I also live in a vehicle. I have a 25ft (7.6m) former airport shuttle bus I've converted to my home. It took me over six months of full time work and it's still not complete.
I've lived in it for a bit over four months. Overall it has been good but not without challenges. I'm currently busy working which has led to neglecting stuff I need to finish on the bus. I can't travel far until I finish these things.
Here are some recommendations and tips if you're considering this life:
* If you haven't spent time camping in a vehicle rent one for at least a week and try that first. It's not exactly the same but similar.
* Don't jump in blindly. Do significant research into what others have done, what works and what doesn't, etc.
* If you decide to build something yourself expect it to take at least twice as long and cost 50% more than you plan.
* Evaluate if it makes sense to do the build yourself. I wanted to build something physical instead of just writing code. Financially it would have made more sense for me to continue working full time and have a place like Sportsmobile do the build. I wouldn't have learned the skills and had the experience though.
What do you do for internet? I don't have any intention to live full time in a vehicle, but I want to be able to take off for an arbitrary amount of time and work while away.
I've done a few test outings but generally end up reinforcing my conclusion that cellular is not overly reliable when you're more than an hour or so outside a moderate-sized town. I currently have to carry equipment for two separate carriers (AT&T and Verizon) and a signal booster to have a reasonable success rate at getting a strong enough signal to work.
The next avenue I'm exploring is satellite internet, but it is significantly more expensive.
i worked remotely for 5 months in a class C RV, in some really remote areas, across 36 states total. in my experience, internet was great 90% of the time. it was faster in rural/small town rather than metro areas, i'm assuming because there's less load on the towers. the worst parts were actually in national parks, which had almost no service. some mountainous areas were bad depending on which side of the hills you were on. deeply forested areas were hit or miss. usually, it didn't take more than driving a few hundred yards to to go from bad to acceptable service. anything near a highway was pretty much great. i also worked from a lot of parking lots in commercial areas, all of which had good cell service. i was able to skype and work over SSH fine. it was as good as broadband in most cases. i was worried about the internet the most when i started the trip, but it turned out to be the least of my problems.
i used ~150GB/month, with an unlimited verizon plan. i used a dual antenna hotspot, with an extra antenna extender. if i had 3g service somewhere, i could use the hotspot and antenna and usually get lte. i thought i would need satellite, but i didn't. its also slow and expensive. slower than 3g probably.
when done, i sold the RV for the same price i bought it for, saw a lot of the US, saved $12k on rent, spent $2k on gas and $700 on tires, $200/mo on internet... that's about it. i got a LOT for my money
I live in a fairly mountainous area of the country and prefer the more secluded spots away from major highways, which has been the main reason for the very limited cellular service. I'm pretty much the opposite of you -- I was actually more optimistic about cellular service before trying it and am now questioning its availability.
A week ago I was in northern Idaho on Priest Lake. Within my camp site I was unable to get a usable cell signal with the phone alone, but with my booster and a directional antenna I could get up to around -90-100 dBm. This worked until the rain came. That tower and other rural towers seem to frequently use microwave backhaul links to get connectivity, so the rain fade was sufficient to make that connection unusable for a couple days.
You have to let go - I got 4G mobile wifi earlier this year, its fast as heck and sometimes when I don't get a signal.. I don't connect to the internet! Can always read a book, or go for a walk.
I'm kind of extreme though; I've been using cellular data almost exclusively since 2001 so its nothing new. I've spent plenty of time out of range. I think that if you are out of range and you need to connect; its time to move on.
Problem is, I can't let go. At least, not all of the time. I'm a remote employee rather than it being my own endeavor, so there's a certain expectation of communication in addition to needing to interface with our various services from ticketing to source control. My ultimate goal is to be able to work from a beautiful place, and once I'm done for the day, to go out and explore it.
No I have a mobile phone for voice calls. In the beginning I used dialup, then GPRS or EDGE directly through the phone (cable and later Bluetooth connection). Then I got a separate device for data, first an ICOM 3G USB dongle which I used for many years but as of this year I'm on 4G, with a Huawei 4G mobile wifi thing.
I have a raspberry pi setup as router with a USB Alfa wifi adaptor for rebroadcasting free wifi. I also have a 4G hotspot as a fallback.
I've found the pi doesn't work well because it's having power or IO issues where the external adaptor is slow when rebroadcasting on internal wifi. I'm upgrading to an Intel NUC when I have the time to finish setting it up.
In Australia I built a van out of something like a Toyota Hiace for less than $500 + the cost of the van. I travelled in it for a year, living in it for well over 6 months of that, and sold it at the end. I actually didn't really need $500: I made money building the van as I bartered a deal to help out a carpenter with some basic office IT stuff, and ended up learning and helping a little bit around his shop, whiche he gave me cash-in-hand for at the end.
I also used second-hand and bartered items for the interior, and even a little bit of left-over lumber, tiling and cloth, which saved at least $1,000.
I have 2 pieces of advice: the first is that the most important thing is a comfortable bed, real bed. I bought a new, cheap one at Costco. Not fold out cushions, or a pad, or anything like that. A big bed with extra blankets, good sheets, and pillows. Consider that you want to be outdoors right? Ostensibly, you will use the van for driving, carrying a surf board and mountain bike (or your hobby of choice), and sleeping. That's the big 3, and you don't need much to make that possible, other than a van with a nice bed inside.
I did also have bench inside for working, an electric cooler, and kitchen setup, but even all that was superfluous: I prefer to work in coffee shops, libraries, or laying in bed. I ate out or bbq'd. I showered at beaches, gyms, campsites, or at new friend's places (for some reason, most are very eager to help travellers and invite them over).
The second is how much do you care about not looking poor? I have travelled in a ~$5,000 camper and a ~$200,000 camper. I slightly preferred the $5,000 camper. It is pleasant to drive rather than worrisome, doesn't give you motion sickness or pollute as much, easier to maintain and manage, and you can take it into the city, to the supermarket, and places the RV can't go. There is a reason those old Westfalias are so expensive other than them being rare!
However, most people care mostly about not looking poor, or their status, especially in America(1). You will see, and be seen by other people differently living in a $5,000 camper, and that unfortunately presents challenges here.
However, in the end I sold it for even more than that, and it taught me a lot. If you are thinking about doing this, you could always start with something basic, like this! Especially if you are young and want to go surfing, mountain biking, and snowboarding every weekend, I really recommend it.
That resonates. I scaled down my daily driver to a beater Toyota because every time I drove the amount of anxiety around the car getting stolen, broken into, dinged in a parking lot, or any number of other small injuries became unbearable. I ended up not enjoying driving, so what was the point?
After a year, I still enjoy driving this beater more than the one that cost forty five times more to purchase.
I guess it's a lesson about things you own ending up owning you? :)
Not the OP, but I had more and better relationships living in a $5,000 camper than a $1,700/mo apartment. Go figure. It was enough of a difference that I went from 30+ mins a day on multiple dating apps, to deactivating them all.
