How I Built a Custom Camper Van (2015)
I&#x27;ve spent 11 of the past 20 years &quot;homeless&quot; by choice following various practices from living on a boat, to living in a truck camper, to traveling the world living in AirBnBs, to occasionally renting apartments but never really living there.  But I&#x27;ll come back to that.<p>I want to address several peoples concerns about this guys lifestyle and the presumed limitations:<p>0. First off Loved that he was using Soylent. That solves a big problem of needing dried food but not liking freeze dried food. If I were to go back to vehicle living I would use a combo of Soylent and Sous Vide.  Sous Vide cookers like the Anova are very small, and you can do it just with boiled water, zip lock bags and a thermometer if you want. The results are really fantasic.  30 seconds searing steaks on the grill then 40 minutes in the bath and you have better steaks than you can get at any restaurant for less than $50-- and you can do that on top of am mountain if you wanted!   So the food situation is much better than the days of crates of raman.<p>1. Sex.  Sex is totally possible, and it&#x27;s not creepy at all. When you get on the road and you&#x27;re traveling you will run into people who are going the same route multiple times. In this way there&#x27;s a virtual community. This varies regionally of course, travel by train in europe or in alaska for the summer and it becomes pretty tight nit.  The women and men you meet there are not exactly going to turn their nose up at your van because that&#x27;s how they are traveling to.  There&#x27;s a whole vagabond subculture in the USA that ranges from kids hoping trains to techies in vans like this guy to Oldsters in RVs.  And there&#x27;s nothing sexier than a guy who will break with convention and go do interesting things. FTR, my partner and I picked up a woman in the UK who then travelled with us and lived with us for a couple years in poly triad. IT only lasted three years but I don&#x27;t think the definition of a successful relationship should only be ones that end in death!<p>2. Cost- you really can save a lot of money. IT&#x27;s amazing that you can live around the world traveling full time for less than the cost of living in a major west coast city.  If you&#x27;re doing a startup, that&#x27;s really nice- be in berlin, then go to london, etc. We ran a three person startup (the triad above) going form england to Romania to Chile. While we didn&#x27;t live as cheaply as we should have or could have (it&#x27;s a skill) we didn&#x27;t live more expensively than we would have if we stayed in Seattle (and we never would have met the woman in the UK).  When it costs less or doesn&#x27;t cost more but you have a better experience, isn&#x27;t that a much better value?<p>3. The major factor is movement.  When you&#x27;re still- say at a campground or an AirBnB, or anchored at a dock, you save your movement energy, and thus cost, and you spend time working and enjoying.  When you&#x27;re underway- sailing requires attention as does driving, taking trains and planes costs money, boats and cars take gas.   The ideal situation is one where you can stay places for a period of time (we used to stay in a country 90 days- the visa limit) to maximize your productivity on the road.  This is a lifestyle, not a vacation from life. You earn money when you go, but you earn less money on tavel days.<p>4. Settling in- another part of the cost of travel is the settling in time.  I need to have a good work chair and in each country we would spend the first week or so getting our spot set up to be productive on our startup.<p>5. The best thing about traveling is meeting the locals- especially outside the USA.   This is the reason for the 90 day visa too.  You can build real relationships.  4 countries in a year is much better than 9 countries in 4 days!  And it&#x27;s cheaper per-day, because you can be working during the day, and thus it&#x27;s sustainable.<p>6. There are many ways to do it.  I like the boat the best- it was only 30 feet but it was center cockpit and huge. If I had the balls of a blue water sailor I never would have left and would be traveling around the world in it.  But it takes a rare breed to cross an ocean in a 30 foot cruiser!<p>This van is very much like my experience in the Truck Camper.  The truck camper cost me $5,500 all in- an old Toyota Pickup and a $3,500 SKAMPER.  You have to crank it to raise the roof.  I travelled all the way to Prudhoe Bay in that truck- spending a couple weeks north of the arctic circle.<p>You can never forget an experience like that!<p>7. Eventually I vowed to never stop.  I decided this was a philosophy and whatever methodology it doesn&#x27;t really matter.  Am I still traveling full time? I&#x27;m on a lease, so many of you would say no, but I think I am. You could be too.<p>What&#x27;s the difference in lifestyle between crashing in a French student&#x27;s flat in Romania for 3 months and being on a lease in the USA for 6? In romania 90 days is the max visa and maximizing productive time was ideal. a 6 month lease in the USA isn&#x27;t that different from the 6 months we lived in the UK (they have a longer visa for US residents).<p>I now think in terms of the GPWR - Gross Personal Weight Rating.  That is the total weight of me and all my possessions.  When I was on the boat it was around 13,000 pounds - most of it boat.  For the truck it was about 7,000 pounds, most of it truck.<p>When we were backpacking it was all in the pack- about 60 pounds. Now I am staying in apartments but restrict myself to only what can fit in my car (so I can move across country at a moments notice if I want.) I don&#x27;t live in the car so it&#x27;s a tradeoff, I have to rent a sleeping space.<p>But I&#x27;m still mobile.  I don&#x27;t have a bed frame, for instance, I bought a bunch of Akro Mils plastic crates.  Turn them upside down and they make a really damn solid bed frame (best one I&#x27;ve ever had, actually)   The mattress fits in the back of my car with the seats folded down. I have a mid sized SUV and camping is easy- just put the mattress in the car. Better than a tent (stays warmer).  But when I need to move, I can turn the crates right side up and all my possessions go into them.<p>So, where should I live next?  Once my lease is up, I&#x27;m going. (and knowing that also puts the kibosh on silly buying.)<p>Start thinking of every possession as weight added to your GPWR.  Do you want to live in backpack? Pare down.  Do you want to live in a van? You don&#x27;t have to be as careful but you should think about how many TVs you buy.