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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)

#301

Post by grecy »

jonah wrote: post #185
grecy wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At the time I thought it made sense... of course hindsight is great. If I wanted a Toyota diesel, I would have just bought a Toyota, but I didn't want that. The reason for the merc is that the engine I chose (the OM606) is the most sophisticated non-computer controlled diesel possible - actually it came from the factory with a computer, but by using the injection pump from the earlier OM603 it can be made fully mecha…

Why not just swap in a new motor at that point instead of getting a whole new vehicle? The long block should be pretty plug-and-play since all the adaptations had been done already?

I had already sunk waaaaay too much time and money into the conversion, and it was far from finished. I was burning money much too fast.

Even if the engine didn't blow up, there was still months of work to iron out bugs.

After the hard miles I've done here in Africa, I'm actually immensely happy it didn't work out, and that I have a factory drive train in my Jeep now.

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

#302

Post by Intimatik »

sAvi0r wrote: post #203
scotty79 wrote: post #151

Or you could just move to Poland. $33,750 could buy you studio in any medium town in Poland, even in sub-million population cities. You'd get: no mortgage, apartment with a toilet, clean running water, wifi and all the electricity that you'll ever need. 5-10 times more area for your stuff. Monthly cost of utilities, tax and fee towards building maintenance of about $150 in total, access to a lot of young, English spe…

What's considered a medium town in Poland? I was checking out housing in my dad's hometown in Serbia, and it's like a shitty agricultural town pretty far from anything notable with a population of ~12,000 and a place was still like $40,000-50,000CAD.

Check out Kraków https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Krak%C3%B3w

It's a great historical city to live & work where I've been staying for almost two years and still loving it =)

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

#303

Post by kaybe »

eggy wrote: post #251
secabeen wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agreed. It gets even harder with tiny dependents.

It calls for making unorthodox decisions, and trying something different. I live in the rice fields of East Java on about $3 per day with my 1.5 year old baby girl and wife. I grew up in Brooklyn, NYC and spent most of my time in urban areas. I also have two older children whom I raised during their youth with my ex-wife in rural NJ when we decided to leave Manhattan. They grew up with a fresh water lake, no motorboa…

How do you get money? Savings or do you have income?

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

#304

Post by systemtest »

ryandrake wrote: post #150

I always read these stories with a sense of awe and wonder. "I took 2 years off of my totally boring office job to X" where X is something that is 1. expensive and/or 2. not generating income or not nearly as much income as Boring Office Job. How the hell does one live without their salary for 2 years without going into debt or depleting savings? Don't you people have student loans to pay off, medical bill payments,…

Live on half your income. For every year you work, you can have one year of play.

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

#305

Post by 4ad »

oxryly1 wrote: post #144
darzu wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you give examples of better ways to cut down your expenses?

Move to a small apartment in a downtown area, ideally where you don't need a car. Get a roommate, cancel netflix, etc etc. Pretty mundane stuff...

Downtown is expensive, roommate is annoying, especially in small apartment. Plus, we're talking here about reducing costs in general, for for 20 year olds. We're talking about people with family, kids, jobs, etc. If you live in downtown so you don't need a car, you'll find out your groceries suddenly become much more expensive.

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

#306

Post by knocte »

tdobson wrote: post #153

I do something similar in the UK. Stealth Digital Nomad Sysadmin/Sales Engineer in a converted Mercedes Sprinter LWB http://instagram.com/tdobsonnet If you're interested in this kind of thing, /r/vandwellers is the place to be! Happy to answer any questions. :)

I like the stealth style but most people that go this way don't embed toilet/shower (because must be hard to do and harder to have space for it), which in my view must be a horrible downside, no? What do you think? What did you do?

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

#307

Post by jventura »

cko wrote: post #85

I'm a full-time pharmacist working 50 hours a week, with several investment rental properties. Since April of this year I've been sleeping in my 2002 Toyota 4Runner in the parking lot at work. Shower at the gym, infrequent laundry runs, hang out all day at the library with all the other strange people. Pros: feeling of simplicity and freedom; enough said. Cons: a mid-sized SUV is too small and not private enough. I w…

Curiosity, but honest question: how old are you? (Or in which age range)..

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

#308

Post by pbhjpbhj »

gnud wrote: post #65
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.

If everyone followed this logic, who would you borrow from?

This is where an [idealised] conception of communism wins, there's a local workshop with all the tools kept in common between people in the area. If you're away from home, you just go to the local workshop.

Strikes me as an idiotic waste of resources that a street of a hundred houses would have 50, say, power drills. Most likely they're inferior for costs purposes, they break because they're designed to (capitalism FTW), they're unnecessary duplication and so waste resources.

We've seriously missed the mark with design of our communities/society.

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

#309

Post by tingol »

kagamine wrote: post #273
post_break wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're still alive! I remember reading about you and everyone tore you up for your route in africa.

Iirc he said he was going to drive through places like Syria, Ivory Coast and so on up the east side of the continent. He hasn't gotten that far yet, so there is still a good chance for him to stick to his original plan and die. I hope he doesn't.

The Ivory Coast is west and Syria is not even in Africa...

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

#310

Post by VLM »

geocar wrote: post #284
elliotec wrote: post #182

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd disagree with your statement that "the van isn't a big deal" in your last sentence. If you feel that you have to be upfront with everyone about living in a van, it sort of becomes an enormous part of your identity, which I would call a big deal.

I think he means that it isn't interfering with his romantic life. Some people (especially programmers) use the expression "it's not a big deal" to indicate something is straightforward (when you're thinking about it correctly), not to quantify its importance.

The analogy I've seen used on other sites is its like a food allergy, which is extremely important when selecting a restaurant or buying picnic food, but it doesn't significantly impair or impact social activity, or it only impacts it as much as you permit it to make you feel bad.
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