Most of that probably had to do with better work/life balance and all that came with it: a happier life (and the more glowing, confident, adventurous and risk-taking personality that comes with it), far better physical fitness and appearance, and more activities (and places to meet new people).
That said, you will get bad reactions and experience negativity. I agree with OP: they come from people that are not the type of people I want in my life; but those people also exist on this earth and there is no escaping that fact.
For most people, living mobile means that you're going to encounter or have opportunity to encounter far more people on a daily basis than living in an apartment, house, condo, etc. Meeting more people means there are a lot more people that you could send up in a relationship with whether romantic or simply friends, and you're going to have met them in places where you and they have at least one shared interest.
I haven't had a partner while owning the bus so it hasn't been positive or negative.
I've encountered very few negative reactions to it, mostly positive. I've had a few people respond with shock, as if they didn't understand it at all.
People who would be negative about it are not people I want in my life. I expect friends and family to support my decisions, even if it's not something they're interested in themselves.
> People who would be negative about it are not people I want in my life. I expect friends and family to support my decisions, even if it's not something they're interested in themselves.
On the other hand, it's unhealthy to surround yourself with yes-men. I personally think it's pretty cool, but I can't say I support the decision since I don't know if it's good for you in the long run.
I wager you take criticism better than that sentence indicates, though.
Where do you park ?. I love to explore this idea considering how high the bay area rentals are.
I guess this could be a faster way to payoff your student loan.
-N
Parking depends on your location. I currently live in Austin and can park anywhere I want. Since my bed goes across the width of the bus with the head on the passenger side I have to find fairly flat places to park. Many of the streets here have a steep slope at the edge for drainage so I have to be careful. Sleeping with your head lower than your feet is a great way to get a headache. I often park in store lots (eg Walmart).
Some cities have NIMBY laws that ban living in vehicles. This is especially common in the south bay area. You'd have to lookup your local laws.
This may have been asked before but I can't seem to find it: where do you typically shower or use the restroom? Truck stops? Or just ad-hoc as the situation allows?
I built a Jeep Wrangler into a house on wheels [1], and am driving around Africa for two years.
I am freelancing for Magazines, and earning money through my website and social presence. I have not done any coding on this trip, mostly becuase I find it hard to get remote work that meets my flexibility needs - i.e. weeks off-grid and only occasional checkins/calls.
Last time I drove Alaska to Argentina, doing more-or-less the same thing.
I think work is the big issue with this sort of lifestyle (leaving aside children, as others have mentioned). Many remote gigs still want a daily standup, a weekly sprint retrospective and planning session, etc, and none of that really works if you're truly nomadic and can't really guarantee where you are or how good your Internet connexion is at any given time.
The article talks about the flexibility of his lifestyle: "instead of following a fixed plan, I get inspired by random ideas: When the waves are great, I go surfing. When it’s chill and fresh, I work. When it’s hot, I go for a swim." ... which sounds lovely, but I can't see how that works with a full-time job, to be honest.
There are, of course, freelance jobs you can do where you have a task to do and a deadline and (hopefully) not too much real-time conversation required... but it may be hard to get enough of that work to support yourself.
I work in a remote team, and even my co-workers who work from home sometimes have bad internet days. It's just something you learn to deal with.
In my team there are two others (there are a handful of teams in our company - all remote), sometimes we need to work together (e.g. to solve a bug) but most of the time we are all just working on our own tickets. If we were in an office we'd be the same - eyes down, headphones on.
You just need to trust people enough, to know that they are going to do, what they say they are going to do. Admittedly that's hard for some people (the trust and being trustworthy), which I'd say is why remote work often gets a bad rep.
After having done this sort of lifestyle myself.. I've realized it can be GREAT for finding a quiet place you can really go deep and concentrate. I'd say it's better to keep the job & have a mobile office like this set up so you can disappear to the forest or lake for a week at a time to get serious work done.
You need the job & others around to stay in touch with the pace of what is happening and to keep up your friendships. And then having a quiet place to go, surrounded by nature is also vital.
I am struggling with this on my current employer. I really want to go temporarily nomadic (spend a couple weeks in a travel trailer and then a couple weeks at my house/in office).
The challenge is that I was trying to soften the remote aspect by working from home more often, but then caught significant flack from my managers that "it kills teamwork." The most frustrating thing about it all is that I, as a Data Scientist, work on a lot of "skunkworks" types of projects where I spend almost zero time collaborating with others.
The challenge is finding some of the freelance or fully remote jobs for data science work.
I've done almost completely remote freelance coding for a few years now & the only thing that you really need is to mostly stick to places with a reliable internet connection (which is still a pretty big chunk of the world).
I found your webpage three years ago when preparing for my silk road motorcycle trip. Never thought that you were a HN member as well. Beautiful Jeep, if somewhat overengineered for my taste! :-D
I'm planning on doing the silk road (well, actually Bali to London) in the next year or two. Do you have a writeup, or any crucial tips that I wouldn't find elsewhere?
Nice, I'm envious! I have a writeup at [0]. A short summary of the things I wanted to remember for next time is here [1]. Be sure to cross through Mongolia, the landscape is astonishing. Save travels!
I don't plan on doing the whole journey on bike, the main 2 parts I want to do on a bike is Vietnam (tried doing this last year, but had to give up due to the weather), and Mongolia. The rest, we'll see what happens!
This sounds both interesting and audacious. I'm nearing retirement and considering various options for what to do next. Could you explain how you earn $$ from 'social presence'? I'm a personable guy, but I don't know that I could convince anyone to give me money just for showing up to something.
Wow that is great! We are in a camper now 3 years & one of the biggest annoyances is that you must stick to the paved or flat dirt roads. What this means in practice is that there are often plenty of French retirees around in their campers too.
Then again, if we could go off road, I think it would mean that we'd be hanging out with more Germans. Germans love massive 4x4, ex-military campers.
Are you the guy who got flak for putting a Mercedes engine in a Jeep and was then told to take an AK47 with you to Ivory Coast? Those discussions were inspiring, funny and tragic all in one, here and on reddit.
To really determine if you can do something, talk to people that have done similar things. I know at least 50 people that have done what I am doing, and loved every second. They all said without hesitation the only crazy thing would be not doing it!
Nice to see the prices of most of the things. How much has the car itself and all of the additions cost you total up until now, and how far into the two year period are you?
Depending on mileage and where you're at (plus any number of other "it's a jeep thing" factors), KBB puts the 2011 Wrangler Unlimited 4dr Rubicon at around $19-22k USD - which sounds about right to me (that's with standard options, white color).
You might be able to find it for less, but it is doubtful.
> The amount of water that I used in Berlin to brush my teeth is probably enough for a whole day in my van. Maybe 80% of the water just flowed from the tap right into the drain without even touching my body.
