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How I Built a Custom Camper Van (2015)

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Re: How I Built a Custom Camper Van (2015)

#241

Post by linkregister »

Theodores wrote: post #105
cylinder wrote: post #31

Did you consider buying a camper van? They are quite common as a lifestyle traveling around Australia, in the US people use giant RVs but these are not practical at all and not a conscientious selection.

In 'Software Engineering' there is this thing called 'code reuse'. The idea being that you don't reinvent the wheel. We were all taught it (and moved on to realise there is a lot of code out there that is best not 're-used'). These Ducato vans are the popular 'platform' for camper vans in Europe, due to the low floor. Most of the conversions have worked out the hard problems and been 'debugged' with customer feedback…

I completely agree with your comment.

It looks like the Ducato is not available in the U.S. Presumably the author could fly to Europe, purchase one, and ship it back for less expense and labor. But I think part of his venture was to have some measure of self-reliance / DIY. "How I bought a great van from Europe and now I live in it" doesn't have the same novelty and escape-from-society appeal.

Re: How I Built a Custom Camper Van (2015)

#242

Post by jandrese »

white-flame wrote: post #67
jandrese wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

All of the work to make this van livable could have just as easily been done to a shack in the woods. The biggest hurdle these days is reliable internet if you want that. You would need a better bathroom situation than "the nearest McDonalds" too, but well water is often an option. The one question he didn't answer is how he bathed. It's very easy when you're living as a lonely bachelor to slowly morph into Grizzly A…

He specifically wanted to travel around. If you want to hunker down and spend time being a hermit and working on personal projects, a shack would be great. But if you want to travel to see places & friends, projecting that into a van makes sense.

The cabin comment was specifically in response to the talk of buying a cheap house out in the middle of nowhere.

The problem is the same as the cabin, it's more difficult to be a developer when your Internet is slow and shitty. It would be really hard to go back to dial-up.

Re: How I Built a Custom Camper Van (2015)

#243

Post by timmaah »

kylixz wrote: post #116

I am about to embark on a similar journey. I started off buying a 1993 33' Diesel pusher motorhome with the intent to travel the US fulltime while working remotely. It was awesome fixing it up and making it livable, modern, beautiful, and adding solar. Working with my hands was extremely rewarding! That said I soon learned that 33' is a huge vehicle which I did not feel comfortable driving regularly over mountains an…

Come join in the slack chat of a bunch of younger like minded folks: http://wanderslack.com/

Re: How I Built a Custom Camper Van (2015)

#244

Post by danielvf »

Hondor wrote: post #238

Having a campervan without a toilet might bite you in some places. New Zealand used to be a great place for this but a couple of years ago they made it illegal to sleep in such a vehicle just about everywhere except designated pay-per-night campgrounds and certain districts each with their own special rules. Even then you're usually not allowed to linger more than a few days at a time in one place. I doubt America wi…

Wal-marts in the US almost aways have an RV or camper van tucked away somewhere in the parking lot over night. It is very normal to spend the night there if you don't have a campground. Wal-mart never seems to have a problem with it.

Re: How I Built a Custom Camper Van (2015)

#245

Post by SwellJoe »

gnopgnip wrote: post #208
SwellJoe wrote: post #193

I've spent 6 of the past 7 years living in an RV (motorhome first, now an old Avion travel trailer with a big old truck to tow it). I recommend it for anyone who is unencumbered enough of other people and responsibilities to do so (i.e., it may not be the right thing for a family with kids, though I know some families with kids who do it and seem happy). The freedom to travel is magnificent. It precludes many kinds o…

Would you live in a motorhome without a toilet?

I wouldn't, but I know a number of people who do. Or, people who have a toilet, but don't use it because they park off-the-grid for long periods of time. It's do-able.

When I've wanted to live in cities without a nearby RV park, I have been known to use a gym for shower/toilet (when I was moving around a lot more often than I do now, I had an all-club membership at 24 Hour Fitness; Planet Fitness is a better deal now, but they have a lot fewer clubs), so I could extend my time between driving to a dump station.

Re: How I Built a Custom Camper Van (2015)

#246

Post by wrong_variable »

dexterdog wrote: post #133

I'm actually curious about the insurance situation. If you are living in your van I would expect the insurance to either be a lot more or worse, to decide not to cover you because you didn't get a special policy. Then there's the issue of what happens if you are in an accident because now your wheels and your bed are in the shop, a shop which is not going to be able to restore your situation properly.

Easy : Airbnb

Hopefully you are also not broke.

Re: How I Built a Custom Camper Van (2015)

#247

Post by prawn »

gnarcoregrizz wrote: post #72

This resonated with me: "Life is easy. Humans are fucking badass -- we absolutely dominate our environment and are so smart and powerful." I really understood that in the desert in Utah, where I got the feeling that I wasn't supposed to be there, far away from any semblance of civilization, but there I was surviving just fine with the help of our machinations. I bought my RV for what you did, and its a perfectly comf…

Points for the great attitude and anything involving Utah's deserts, but kudos to so many other species surviving harder with less also. Life is badass! Watched a documentary in which lizards hatched in a scalding caldera and had to scramble over the rim while birds were trying to pick them off. That's in their first few seconds of life.

Re: How I Built a Custom Camper Van (2015)

#248

Post by lebca »

BooneJS wrote: post #69
aresant wrote: post #9

His "Can I live without my precious possessions?" answer is the most engineering LOL thing I've read all day: "Pile up my crap. Anytime I need something in the pile, take it out of the pile and save it for later. Monitor usage." Thank you for posting this.

I did this with all of my various t-shirts. Hang them on the pole backwards. When I put away laundry, hang them on the pole forwards.

This works until one notices the backwards hanging clothes more than the forwards hanging ones, and then one's OCD or something begins to care about reversing all the hangers more than choosing what to wear, like a game...

Re: How I Built a Custom Camper Van (2015)

#249

Post by foobarian »

et-al wrote: post #34
dublinben wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Arguably, it means just that. If you only use a tool once a year, you should just borrow/rent them when you actually do need them. Our lives are cluttered with occasionally used 'just in case' items that we really don't need.

That's minimalism taken to an extreme, which is just as thoughtless as hoarding. A screwdriver costs less than $5 and takes a minimal amount of space to store. Yes, the slippery slope is when you have a thousand tools falling out of your closet, but again, thought and moderation. The "if I haven't used it in the past year" rule is a great idea overall, but it's not appropriate for this example. Now if we're talking a…

Think of it hierarchically. Instead of a screwdriver let's talk about a box of tools. You may not use the 4-40 tap very often, if ever, but you probably use something from the toolbox at least once a week.

Re: How I Built a Custom Camper Van (2015)

#250

Post by syntex »

Theodores wrote: post #105
cylinder wrote: post #31

Did you consider buying a camper van? They are quite common as a lifestyle traveling around Australia, in the US people use giant RVs but these are not practical at all and not a conscientious selection.

In 'Software Engineering' there is this thing called 'code reuse'. The idea being that you don't reinvent the wheel. We were all taught it (and moved on to realise there is a lot of code out there that is best not 're-used'). These Ducato vans are the popular 'platform' for camper vans in Europe, due to the low floor. Most of the conversions have worked out the hard problems and been 'debugged' with customer feedback…

I think he loves to reinvent the wheel as he created own language for game development "Kong"
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