I've been following a FB group of people who live full time in their vans. I've heard of full timers in RVs but recently became aware of this phenomenon with vans. Some of the people are homeless while others are just into a nomadic lifestyle. I think all of them sort of reject the idea of a traditional life paying rent somewhere or owning a house. They have gym memberships for showers and often engage in stealth camping. Stealth camping involved sleeping in cracker barrel parking lots, hotel lots and other places undetected. Some go as far as to disguise their vans as work vans for this purpose. It's unclear to me what some of these guys do for money. Some travel about while others stay in their local area. Although homeless by the traditional definition, this is definitely a step up from simply camping out on the street. I have no idea on the overall numbers of people doing this, but there seems to be a lot of people doing this.

There's a whole series like this on various YouTube channels. One I find interesting is called "Boondocking", which is the term used for folks who cruise around the country in their RV/Van and live wherever someone will let them park.

They're often very resourceful and happy living a simple lifestyle. I credit them for this.

One guy I watched for awhile was struggling with drug addiction. He would go somewhere, earn enough day labor money to get his fix, go back off grid for a few days, then rinse and repeat. What really interested me about his life is he was what I would consider a "functional drug addict" much like a "functional alcoholic." He could still work, create and post YouTube videos, and his life wasn't a total wreck. You wouldn't know he was into drugs unless he told you. He looked fairly normal, aside from an unkempt appearance. But he wasn't filthy or gross: just a bit shaggy. Sort of like a modern day hippie.

His channel is "Steve Wallis," if you want to check him out.

I won't spoil the surprise he posted a little while back. Start with his earlier stuff. Fascinating!

Wal-Marts across the nation allow folks to park their RVs overnight and to use their bathrooms. As long as the RVers don't cause trouble, they recognize they end up selling them a lot of supplies, so it's a win for them as well to let them use otherwise empty parking spaces.

Not my cup of tea at this time in life. But someday? Who knows? I do love a good adventure!

Go watch the movie Nomadland that came out 3-4 years ago it will give you a good idea of how these folks live. Nothing new under the sun, in old Europe this lifestyle is known as Gypsies. In the 60's we called them hippies. Today we call them nomad's.

They pick up odd jobs or temp work, think Amazon warehouse for Christmas season and orchards during harvest season. They stay wherever is cheap RV parks with a monthly rate, parking lots of dilapidated commercial properties, in the middle of the Arizona/Nevada desert during winter.

LOL @ the comments. I was living in a van down by the river long before it was a thing. I did meet some real characters though. Maybe I am one. ;)

I managed to blow my Army bonus and every dime I'd made on fast cars, cheap booze and loose women, or vice versa. When I ETS'ed I was deadazz broke. I did have a VW pop-top camper. Hocked my uniforms and got gas money. Stayed on a dairy farm where an army buddy worked for a couple of weeks until my final paycheck arrived, about $400 of which I owed him about half. Learned I wasn't a farmer.

Decided Key West was the place. Made it to Orlando on my last tank of gas. Slept in my van outside the day labor office. Got up at 4 am and was first in line. Spent the day digging a ditch, while a backhoe was parked 50 ft away. About 2 pm some fat guy in an El Camino showed up smokin' a ceegar. He cussed us out, said the trench was in the wrong place and found the backhoe driver who filled in our 6 hours of hard labor. I got paid $24. Cash.

Made it to Key West and became an "analog nomad," aka a "beach bum." Back then you could park on the White St pier, and stay all night if you were "fishing." So we'd put a couple of poles out with no bait, and go to sleep. After awhile the authorities caught on and stopped that. Cold showers at Smathers Beach in a nor'easter, ah livin' the van life!

By then I was the "last" conch diver in America. It was like picking money off the seabed. I'd snorkel off the beach towing a boogie board with a milk crate and dive flag strapped to it. I sold the meat to a couple of local places and the shell guy at the Southernmost Point paid me $2 a shell. Plus I sold sand dollars and sea biscuits. I made about $50-$100 a day. A restaurant I sold conch to let me park in back under a huge, cool, banyon tree. Then after a few months they instituted a moritorium on conch in the US, so I had to get a real job.

I bought a houseboat and dock on the original "houseboat row" and lived there awhile, then lived across the street from Jimmy Buffet for few months. Later as my construction career improved I started watching Carlton Sheets on late night TV. I bought his $99 nothing down program and headed for the big time!

