How I Built a Custom Camper Van (2015) • Hacker News Board

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

#331

Post by jessaustin » Tue, Aug 30, 2016, 9:09 PM UTC

dsfyu404ed wrote: post #228

jessaustin wrote: post #177

Earlier quoted context omitted.

...social taboo When I've lived in mobile homes, I've found them to be substandard in various ways. One might be prepared to accept that in exchange for their advantages, but if not it seems perfectly rational to seek other solutions with different trade-offs. E.g., most mobile homes are over 70' long, while tiny houses are much shorter.

The social taboo had nothing to do with quality and everything to do with the mobile home = trailer trash stereotype. Tiny houses are what happens when a garden shed has sex with a travel trailer. Practically tiny houses copy the floor-plan and interior design of an existing high end travel trailer and paste it into a traditionally constructed building. The result is basically a travel trailer optimized for staying i…

The point I clearly made is that social taboo is not the only reason why one might prefer a tiny house or indeed any other sort of house over a mobile home. You might not care about the other reasons, but they exist nonetheless.

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

#332

Post by Noos » Tue, Aug 30, 2016, 9:12 PM UTC

This life really isn't sustainable as he gets older, and he's very vulnerable to risk, accident, or loss. Oh, it seems romantic as hell, but the first time the flu hits you, you suddenly realize you've chosen to stick yourself into a tiny box with no indoor plumbing, no quiet, and that has to move every few days or the police will start rapping on your windows.

Or when the van breaks down, and you have zero choice but to fix it right away, and you have to pray to god you budgeted enough to cover it. Plus the van itself wears out much faster than a vehicle most people use because it has to move so much. RV lifestyle in general is far more expensive than people realize, and provides zero equity. If he ever wishes to expand his game business, he's going to have a rough time.

It's romantic, but it's very much a young person's game and he'll probably discover the joys of home ownership when he's 35 and trying to sleep in his van in 90 degree weather.

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

#333

Post by Trill-I-Am » Wed, Aug 31, 2016, 1:23 AM UTC

toomanybeersies wrote: post #259

Trill-I-Am wrote: post #258

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You've shacked up in a backpackers what?

Backpacker's? backpackers'? Unless you're confused about the term backpackers itself, in which I mean a hostel.

I've never seen the plural word backpackers used as a singular synonym for hostel.

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

#334

Post by kagamine » Wed, Aug 31, 2016, 6:04 AM UTC

grecy wrote: post #292

kagamine wrote: post #273

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I find your comment dissapointing. You speak with such authority and finality, yet your basic lack of African geography makes me wonder if you have any experience at all. When was the last time you were in Africa? For how long? where exactly did you go? You may want to have a look at a map at where Ivory Coast is.

Maybe it should have been in quotation marks, I'm repeating what was said on the reddit thread from memory. I don't really care about the guy or his trip. The only thing I really care about is why he put a MB diesel in a Jeep (twice).

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

#335

Post by kagamine » Wed, Aug 31, 2016, 7:13 AM UTC

tingol wrote: post #309

kagamine wrote: post #273

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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...

Didn't say otherwise. Read it again because it says "places like" and "so on up the". Good luck 2nd time around.

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

#336

Post by grecy » Wed, Aug 31, 2016, 8:53 AM UTC

kagamine wrote: post #334

grecy wrote: post #292

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I find your comment dissapointing. You speak with such authority and finality, yet your basic lack of African geography makes me wonder if you have any experience at all. When was the last time you were in Africa? For how long? where exactly did you go? You may want to have a look at a map at where Ivory Coast is.

Maybe it should have been in quotation marks, I'm repeating what was said on the reddit thread from memory. I don't really care about the guy or his trip. The only thing I really care about is why he put a MB diesel in a Jeep (twice).

I'm "the guy".

I didn't put MB diesels into a Jeep twice, I only did it once.

When that engine blew up, I bailed out, and I'm now driving a completely stock driveline 3.8 gas engine Rubicon.