I hear things like that time and time again, and I can literally not understand it. Why would any sane person leave the water running while brushing their teeth? When I brush my teeth, the water runs for one second to wet the brush, then for another second to draw water into a glass for rising my mouth with, then for another five seconds (on a low setting) to clean the brush. That's maybe 100 ml. I literally drink 15-20 times as much per day.
> Why would any sane person leave the water running while brushing their teeth?
a) the price of tap water being cheap enough that the difference in consumption between efficient and wasteful behavior not causing a meaningful enough difference in the bottom-line cost of the monthly water bill to affect a change in behavior
b) sanity not being the same thing as morality, with the sane person not considering the waste of fresh water to be a moral or ethical violation.
I'm not really sure how wasting a bit of water while brushing your teeth in Berlin could be considered particularly immoral or unethical. Berlin is, as far as I know, in no danger of water shortages and being more frugal with water in Berlin does nothing whatsoever for the billions of people in the world who have no or limited access to safe water supplies. Am I wrong?
Wonder what the harmful emissions from my flat and walk to work were vs the van. /s
Smug statements about how wasteful people not living in these fringe conditions are always remind me of the Soylent founder lecturing about how doing laundry wastes water while also reordering all his clothes from china when they get dirty. [1]
I was incredulous that someone could be so obtuse, so I went and eventually found the quote. You've done a really poor job of paraphrasing him.
He reorders his clothes on what we can presume is a similar time scale to normal folks', and he washes them with "less water", "thanks to synthetic fibers."
It's interesting that you've included your source and managed to totally misrepresent it.
I remember reading the article awhile ago and came across the same passage (and remember having a similar reaction):
"I have not done laundry in years. I get my clothing custom-made in China for prices you would not believe and have new ones regularly shipped to me. Shipping is a problem. I wish container ships had nuclear engines but it’s still much more efficient and convenient than retail. Thanks to synthetic fabrics it takes less water to make my clothes than it would to wash them, and I donate my usedgarments, helping out those in need."
To me that reads like the author just buys a bunch of clothes new, then donates them when dirty because the cost of washing the clothes exceeds replacement value.
> He states very clearly that he washes and reuses them.
No, he very clearly does not state that he washes or reuses them. Here is the clothing section, in full:
---
I enjoy doing laundry about as much as doing dishes. I get my clothing custom made in China for prices you would not believe and have new ones regularly shipped to me. Shipping is a problem. I wish container ships had nuclear engines but it’s still much more efficient and convenient than retail. Thanks to synthetic fabrics it takes less water to make my clothes than it would to wash them, and I donate my used garments.
It bothers me immensely that all clothing is hand made. Automation is woefully absent from the textile industry, but I don’t think it always will be. For now a few new t shirts and jeans per month is not very offensive. I certainly buy less clothing overall than a typical consumer. Synthetic fabrics are easy to recycle and I believe will soon be made with biofuels. Still, this area needs some work.
---
The only reference to washing them is the water savings of buying new over what it would take to wash them; now, he also says that he buys "a few new jeans and t-shirts each month" and "less clothing than the typical consumer". Now, those descriptions appear to conflict, and either one of them seems to suggest enough reuse that many people would assume he must be washing them a few times -- going with the first (which is the one least indicative of reusing clothes a lot), and assuming "a few" is not more than 5 of each, he'd have to be wearing each at least ~6 times, which seems a lot without washing. But he doesn't say he is washing, that's just an implication that is easy, though not necessarily correct, to read into his statement.
"it takes less water to make my clothes than it would to wash them" rather implies that he does not wash them (otherwise the most logical wording would be "it takes less water to make my clothes than it does to wash them")
That is correct that he says he doesn't use a washer or dryer, however it is incorrect to saw that he washes and reuses them with the information provided. He says it takes less water to make the clothes than to wash them, not that he actually washes them. In fact, he says he donates his used clothing, not mentioning if they have been washed or not.
Agreed! The same goes for my solar panels: Yes, I use a renewable source of energy. But how many resources were required to built these panels and once they break, where do they go?
I'm not quite sure the ecological footprint of my life style is smaller than of someone who lives in an apartment in Berlin. However since I live in the van, I pay way more attention to where I and others waste resources. Maybe a first step to make a change?
Solar panels make their ecological footprint after 3 years of use and last for 30 years. 80% of the material in solar panels is recycled from old solar panels.
So no matter how you turn it, solar panels are a lot alot more environmentally friendly than convential energy sources.
>80% of the material in solar panels is recycled from old solar panels.
That doesn't pass the sniff test. Solar cell production is on a strong upwards curve, if 80% is recycled from other panels then supply would be bounded by old solar stock recovery, which is not the case.
I can't see how 80% of solar panel material, even if we're talking exclusively about the PV cells and not the surrounds, could be from old solar panels, especially not 30 year old solar panels.
That's 90% of the material being recovered from old solar panels, not 90% of new panels being made up of recycled material.
That's still great news, but nothing like:
>80% of the material in solar panels is recycled from old solar panels.
Which implies new panels rolling off the production line consisted of 80% recycled material from old panels. That's not possible. If you have 10 old panels coming in to be recycled, and you recover 90% of the materials from them, and you're producing 100 new panels (since production is increasing), at best you're gonna get 9% recycled material into your new panels.
I closed the tap while I was brushing my teeth, too. But sometimes I'd open the tap to spit out the tooth paste. Don't ask me why, but quite often I just continued brushing my teeth for a few more seconds before I finally spat out the tooth paste. During these seconds I probably wasted a lot of water.
Of course this is just an example. Maybe there are even better examples like flushing your pee away or ignoring a leaking tap...
At the end I just wanted to make a point. I'm definitely not a perfect roll model for a sustainable life. But the van life made me more aware of how we take things for granted although they are limited.
Why don't you wet the brush by dipping it into the glass? Why even wet the brush at all? The inside of your mouth is already wet.
But then again, I'm a bit of an oddball regarding tooth-brushing. In my view, the alcohol-based mouthwash is there to do a scorched-earth annihilation of all mouth bacteria, and the toothbrush is only there to break through biofilm and clear away all the tiny, tiny corpses. So I brush with a tiny bit of soap and tiny bit of toothpaste, while holding a mouthful of mouthwash. (And sometimes I use peroxide-based mouthwash, to attack the anaerobes under the gums. Cavities from S. mutans aren't the only reasons to brush.) If I routinely rinsed my brush, I would do it in an antibacterial, not with tap water, but when it comes out of my mouth, it is essentially covered in alcohols already, so I don't. As a result, the only use I have for the sink is as something to spit into.
Dude, you don't really want to try to do "scorched-earth" annihilation of all mouth bacteria-- or bacteria anywhere else for that matter. First, it won't work, you'll never get rid of all bacteria. Second, that's like taking the surviving bacteria "to the gym", clearing out the normal flora of bacteria, and replacing it with whatever nasties can survive your treatments.
