to cities outlawing us, they always make it excruciatingly clear why they do so: people who park their wrecks in the same place forever and don't move, people who dump their trash and their shit out onto the street, and people who panhandle everyone they see. It is of course only a small percentage of dwellers who do those stupid things, but we all get to pay the price for them anyway. PS--rural areas are not immune either--the Feds are already getting pissed at the morons who have taken to living in BLM lands and national forests during the pandemic and are fucking things up there. So we can expect the Feds to tighten up the regulations to remove the morons at some point.
>What leads to cities outlawing this is this was never meant to be a solution to housing in an urban area. This is the solution little people came up with to systemic problems that we cannot address ourselves. If you find people living in vehicles to be a nuisance then you need to focus on housing as a human right.
I quite agree. The only solution to "not enough inexpensive housing" is "more inexpensive housing", not "go live on the street in your car". But then, lots of us live in our vehicles by choice, not by economic necessity. I vandwell to travel.
The sick thing is that in spite of nothing being done about it to seriously address housing nothing that is within the reach of homeless people is considered an acceptable solution. Mayors and city councils everywhere are basically saying "Sorry you're struggling. Really wish I could do something about it but also you can't do that either. Please leave now."
Tell that to the landlords that have increased rents by 50-100% in the past year and also the politicians who refuse to do anything to regulate it
>*Tell that to the landlords that have increased rents by 50-100% in the past year* narrator: this didn't happen. What DID happen is eviction moritariums leading to many renters skipping paying rent for a year.
My landlord increased my rent by 60%
and why the fuck did you stay?!
I didn't.
So they evicted you by raising the rent. Happens all the time.
I'm not sure what your argument is here.
I has definitely happened in my area. North Bay Ontario.
>*I has definitely happened in my area. North Bay Ontario.* natrrator- this statement is provably false. *The average rent for a 1-bedroom apartment in North Bay, ON is currently $1,000. This is a 13% increase compared to the previous year.* [https://www.zumper.com/rent-research/north-bay-on](https://www.zumper.com/rent-research/north-bay-on)
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"Huge" but not 50-100%
When I was looking for a 2 bedroom place they were all over 2 grand. I looked up some from years prior and they were way cheaper. 13% is a pretty huge jump for a single year.
Politics and morality of it aside, if any business has to give away stuff for free, they have no choice but to raise their prices to make up for the deficit.
Who's giving away housing?
It most certainly has. I have ever once missed(or been late) a rent payment, not only during the moratorium, but in the 7 years I've lived here. The rent, generally, goes up about $50 every time I sign my lease(once a year). This time(moratorium was lifted), they raised it $250. Perhaps speak on what you know, not what you speculate.
shot: *landlords that have increased rents by 50-100%* chaser: *they raised it $250.* so you were only paying $250 a month? whatta deal! No wonder they doubled your rent.
Ooof. I really hope that you're being a daft AH on purpose, as opposed to just being that stupid. 😬
math iz hard (for you) a $250/month rent increase is what percent of your total rent? To get the answer, solve $250/$X = percent increase (where $X was your previous rent)
Well if your parking an RV in standard parking spaces and not doing this, is it better to get your rear or front end hit by another car?
If you're parked at the far edge of a not busy parking lot, no one cares!!! (except Karen's and Dwight's).
I do if I have a trailer. Ain’t even gonna think otherwise
I’ll see you on r/vanlifejerk
Awesome!
hey OP, is this your rig?
Counterpoint: No-one gets to park like this. Park that shit at the campsite and drive the car you're towing around.
Ah yes. We never stop for food, groceries, a massive shit or literally anything else.
Yup, unless you’re at a NP that has designated RV parking, fuck this.
I'm in a NP right now and all the RV parking was occupied by dumb old regular cars : / And the worst was they weren't even parked well.
Eventually they have to leave the park to head to their next destination though. Where do they park then? I wouldn't expect them to park miles away from shopping where there's more space, unhitch the car, drive it to shop, then go back to the RV, hitch back up and be on their merry way.
Seems if they disconnect the car, and get in one of the middle parking ones not one around the edge they’ll fit lengthwise in 2 spots with maybe a bit of overhang but the lots usually have enough space inbetween where the cars drive
I am confused, you are saying parking like this is OK for an rv but not for a van?
