Really disappointed there aren't any pictures
The Daily Mail, not a reliable source in general, but today it does have an article on this topic with lots of pictures: https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-6839229/Thousands-C...
Car campers in beach parking lots
101–110 of 161 posts
Re: Car campers in beach parking lots
#102Just an idea that popped up. One could probably develop a couchsurfing/airbnd style app so to speak where people with rvs/motorhomes could find rental spots to go hook up for the night. That probably wouldn't do much for people short on money, but it could be helpful for people traveling around the country and finding that RV parks have no vacancy. Just a thought.
Not a super hip site but boondockerswelcome.com has been around for a while. It seems mostly targeted toward the boomer/florida snowbird crowd.
Neat. Thanks for sharing. If you look at airbnd, vrbo was around before just wasnt marketed the same way. So there probably is room for an additional competitor etc. Especially if done right.
Re: Car campers in beach parking lots
#103Earlier quoted context omitted.
I agree they are heavy, and even more heavy than the bus chassis they are built on top of, but I see that as an engineering problem right? There are bus depot parking structures where unused commercial buses are parked. And my civil engineering friends are fond of saying that with enough steel and concrete you can hold up anything :-). So as a mental exercise in scaling density by going vertical, in my sketchbook usi…
It's certainly possible, but with a lot less steel and concrete you could just build walls and have, you know, apartments. My guess is it's easier to find investors for that, too. The only reason I can imagine a multi-storey RV park making sense would be to take advantage of some weird zoning quirk or something. But that's a lot of money to throw at what's effectively a legal vulnerability that will probably quickly…
I don't disagree, the changes that a multi-level RV park bring are a more flexible pricing structure, a lower cost facilities budget, and perhaps a lower cost maintenance load.
From a cash flow perspective I started with parking garages as a business model. The typical 'monthly parking' type garage is a concrete and steel affair with sprinklers and elevators as its biggest operational expense, a bit more if you add an on-site office for an attendant to capture additional revenue from special events.
All the space that requires maintenance in an apartment building that is 'non-apartment' doesn't exist in an RV park. You don't repaint or re-carpet, you don't send HVAC dollars on cooling or heating, Etc.
My assumption (and I'm open minded about missing things) are that using the ratio of comparing of a traditional RV park to a one story apartment complex is a valid way to estimate expenses and cash flow. Then to extrapolate by adding additional layers to the RV park. There are also different tax treatments but I suspect that if the difference there appears to exploitable that it will be quickly changed.
The biggest complaint about RV parks are that they are RV parks and they are an "eyesore". By enclosing the park you can improve the optics, and by increasing the density you grow the ROI relative to an apartment by the cost ratio. But is it a $5M project, a $10M project, or a $25M project that I don't know yet. And while a casual polling of city folks about which would they prefer, RV's parked on the street or parked in an externally attractive structure set aside for them, polls favorably, it isn't clear that is enough to get final approval.
Re: Car campers in beach parking lots
#104Van Life is becoming super popular, not just for the homeless, but for a generation of people who want to live on a limited income and travel. Theres people building out buses/vans and living in california, working tech, banking their money to retire early. About 20 years ago, I was working at ATT and we had contractors living in their travel trailers parked in the work parking lot at our datacenters, so its not a ne…
Van Life is becoming super popular I'm as intrigued as the next outdoors-loving fellow, but is it actually "super popular"? Do that many people, proportionately, take up van life? I suspect in the big picture it's still extremely niche, especially if you drill down to just people who are voluntary van dwellers.
It's very niche but has grown significantly, both for the willing and unwilling.
Re: Car campers in beach parking lots
#105I've been living in a shuttle bus I converted for almost two years. I'm fortunate enough for it to be a choice, many aren't as fortunate. I'm better equipped than an RV, hot and cold water, toilet, shower, 1600W of solar, AC, standing desk workstation.
I'm very respectful of others. I never park overnight in front of a house and don't like parking in one street spot for more than 12h. I often pick up trash in the area I park.