Flossing and brushing (and some tongue scraping) is all that is necessary. Alcohol based mouthwash dehydrates the mouth a bit-- which might precipitate bad breath.
> that's like taking the surviving bacteria "to the gym", clearing out the normal flora of bacteria, and replacing it with whatever nasties can survive your treatments.
That argument holds for any point on the "target clean level" curve, though... for example I could use it to argue that flossing is cleaning beyond what's optimal. Not that I think it, but what is the best strategy, long term?
There is research to prove that mouthwash helps also. But certainly brushing and flossing are the fundamentals. Tongue scraping is not. My partner works in this domain.
I'm curious - don't people miss big monitors when coding on a laptop? I've done a fair amount of coding on laptops while travelling and it's okay, but I feel like a big monitor is optimal for most work and wouldn't want a permanent situation with just laptop.
I like to have logs, command line, and editor all visible, and ideally a browser too. The editor alone is much more useful in a big window where you can see a file tree and multiple files.
> I'm curious - don't people miss big monitors when coding on a laptop? I've done a fair amount of coding on laptops while travelling and it's okay, but I feel like a big monitor is optimal for most work and wouldn't want a permanent situation with just laptop.
That is why we, coders, are different from other 99,99% of population of the Earth. I gave the original post to my wife and her first question was “How’s the guy coping to live alone?”. But my question was exactly this: Why he has no monitor and using that inconvinient laptop stand instead? :)
I directly skipped to finding a solution to that "problem". I literally found myself browsing amazon for monitor stands that can be folded and easily mounted in a van. What happens if I break hard? Hmm... I came up with requirements for a monitor stand suitable for use in a van. For a moment, I remember being depressed about the zero number of perfect solutions for this "basic" use-case.
Now I'm convinced that I'd never give-up my home-office for a van-office until serious advancements are made in the monitor-stand industry.
You didn’t see VESA mounts in your Amazon search that allow you to screw the stand into the monitor and into a solid surface (desk or wall) with an articulating arm that allows you to adjust the monitor’s location!?
Most of them had reviews about how hard it is to make them stay in place with heavier monitors. I can't even imagine what happens if I forget to fix them very carefully before moving and break hard while moving.
But then, of course, I am half-joking. I actually did find myself doing that research but after realizing the sitcom scene I put myself in, I gave up quickly: I don't even have a driver's license, and I'm researching the monitor-mount situation for a caravan-life?!
When searching here in the US with query “vesa monitor wall mount” I find a bunch of ones which would be secure and work well (multiple of which I own). Maybe that’s not the case where you live (assuming you’re either European or Aussie based on the phrase “caravan-life”, but guess that’s not an accurate assumption possibly).
Your guess is right, I'm living in Germany. But I think I'm in the minority here - I really don't know any German who is in their twenties without a driver's license. I'm not German though and I used to have a license back in Istanbul, which is not valid in Germany. I didn't bother getting a license here because you can get a Bahncard from Deutsche Bahn, which covers 90% of one's public transportation needs. Maybe it's a similar story in other European countries but I think most people still get a license just in case.
not sure if serious or not; but just move monitor back against wall it's attached to and strap it down while moving. Generally solved issue in the RV industry with TVs.
> I gave the original post to my wife and her first question was “How’s the guy coping to live alone?”
My knee-jerk response is, "blissfully."
I live with my wife, a 19 month old, and two cats. I love them, but I would love, love, love to spend a week entirely by myself - going to bed and waking up on my own schedule.
Introverted Dad with a wife, two daughters, two dogs, and two cats reporting in. Wife and kid #1 are both high energy. I love my home life, but there is definitely some part of my psyche that is drained by it.
I took a couple of days to drive to the middle of nowhere in Oregon to see the eclipse by myself. My goal was literally to be as far from other people and as solitary as possible for the whole trip. (Not exactly easy given the expected crowds, but that was my hope.)
I slept in the back of my truck and barely spoke to a soul in 48 hours. It was absolute bliss.
I'd like to figure out to get a little more of that solitude in my life, but it's hard. Anytime I'm out recharging my spiritual batteries, my wife is at home solo-parenting with the kids draining hers more than twice as fast as usual.
There might be some sense in that - pool together resources to rent or lease a large area to camp in, with centralized things like hot showers or kitchens with refridgerators, and maybe wifi, but otherwise mostly just spread-out campgrounds where people can go and not be bothered, but not so cut off as to be worried about breaking a leg and getting eaten by a coyote.
What do kids want? Your soul. How much do they want? All of it.
I love my daughter. That's the truth of it though. Sometimes it makes me you happy and you want to give and give and give. Sometimes it makes me you unhappy and you want to curse them for their wretched selfish neediness. It doesn't matter though. They'll take and take.
Of course I was the same way with my parents so it's all fair enough. But like you say, sometimes I find myself humming Hungry Heart ("I got a wife and kids in Baltimore Jack, I went out for a ride and I never came back") and just wishing they'd all just leave me along for a week. A day. A couple of minutes.
I did this for one week last year. I was in the alps, doing some snowboarding, some work and some reading. It was great. Especially being alone in a country where I didn't speak the language well enough to hold casual conversation for too long.
Was still happy when my girlfriend arrived after a week though. But that one week was indeed 'bliss'.
My girlfriend and I broke up a 15 year long relationship approximately one year ago and while I did enjoy having time alone back when we were together, after so much time I still can't stand being alone as the default. I miss the sharing, the laughs, the little moments (good or bad!) that seem insignificant but that turn out to be core to the relationship, that no friend seem to be able to replace. While I do enjoy some activities briefly, everything I do retrospectively seems like an attempt to escape and drown out the drone of loneliness. Being able to share is such a catalyst to any experience that things feel sort of pointless: does a falling tree make a sound if no one's around to hear it? Maybe I'm still getting over that break up, maybe I should just fake it till I make it. Really, I don't know.
You almost certainly are. Fifteen years is a long time, longer than my parents were married. You didn't have a break-up; you went through a divorce. A year sounds like the minimum amount of time it would take a person to deal with it. I wish you the best.
>I'm curious - don't people miss big monitors when coding on a laptop?
No. Some of us work even more focused on a single smaller screen even than having 10 BS windows asking for our attention (and I include debuggers in those, the ultimate hop-around time sink for some developers).
Besides, people managed to write software for several decades before larger than 14" screens became the norm. Heck, until the late seventies many people didn't even use a visual editor -- they only edited their files line by line in ed. And until the 90s even color was not that common -- there goes syntax highlighting (and many other uses of color).
So I don't think big monitors are any sort of necessity in the days of 15" laptops with excellent retina screens.
This seems to have attracted a lot of downvotes, I guess because it's overtly antagonistic.
But I too prefer to work on a smaller screen (and I have tried much larger monitors). I switch context and then just work in that context. I don't feel the need to be able to see a load of different things at the same time.