I lived in my van again at the Miami KOA where I was the layout "engineer" on phase one of the now massive, "Brickle Center." Then I bought a home with a dock on a canal in Ft. Lauderdale. Rented two rooms and lived almost for free. Over about 6 months I bought six rentals, "nothing down." I went broke again about a year later. I was about 24, and 12% interest in 1985 seemed perfectly normal to me.

Once again I was on the beach, living between my sailboat and my van. Travelin' and a livin' off the land. I think there's a song about that.

Forty years later I'm a millionaire living in a castle on a hill overlooking my empire! ;)

And it all started in an old VW van. LOL

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I'd buy your book also Richard! Seems to me that people do this lifestyle for various reasons; some are homeless, some just like adventure, some are rebels and reject the notion of how we're all supposed to live and etc. I just think this is a growing trend and the FB group I'm following is very much like our group here except it's focused on vanlife and is replete with tips and tricks. Fascinating stuff

Don't prejudge!

Some of those vans are worth $150,000.

Work from home trends and making a living on your laptop has made it much easier for folks to work from anywhere, including a car or van.

I have been watching this for years on YouTube because I'm fascinated by clever designs and layouts, how to live in just 40 sf.

This is a big trend with generation Z.

Best tip I saw Was to put some generic wording on your van it sounded like church missions, then spend the night in a church parking lot. The police won't bother that church van in a church parking lot.

My plan for solving the homeless issue in our town is to buy up some cheap used minivans, give them a five dollar Obama phone, a mattress and a cooler.

My town has two Walmarts and the Sam's Club that allow overnight parking.

They now have wheels to get to jobs or healthcare, a phone for appointments etc., and a clean, dry, safe place to sleep.

Here, I just fixed the world!

Hi Brad - what you say is true. I see some of the Prevost coaches that visit the river resorts here. They cost 2 or 3 times what my HOUSE is worth!

I saw a comic somewhere, big "fat cat" banker type smoking a stogie giving advice to a young fellow, says, "Someday son, if you skimp and save and work real hard, you too can afford a van down by the river." LOL

GKarl,

Thanks. I've been thinking about a book. I've still got plenty of pictures from those days and a bunch of stories. Here's just one: coming down to Miami in the late summer of 1972 we hooked up with a group called Vietnam Veterans Against the War that was coming down to the convention from Massachusetts. As we got to know these people, one named John Kerry, yes-the one who threw his medal over the fence at the white house rode with us in our van, As we got to Miami Beach we rode down the main street by the convention center with the side doors hanging open and we were hanging out the doors waving fake AR-15 rifles around and shouting and making a nuisance of ourselves. No one, including the police did anything about it. (Can you imagine that now?) Kerry was right there next to me doing it too. Now Kerry has a govt job. How about that!

I've got plenty of stories too about the riots on the last day when the undercover cops/FBI came up right next to us on the main corner about 6 feet away and started the riot by throwing bottles and bricks at a group of about 150 cops in riot gear standing across the street from us. (Yes, the FBI and cops started the riot - I was about 6 feet away). After they threw about 3 or 4 rounds of bottles and bricks at the riot cops, the riot cops charged us with their shields and big riot clubs and we had a good time running. There was a big network TV truck on the street about 30 feet away when the undercover FBI and cops walked up all together in a group carrying the bottles and bricks. As soon as these people walked up, the TV cameras on the network truck turned right on them, even before they threw anything. They KNEW what was about to happen and wanted it on camera to show that the "protesters" started it. The network had to be in on it. These undercover people had wigs and clothes on just like the rest of us.

Does this sound familiar? Like maybe on the Jan 6th incidents? Imagine that!

Brad 20K,

Your idea about getting old vans and rv's and renting them to people is actually being done in LA. There are people buying old vans and rv's, running or not and towing them to places, even on the street and then renting them to homeless or almost homeless people.

I'd bet that whoever owns a house that someone drags a non running vehicle in front of and then rents it out is plenty happy about that.

GKARL,

I think you're right on that.

One thing that really stuck with me after that was that BOTH sides of the politics can and do use the same tactics. At one time I thought the side I favored was "good" and the other side was "bad". Now I wonder if they are not both bad, at least many of them. This difference seems to be even larger and more pronounced these days. Just today I was reading about the result of the latest voting fiasco in Alaska and how one side was doing something and the other side was doing nothing to stop it. I thought how could this happen when the methods of cheating on the vote were well known. How could the people LET this happen? Why did one side allow this to just happen without challenging it? I realized that there are people who simply want power and control no matter what side they are on and they will support each other despite their differences. They will split the vote by running a second candidate to weaken a strong one that might win. And more, much more.