For those who complain about us, keep in mind there is a minority of assholes in every population. Don't judge everyone by the assholes.
Feel free to ask me anything.
Re: Car campers in beach parking lots
#106Earlier quoted context omitted.
And this "technology" is banned for the right reasons. It is demonstrably harmful to the enviroment, physical and mind health and the society in general. I'm all for this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LtSf69vjrVM
Do you have a source for that? Not disagreeing, but I'd be very interested in reading up on how a high-rise might negatively impact my health seeing as I live in one right now.
Source? Hah. My life.
I lived most of it in the high-rises, and not slums at all. "Respectable neighbourhoods".
I'm not talking about slums.
I pity the people who choose to live in those anthills.
I hate people who advocate to force other people to live in those.
I'm talking about overcrowding. Not enough private space, not enough public space, not enough transport. And it's a death trap if something goes just slightly wrong with the infrastructure. Have you witnessed shit fountains out of you r toilet? I did. Have you seen what a gas explosion does to those? A section or three just collapses, top to bottom, and everyone there is dead. What if water mains gets cut off because the electricity cut off and so there are no lifts? What if it's 15F outsite and the heaters die?
This is no way to live.
Re: Car campers in beach parking lots
#107Earlier quoted context omitted.
I know for a while there was a guy living in his camper in the Google parking lot (and was an employee). They were even nice enough to allow him to hook up to their power, and he was in range of the wifi. He basically just went inside to shower and eat (and work of course). Not a bad deal. Not sure if they allow that anymore though.
There have been many such people. You have to do it stealthily though, because if Google finds out, it has to kick you off campus due to zoning issues. Any support the company gave is in the long past now.
I wonder, can you get away with it at the Mountain View Walmart? In most of the country Walmart is ok with letting people sleep in their cars/rvs there. But I could see the Mountain View location having different rules
Re: Car campers in beach parking lots
#108Here it is on the wayback machine for EU users getting a 451 error. https://web.archive.org/web/20190322180054/https://www.baker...
So either 1) They are targetting EU users and serving to EU users and thus the block is pointless 2) They aren't targetting EU users and thus the block is pointless
Or (1) they aren't sure if they would count as targeting EU users, because the rules are fuzzy and might be interpreted differently by each country's regulators, and (2) they don't have any need to target EU users since their content, and their monetization, is mostly of interest to non-EU users.
In that situation, there are two cautious ways to proceed.
One approach is to assume that you might be targeting EU users and so comply with GDPR. Even if you aren't doing anything with data that would make compliance hard, this is somewhat annoying because GDPR requires that you have a representative in the Union as a point of contact for users and regulators.
The other approach is to make a good faith effort to block EU users.
If you have little or no income directly or indirectly from EU users, the second approach has a lot to recommend it, especially until there is a good body of regulatory rulings on what GDPR actually means.
Re: Car campers in beach parking lots
#109I've been living in a shuttle bus I converted for almost two years. I'm fortunate enough for it to be a choice, many aren't as fortunate. I'm better equipped than an RV, hot and cold water, toilet, shower, 1600W of solar, AC, standing desk workstation. I'm very respectful of others. I never park overnight in front of a house and don't like parking in one street spot for more than 12h. I often pick up trash in the are…
It seems like most van conversions are optimized to be inconspicuous. It's no schoolie, but a shuttle bus is certainly more eye-catching than an Econoline. Do you have issues blending in or getting additional (unwanted) attention?
Re: Car campers in beach parking lots
#110I talked with a guy living in a motorhome in Mountain View California, he works for Google. He could certainly afford an apartment but said his payments on the motorhome are about $600 a month, and an apartment close to Google would be $2500 a month at least, so he feels like its a free $2000 a month to save or spend. He's fortunate that Google also has nice showers, free food, and laundry. Things he might otherwise…
The insanity, here, is that you can't take the land the motorhome is on and build a studio on it. We give cars free places to sleep while people are homeless.
Cars don't poop.