Really though, it's subjective and everyone should just do what works best for them. It's the same discussion that comes up with some people having 200 tabs open in their browser whereas others of us keep it really minimal.
I'm over a decade into working pretty much on a 13" macbook full time and that's my happy place.
>This seems to have attracted a lot of downvotes, I guess because it's overtly antagonistic
Not exactly antagonistic -- meant to give some historical context to answer the parent's question which made it seem like big monitors are some physical necessity that people just can't do without. It's not like big monitors where any kind of norm before at least 2000.
I know tons of people happily coding away on a laptop with no external monitors attached.
Well, the only part of your comment I was referring to was the "having 10 BS windows asking for our attention", because really I agree with you (and I upvoted you to try to help normalise the discussion).
It's a very strange thread to read. Judging by the downvotes, it seems as though there's a really negative reaction to people who code on small screens. Whatever people want to do is fine, but it's pretty weird to almost shout down anyone who does it a different way.
>Well, the only part of your comment I was referring to was the "having 10 BS windows asking for our attention"
A, yes, thanks. I think where big/dual monitors make more sense are for admin style work -- when you need to, non pun intended, monitor, several things at once.
> This seems to have attracted a lot of downvotes, I guess because it's overtly antagonistic.
A fine example of how it's really difficult to express tone via text (I read it as pretty breezy, not antagonistic), and why we should all attempt to apply the principle of charity to everything we read before assuming someone's being a dick.
I'm going to be totally honest—I personally thought the tone was ok but felt like I should err on the side of caution, lest I too suffered the wrath of the large-multimonitor crowd :-)
The core thing is that some people STILL like it -- including people who never lived in that era, and could trivially buy 3 30" monitors.
And not because of primitivism reasons ("who needs fancy IDEs" etc), but because of a quite concrete reason: increased focus.
In the era of 1000 distractions for programmers, it's perhaps more valid than it would have been in 1984. Then, if you had dual monitors, they'd still show just your code, some log, some documentation, etc. At best, xeyes.
Use an OS that doesn't attack you then. Ubuntu with i3 and I never see a single OS screen. On a 34" wide monitor it's editor, terminal, browser. Pixel edge to pixel edge. No fluff. No bullshit. No battling window sizing. It's like focus mode, only with more windows :)
As I wrote "some of us" prefer smaller/single screens for focus. If it doesn't work for you, or if you can manage NOT to get distracted by 5 open windows in 2 x 24" monitors, then more power to you.
Aah. I'd say real programmers use debugger when they make sense -- but lots of programmers use them to jump around checking this and that without any reasoning what is going on, and thus taking 5x the time of a simple printf.
Respectfully, I disagree with the notion that lots of programmers don't know best how to manage their own time and productivity. Of course, we can all stand to do a better job of meta-cognition and thinking critically about our workflows, but I trust that if most people spend a lot of time in a debugger, it's because it helps them get their job done faster.
Personally, I definitely find myself going through stretches where I just use printf debugging. (I work on a lot of hobby language implementations where that's often the only kind of debugging there is.) Then I remember, "Oh, yeah, debuggers are a thing." More often than not, I'm surprised by how much faster I am at tracking down an issue using one.
Probably getting downvotes because of your tone, but I agree with the focus. I find I work much better on tasks requiring deep focus when I’m just on my laptop.
And once upon a time, people built automobiles with hand tools instead of power tools, conveyors, and robots.
You can still do that, of course, but you will not be competitive with the likes of Ford and Toyota.
A higher-resolution screen, positioned closer to the eyeball, can substitute for a larger monitor. But even then, that uses only a fraction of my available visual field. VR technology could eventually solve the monitor area problem in a van-sized workspace. But for now, parent post is correct, screens with smaller pixels are the way to go. Just stick your face closer to it, and it will look bigger. This probably means you'll need an external mouse and keyboard, though.
Not really, I prefer to code on my 13" MBP. I have 24" monitor but I rarely ever use it. Ability to lay back and put legs on coffee table are more important to me.
Tried something similar back when I was a student. The leaning back angle doesn't seem to work over longer than a few minutes, when you're trying to focus.
Haha. The look on that guys face just made my day.
I'd be paranoid that the monitor would fall on me. That may be good thing though as I'd avoid procrastination to get out of the danger zone as soon as possible.
I share that sentiment. A big screen doesn't mesh well with moving from one corner of the bed to another.
Virtual desktops mostly solved the area problem for me: switching between code/result/docs is just a chord away. The rare situations where switching is happening all the time account for less than 10% of my usage.
Personally, whenever I long for a second monitor, I'll use my iPad and hook it up via duet, which is usually only for web-dev where I need the browser to be a minimum size, with live reload. Else I heavily use spaces (macOS Mission Control thing), iTerm with quake/visor-style terminal on hotkey, and usually have my code wrap around 80 chars, which gives quite a bit of screen real estate leftover on a retina mac.
I greatly prefer mobility over a monitor, and back when I used to have extra monitors it didn't provide that much more of a benefit. It would still be as much of a context switch the distance my eyes would travel to that other space on the monitor, as pressing ctrl + 2 into my second space.
I prefer to code on my laptop. You may be able to see more on a big screen, but you can't concentrate on more. I have GNU Screen set up with multiple command line tabs that I can switch between using hot keys, which is automatic enough that it happens at least as fast as I can mentally switch. I keep things in a consistent setup (bash on tab 0, editor on tab 1, etc.) so I never have to figure out what tab I need to go to.
When using a large screen, I struggle with figuring out where to look on the screen quickly. I could build habits that would remedy this by distributing things consistently on my screen, but then I'd have to build separate habits for my big screens and little screens.
got a 24" LG 1080p monitor in the van that needs less than 20W - doable with a small extra battery and 100W solar. the 4k monitors from LG are quite energy efficient as well (<30W)
I develop wth a mobile setup (3G/4G + laptop + laptop stand) most of the time, but not with a nomadic lifestyle.
I don't miss big monitors while on the go. Either I forgot how good they were or one get used to it. What I favor infinitely more is the mobility itself. I don't understand why remote people don't move more when given the chance.
YMMV, I still have a big monitor at home, else I would feel cut from my customers' typical setup. A problem with smaller screen is the additional eye strain.
> A problem with smaller screen is the additional eye strain
I almost have more of an eye strain with multiple monitors because of more horizontal movement of my eyes, and often being a little bit further from the monitor. (and my bigger monitor isn't the same resolution as my laptop)
My home setup has a screen directly in front and one to the side, as if I have them both offset then I am always at lesst a little bit strained and I end up using the inner parts of the monitors anyway.
I have considered one below and one directly in front as well so it's up movement instead but I have yet to come up with a good mounting solution!
In Emacs switching between all needed buffers and tiling them around is very fast, once you learned the keystrokes.
Emacs can display almost every information in its buffers.
No big screen needed to have all the information immediately available. Emacs was designed on and for small screens.