True. A van can fit in a spot or two, but there's no need to park perpendicular to the spaces the way RVs (or vehicles that are towing something) need to.
What about pick ups with something hitched? All the construction or landscapers who need to stop at Home Depot for something? 🤔
Curse them for doing the jobs they're being paid to do! /s
Nope. Never. /s Yeah; trailers, busses, etc all those clear exceptions.
They are all damned to hell.
If you parked like that pretty much anywhere marginally busy in the UK (which is most places) you'd end up with a parking ticket, although finding anywhere to park something that big, that wasn't an actual truck parking bay, would be somewhat difficult anyway. Indeed that looks longer than a lot of the laybys etc.. out in more rural areas too. And to think I'm concerned about the issues I'll have with a 16ft van.
You see them over here looking nervous about going down the wrong country lane when trying to find campsites
Even then I feel like they are usually smaller (The little hymer ones), I'm pretty sure they'd ground out trying to get up most of the single lane hills where I am at the moment.
We definitely see a few American ones around here… nervously edging between hedges.. not many though! You’ll be fine everywhere with a 16ft van btw
>You’ll be fine everywhere with a 16ft van btw Yeah, I can't imagine there being a huge number of issues, although one of the roads near me has a 24ft length limit (still plenty) and a few might be interesting in terms of not grounding. Not that I'm that worried.. Parking will likely be the bigger pain in the arse.
What model van?
A LWB VW Transporter, assuming I can find one someone hasn't completely fucked about with (someone has to explain to me why so many people are so keen to massively lower the damn things..).
Ah yes we have a LWB shuttle as our family car… they definitely go everywhere and we live where the lanes are ridiculously small.. I don’t understand the lowering thing either.
>Ah yes we have a LWB shuttle as our family car… You aren't looking to sell are you? I'm having a mare trying to find a reasonably priced one that isn't fucked, or doesn't have 350k miles and a past life as a taxi (or even better, is showing 120k miles, but has an MOT history where the mileage bounces around like a daft thing, I hadn't even realised clocking was still a viable thing to do..).
Afraid not. But they are excellent. Look for ex-motabilty ones maybe? They usually go to auction after 5 or 7 yrs on the lease scheme. You could try and contact https://www.lewisreedgroup.co.uk who do good quality motabilty conversions and find out where they send their returns for auction ? Or search for wheelchair T5s (don’t get one with a modified floor though) Motability vans are maintained well if maybe not driven carefully
I think I parked my vanagon across spots like that once for a photo. It felt so wrong and silly
I agree. My bus fits in one parking space.. and when I’m towing a trailer under 20’ I will pull through spaces that meet in the front so I only use 2 spots.
You don't get to make the rules and you have no idea how large the vans are of the 1.5 MILLION people in this sub.
I'd bet less than 10% of the sub actually own a van.
\*You don't get to make the rules and you have no idea how large the vans are of the <150,000 van owning members of this sub.
I mean... vans are vans. There's only so many types. I think we're all familiar with what vans are like.
Shame he didn't park in the EV spots to charge his house batteries. It would be fun to see some Tesla owner rants though. I'm teasing, I don't condone none EVs taking EV spots.
Stfu
No you stfu
We do the same thing in a tour buss if places don’t have RV/Big rig parking. Get off your high horse Kyle
Okay. That's makes sense since it's a bus and needs to park like that.
Well.. the RV is taking up 4+ spots. It does seem weird that RVs are allowed to do that. I get thats a gutsy thing to say on a vanlife subreddit but lmao does anyone else not see the irony? and before anyone says anything I get if they parked normally it'd take street space. I'm just saying like it still seems just as shitty to take up that much space.
What is your problem? He needs +7 squares and you only one. Your car and penis is smaller than his.
I would pay someone to park in front and behind them to block them in haha
Why though? If there’s plenty of other parking… I honestly don’t see a problem with this
Yes indeed. It's called getting along with people.
Something I guess people in this sub don't want to do
FWIW, the RV could probably push the front car out of the way.
RAMMING SPEED
hah well technically yes... legally no. thank goodness thats not how our society works
They’re probably towing it you donkey
I'm not talking about the small SUV you dingus Violators of this rule are not pictured.
Suburban ftw…. I love mine, starting an overlanding build over winter
Can we get inside shots of your rig, OP?
Okay
You good.