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

#337

Post by markvdb » Wed, Aug 31, 2016, 11:31 AM UTC

gutnor wrote: post #322

markvdb wrote: post #293

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you elaborate on why you think this would be more difficult in Europe? I can imagine Europe wide fitness chains not being so common. http://www.basic-fit.com and friends seem to be building something like it. But then again, public swimming pools, and even public showers are more common and often highly subsidised.

- Language will be a problem. Speaking more than 1 language will help. - Access to public bathroom is going to be another - like even public bathroom in place like Walmart-equivalent cannot be assumed to be generally available. - Legality and Cultural acceptance is going to vary country by country. In my home country, a single man living in his van will be reported to the police the second nights he stays in the same…

These are all really good, valid points you are making. Thank you for that.

You are absolutely right about this. I've even thought of yet another rather elephant-in-the-room one: health insurance.

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

#338

Post by pbhjpbhj » Wed, Aug 31, 2016, 11:58 AM UTC

mod wrote: post #329

pbhjpbhj wrote: post #308

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 F…

I use my drill almost every day. I can't have it down the road at the tool library. Presumably I also can't check it out indefinitely or demand it if I feel like my project is more important than someone else's. If you take an object that I use less frequently, say a small tack hammer, I still need it when I need it. I need it for maybe 1 minute or less. I'm supposed to do what? Take my project down to the library, h…

I use a drill every couple of months, I think that's relatively high usage across the entire population.

FWIW it sounds like a good place for community members to access tools would be at the house you live in.

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

#339

Post by gutnor » Wed, Aug 31, 2016, 1:10 PM UTC

markvdb wrote: post #337

gutnor wrote: post #322

Earlier quoted context omitted.

- Language will be a problem. Speaking more than 1 language will help. - Access to public bathroom is going to be another - like even public bathroom in place like Walmart-equivalent cannot be assumed to be generally available. - Legality and Cultural acceptance is going to vary country by country. In my home country, a single man living in his van will be reported to the police the second nights he stays in the same…

These are all really good, valid points you are making. Thank you for that. You are absolutely right about this. I've even thought of yet another rather elephant-in-the-room one: health insurance.

Well actually that one is pretty easy. If you are European you can ask for your European Health Insurance Card (free, valid for several years) which will cover you in the whole EEA as if you were a resident yourself.

The problem though is that if you have a chronic or permanent disease that requires continuous medication. Hospital will likely sort you out in a pinch, but if you need to stock up some pills you will need to go through the whole doctor chain (GP / Specialist / Various treatment trials ...) in each country (prescription do not cross borders). I have known people going back to their country on a regular basis just because that´s just a pain in the ass to go back to square one and start a several months ordeal only to end up with the medication you know is working.

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

#340

Post by rdeboo » Wed, Aug 31, 2016, 1:18 PM UTC

grecy wrote: post #6

I did something similar. I wanted a vehicle I could explore the world with, so I turned my Jeep into a house on wheels with fridge, drinking water and filtration, solar and dual batteries, interior cabinets and a custom modified pop-up roof so I can stand up and walk around in the Jeep. I joked about applying for a home owners grant :) The full pictures and story are in this album - http://imgur.com/a/OLK3o I'm drivi…

I see you're on your way down from the Western Sahara into Mauretania. I was there in 2006 and the border is fascinating: it's a no mans land stretching for several kilometres, basically a minefield, with tons of burnt down car wrecks left and right, and many small potholed roads leading in all directions. Also there are some weird dudes driving around, trying to lure you in other directions than you were driving. We didn't have navigation systems back then, just paper maps, so it was an adventure.

You will probably encounter much more police checks in Mauretania and beyond than in Morocco.

At some border crossings, you can negotiate a visum on the spot. I had a 'visum' written with ballpoint in my passport. No stamps or official stickers, just a signature :) It was reluctantly accepted on my way out of the country.

I drove a sedan from the Netherlands to Burkino Faso, it was an awesome trip.