> I'm curious - don't people miss big monitors when coding on a laptop?
i don't. i have a laptop and a couple 24" monitors but over the last few years i've found myself just using the laptop more and more without the externals.
I use the app "duet" to connect an iPad as a second monitor for the cases when a second display is really useful (like playing spot the difference with a site vs Sketch design).
This would be wonderful I'm sure with one of the newer 12.9" iPad pros.
And for 1/10 of the cost you can pick up something like a "15.6” Widescreen Flat-Panel USB 3.0-Powered Portable LED Monitor - $99"
The problem is the USB powered monitors generally all use the same driver, one that frequently crashes on macOS and Linux. The driver is literally one of the worst I’ve ever used.
If you're using the tablet for terminal stuff (log tailing etc), I've found just sshing into your laptop from the tablet using juice ssh or similar to be more stable as well as your laptop graphics card doesn't need to be rendering two screens
Sometimes, like when I'm working on a UI, it's nice to have the code, the chrome debugger, and the UI view all up and running. But I'm finding it less necessary, because of the trade-off.
I really enjoy the simplicity of my 11" MBAir and the portability of working anywhere. You get really good between swiping between desktops. And having limited screen space means I quiet down all the distracting notifications, popups, email, etc...
Also, a lot of dev work I do REPL-first development, then copy the code into the actual editor (on a different virtual desktop) and this minimizes the swiping around, and increases my productivity that way.
It depends on what work I’m doing - in the office I have a 32” and two 19”’s, when I’m remoting I use my T420 which has a 14” (I think). If I need to tail logs or remote onto a few servers the extra real estate is invaluable, if I have a coding or SQL-script-writing task it doesn’t make a difference. It might even help having a single small screen by removing obvious distractions e.g. emails I don’t need to read, IRC messages.
I've used all types of setups from triple 24" and dual 27" monitors, and every laptop from 11" up to 17"
In the end, I'm most productive on a 15" macbook at 1920x1200 resolution, the main reasons are:
0. I have my full perfect environment with me at all times, there is no switching between laptop/desktop etc. This is huge.
1. It's small and light enough that I can carry it around everywhere (unlike 17") - increasing productivity by a lot.
2. I'm forced to use the keyboard more which exercises the muscle memory so I switch much faster to any window in the current state without thinking about it.
3. My head doesn't need to move from one screen to another, this action is more expensive than an instant alt tab.
4. I found that the best work gets done in certain "focus scopes". Adding more windows/screens to this as you say "logs, command line, and editor all visible, and ideally a browser too" - leads to unnecessary visual data - since you can't process all those windows simultaneously anyway.
The 15" has just enough room to comfortably fit the necessities for each one I use:
a) 2 side by side editor @ 80 chars + file tree
b) a browser window + debug tools
c) terminal sessions with up to 8 panes
d) a combination of browser / editor / terminal
The one exception is when needing to run background tasks which output logs - which you want to 'keep an eye' on - for this I found a vertical monitor on the side is helpful - although in the end replicated it by putting the terminals to the bottom right/left of the screen beside the dock - that way I can see the output, but they are not distracting.
I got used to it. A nice high DPI display like that on the Macbook Pro 15" helps, 2880x1800 is a pretty nice resolution to work with.
Helps focus and minimize your toolset in a way too, you want to be focused on one thing more than multiple things, so I guess that's kind of a good thing also, making things simpler.
I find it ok as long as the laptop display is high resolution (mine is 3200x1800) and at least 13-14" big. If I had to do it more permanently I'd have probably gotten a 15" laptop tho.
It also reminds me that when I got started the common display was a 14" CRT (i.e. viewable area more like 13") :)
I travel and code mobile a lot and yes, I do miss my 2 big monitors, I have in my office.
Especially if I only use my 10" Laptop. And then for example sitting in a loud, bumpy bus - well sure, office is much better.
But ... sitting on top of a mountain or somewhere else in the wilderness, is an awesome place to code. And combined with solar panels and camping equipment, can lead to very long and productive sessions(over days) ....
Because the outside beauty easily offsets the less comfortable workspace for me ...
But it also depends on the kind of work I do. If I have to do bugfixing ... that involve lots of logfiles, debugger-windows, console output etc. etc. than I am more productive in my office.
But allmost everything else, especially designing a new module and also implementing it, I rather do outside ... much better inspiration.
I'm flexibily minimalist with my setup and I don't miss big screens for programming work. I did lots of development on a 12" Surface Pro (although for small setups, I like 13").
Terminal/editor/browser are areas one doesn't work on at the same time, so windows switching does the job, at the condition of having only the strictly required windows opened (I have four: browser, email client, terminal, and editor), and even the browser has generally at most 2 or 3 tabs open.
I can see the convenience of having a log open while debugging, but I can live with terminal tab switching while having a REPL session.
System administration is different. It may be almost necessary at times, to have an individual look at several systems at the same time.
I have a 42" monitor and a $1000 Herman Miller chair, and for some reason I end up doing all of my work in bed on my 15" MacBook. It doesn't feel like working when I'm in bed and the dogs are there hanging out with me.
I spend most of my coding time on just a laptop (15" MBP with 1680x1050 matte screen) and the only thing that bothers me very much is the position it puts my neck in. I try to sit lower than usual to help that.
I do use multiple desktops on macOS and a quick swipe of the trackpad to switch them is almost as good for me as multiple displays.
I do tend to use an iPad as a aux display though. Sometimes I run Duet Display to have it act like an extra display for my MBP but most of the time it's home to my distractions like Slack, email, social media, etc. But it is good for books and websites while coding.
Unless you're looking for a neck injury, you should get a laptop stand. It's close to impossible to maintain a good posture while working on a laptop over time.
I definitely do miss my multi-monitor setup in our travel camper. I've been fulltiming (thanks to some articles and prodding from other HN members) in a trailer for almost a year, and can admit that I am looking forward to a bit of a break with at least one more monitor. Like a few other comments I've looked at some swinging arms I could mount but space is at such a premium that its hard to justify. On the plus side, it has made me simplify my work and life overall. I get outside more and go for walks, exercise, spend more time with my wife and friends.
I used to have 2 24" monitors and a 15" MacBook Pro.
Nowadays I prefer working on my 12" MacBook.
Instead of getting greedier, I learned to manage my space, reduce distractions and improve workflow.
I learned to appreciate sane defaults and keep shit simple. My Terminal.app+tmux+vim+Bash setup is plugin-free and a git clone away. I mostly use standard Unix tools and feel super comfortable on any box. My Mac is light, synced with iCloud, uses little battery and has very few dependencies. I can work from anywhere and expect little. It's very liberating.
I used to use three monitors: Two 22 inches plus my 15 inches laptop monitor. It though it was a really efficient way of working, but it had a problem: Moving was a hassle. I decided to get rid of the monitors for a while to test their value and I found out it's not such a big improvement. Now I only work in my laptop screen. I have a full mobility and I love that. I don't miss my monitors at all.
If I'm in full-on development mode, I like to have at least one separate screen, though for more casual maintenance stuff I'm happy on a laptop.
I seem to recall DHH (Basecamp/Rails) said in the past he frequently developed on an 11" MacBook at some point, only using a monitor when sat at a desk, so I guess it's doable.
I do all my dev and other work on a 13" MacBook Air and have done for years. I haven't had a desktop monitor since my last gig with a client in the City.
Yes, the ergonomics suck relatively speaking, especially now that my eyesight is getting worse with age (and from falling off a Segway!), but it means that I can work anywhere and my desk at home can be tiny.
I don't really get this rationale. You're basically saying that you know that you are hurting yourself, but on the plus side, you are able to be hurting yourself anywhere.
I mean that I am a real developer still (and have been one of the world's relatively best paid), and 13" works fine for me to get stuff done. Here I am 200 miles from home in a hotel right now with all my tools. No monitor lugging required.
Yes, laptop ergonomics aren't ideal, but neither is life. There are always trade-offs. And I have some colourful language memories from earlier sysadmin jobs getting horrific shocks while lugging other users' colour CTRs around for them...
I'd suggest that anyone who thinks that they "need" a huge monitor as opposed to "prefers" should considers needs vs wants.
If I was living in a van, and I'm a tiny house fan BTW, a large monitor would NOT be on MY 'needs' list.
Another commenter made a good point about more screen space being more distraction, and debuggers being a big part of that as an example of not solving the real problem. Given that you only have a few cm^2 of full-definition vision anyway, you have to manage that one way or another. More pixels is not necessary that way.
The screen-space-as-a-distraction argument sounds to me more like an excuse for not being able to keep one's attention on the task at hand. If a person can not resist filling the screen space up with useless clutter, it's that person's problem, not the problem of having the screen space. Someone else is able to use that extra screen space productively.
All in all it seems a "I can't have it, so I convinced myself that having it would be bad, so I don't miss it as much" self-deception.
Having (a) tried it various ways, and (b) having complete freedom as to how to organise my work life, I believe that keeping it small and simple and focussed works well on balance, at least for me. And it may work for others.
You do know that humans (other than yourself, maybe!) are not perfectly rational creatures? B^> Oscar Wilde's quote "I can resist anything except for temptation" is an astute observation.
It's not about being rational or not, it's about discipline (or perhaps about ADHD for some people). I can fall for many temptations, but when I want something done (either as a hobby, or at work), I have no problems concentrating on what I need to be doing. And having extra screen space often helps.
Depending on the task, of course - there are times when all I need is one 80x25 terminal, and then there are times when having several as large as possible windows open side by side helps a lot, e.g. when analyzing logs from several cluster nodes.
I love the Wilde quote, by the way, I don't think I've seen this one before. :)
I used to be like that, too. But I've been working primarily on my 15" MBP for the past 4 years and I love it. I still have a triple monitor 27" iMac sitting in my office upstairs, but I hardly ever use it. I find the ability to work out on my patio much more relaxing than sitting in my home office.
I code on a 13" laptop screen, regardless of where I am. I have a 27" monitor on my desk at work that I never use. I find the lack of extra screen real-estate helps me focus.
(I used to code quite happily on an 11" MacBook Air, but Apple seems to have stopped caring about that line, so I abandoned them.)
Healthy eyes with good eyesight, Super HD 15 inch monitor can work just as efficiently and effectively.
I have used 7-inch and 15-inch USB powered LED monitors is the past with my laptop, at least once simultaneously. Works great for debugging CAD, Computer-Aided Design related bugs.
Thought I would, but haven't done. Bigger screens, I just put more distracting stuff on them. As mentioned elsewhere, you can mirror a big-ass iPad on to it, and there are some large USB displays that are very portable too.
I’ve been thinking about building an RV similarish to what’s described by the article for a long time. All the plans I’ve drawn up explicitly have a setup for big monitors (VESA mounts make for secure attachment).
I've been using an iPad with Duet as my secondary monitor when working from coffee shops. It's pretty awesome, very portable. The FPS is a bit low, but for a debugger window its excellent.
At work, i love having two monitors for productivity. At home it turns into dedicated youtube, facebook, etc screens which distracts me. I guess it depends on how you're going to use them lol.
I have a thunderbolt display and the my macbooks screen when at work. Text editing, bash, and web browser are on the monitor, with e-mail and slack on the laptop screen.
I think for a lot of developers, it's a style thing.
Coding hunched over a laptop looks cool and hackery, coding with a big 27-inch monitor (maybe a couple) looks businessey.
I know a guy who does a lot of Excel work on a Macbook Air (1366x768 IIRC), and it just looks painful. When I suggest investing in a decent size/screen resolution monitor, he looks at me like I have two heads.
Looking like Mr Robot is more important for a lot of people than being practical, even if they end up with back problems in later life!
When I was a broke student, I scrouged CRTs people threw out and had a 3-4 monitor setup, but still found myself only concentrating on the middle monitor ignoring stuff off to the sides.
Then I got Apple's nice big 30" cinema display and everything was good.
Then it broke and right after that I started living nomadically with my 1900x1200 equivalent 15" retina laptop and never minded the difference.
I have good eyes after correction and use 9 point fonts everywhere so I can fit a lot of text on screen.
Lol. It reminds me of that scene from the Steve Martin classic.
A laptop, monitor, keyboard, mouse, Herman Miller embody, Heat/AC... That's all I need.
If you want to be inspired by some cool hacks, though, look up Sprinter Van Conversions. People get into it and do some amazing work. They share their specs too! You can outfit a van with my above hardware list for about 4000-5000 if you don't get fancy. You have to plug in th AC usually. Heat is easier, you just have to insulate well. I got pretty far along this path of research. Some day.
Good for him... I would totally hate the lack of space and comfort. I'd sleep really poorly at night when it's super hot in summer and cold in winter. I'd hate it to have to look for a good internet to work. I'd miss my friends all the time. I'd dislike having to socialize with random van neighbors every time I want to not dine alone. I wouldn't last a month of this...
Hey! I'm the author of that article. I respect your opinion and I totally agree that van life is not for everyone. However it's seems funny that I've never experienced one of your concerns:
> I would totally hate the lack of space and comfort.
I have 12 square meters and my bed is super comfortable. Most of the time I'm outside. Works perfect for me.
> I'd sleep really poorly at night when it's super hot in summer and cold in winter.
That's the whole thing about a van: If it's too hot in the mainland, you drive to the beach where you always have a chill breeze. In the winter you drive down south where it's warm. I actually feel bad for the people who have to stay in cities when it's hot and humid in the summer or freezing cold in the winter.
> I'd hate it to have to look for a good internet to work.
In Europe the 4G network coverage is amazing. Within the last five months I had less issues with my connectivity than some of my co-workers using a cable internet.
> I'd miss my friends all the time.
Yes, I do miss my friends. I guess this is a valid concern. But sometimes I meet my friends when they are on vacation nearby and for Christmas I will fly back to my hometown to see family and friends.
> I'd dislike having to socialize with random van neighbors every time I want to not dine alone.
I guess that's personal taste. It's very easy to socialize with travelers: they invite your for dinner right away. Sometimes you even don't have to approach them actively. I've also spent a couple of weeks with the same people and we had dinner together every evening. Once you life in a van you often meet people who do the same. So basically you have friends near by.
> It's very easy to socialize with travelers: they invite your for dinner right away. Sometimes you even don't have to approach them actively. I've also spent a couple of weeks with the same people and we had dinner together every evening. Once you life in a van you often meet people who do the same. So basically you have friends near by.
To expand on this based on my and my parents experiences, we have friends from ~10-15 years ago when they were full time RVers that we still stay in contact with. They often go travel around the US and meet/stay with them.
I try to make it a point to remember that, regardless of who people are or how you meet them, you never know when you're going to make a lasting friendship. I think, paradoxically, it's sometimes easier to make friends in a situation where everyone doesn't have high expectations.
Also we made acquaintance with a guy who traveled with an entire array of fantastically high quality whisk(e)y. Yes, we did stay a little longer there as a result, and yes, it was totally worth it.
On top of that about the sleeping issue that the guy above is having: I grew up out of a town.
The fresh air and the much less polluted environment will allow you to sleep like a baby.
In reality while I was living at the middle of nowhere, I never had any issues sleeping. And i think the too worm/ too cold thing is just an excuse to yourself. There are other things in your mind, like stress etc that won't allow you to sleep well.
When I moved to London, I had quite a lot of trouble sleeping here and there, as I am having more stress etc.
Hopefully everything will be over in less than a month when I am moving back to the middle of nowhere and the new job I got is much less stressful etc.
> In Europe the 4G network coverage is amazing. Within the last five months I had less issues with my connectivity than some of my co-workers using a cable internet.
Same experience for me. I've got a 4G dongle that I use for travelling and it's both faster and more reliable than my home broadband connection (no fiber available in my area). Just keeping an eye out for a cheap 4G data SIM so I can switch to the dongle full time.
Recent EU roaming regs are also a boon, buy a data SIM in your country of residence and get coverage across the EU at no extra cost!
But only if you're abroad temporarily. Living in a van could mean that you use more data abroad than in your home country. Roaming rules don't apply so you'd have to get a sim card from the country you're in.
There's also usually limitations on how much data you get for free while roaming. After you go above that it's up to €7.50/GB, so it's usually cheaper to get a local SIM.
> In Europe the 4G network coverage is amazing. Within the last five months I had less issues with my connectivity than some of my co-workers using a cable internet.
Do you get enough data volume? Most sim cards for use with computer are quite restricted. Or can you live off 10GB/month?
Which network? Three has an offer like that but I found connectivity quite weak once you leave larger cities. Although that appears to be the issue with most/all networks here. I currently use vodafone and can't remember when I last had 4G outside of major cities.
It was a friend who got it last month, but I can't find it now. I thought it was EE, but I only see 30G offers on their website now. If I find it I'll update.
A friend of mine has a friend who has a friend who lives in southern Portugal. I might be able to park the van there. If that doesn't work: there are guarded parking areas near airports where you can leave your van for several days. I think it's something like 5 Euros a day.
But even if I leave the van somewhere unattended: I take my laptop and wallet with me. Other than that I don't have much valuable things in my van: If someone wants to steal my underwear that I've been wearing for ten years: fine go for it.
At the end everything in my van is replaceable. Including the van itself ;)
I traveled in a similar way and sometimes thought about what you just described. But the reality was totally the opposite and I ended up doing a full year in two intervals.
I bought a van, converted it into a camper with a surf board, and did a loop around Australia.
It was an amazing experience, and you learn a lot about people, culture, and yourself. One of the things I realized is that life always offers you options to complain about: I think the greatest inconveniences and discomforts of our ancestors of 200 years past have now been solved, but then taken for granted. We just adjust, become jaded and move on to new things to feel uncomfortable, complain about, and fear.
The experience was about making a story in my life that was more than just going back and forth between the same office, restaurants, etc. Getting out of my comfort zone and going on an adventure and exploring what is out there.
In winter, you head north; in summer, south. The weather is great. You meet nice people, and rude. Generous and benevelont, but also some rotten and even dastardly. There's no escaping the realities of our world; but what can maybe be done for ourselves is to try to escape our human nature to be spoiled with what we have, go outside our comfort zones and on the adventures we dream of. At minimum, it at least offers a lot of perspective.
But while all of this said is fair, to be honest: without the hedonism aspect--if I didn't so much enjoy surfing, the outdoors, and meeting new people--I would have quit such a long trip.
TL;DR if you have a good reason to believe you would enjoy it, being uncomfortable might not be a reason to avoid it.
I've met a few people living in vans/converted trucks when I've been in France. There's quite a few countries around with great regulations that let you park up in lots of places, e.g. in France there are regular places you can stay along the major roads for free, usually with decent facilities. I met a girl there this year who had converted a truck into a mobile home. It even had window boxes for her plants!
Unfortunately it's much more awkward in the UK. So much of this country is private land and everyone's so afraid of gypsies that you're basically prevented from setting up a van nearly anywhere.
I work remotely and I've started experiencing leg problems from sitting too much. So I'm now trying to set the trend of "wood-working"; where I go for a walk to the woods nearby, sit on a rock by the river, and do some coding. It might catch on ;)
how's it going? I love to move around with my laptop, but nature is too damn distractive. Sun is too bright, stone under my ass is too cold, that view is too beautiful, oh, I'm already hungry, oh, it's sunset. That was a nice day, but I barely worked.
I'm just the opposite. If I really want to concentrate on a hard problem, I take my laptop to the park, and sit at a picnic table surrounded by trees, overlooking a lake.
For routine stuff I just need to crank out, it's headphones and coffee, but real thinking I do better in nature. All the mental distractions and trivia fade away.
Nature is the best part of this world for me. Everything else is a distraction. I know this afternoon I get to go hike up a canyon and climb the rim up to see a natural arch. On a normal Tuesday. So I'm going to get my shit done when it's a perfect day out with the sun shining in my eyes. Then I get to play.
It would appear that “van” has a different definition in Europe. In the U. S. I think most would consider that a Class C RV. I’m not just being pedantic, as there is loads more room in the authors rig than our VW Westfalia, or even a Chevy conversion. I’d live full-time in what’s pictured (and plenty of U. S. retirees do just that), no problem, but I’d have to have a genuine need before I’d consider more than a month or two in the VW.
EDIT: now I’m genuinely curious, so please help me out Europeans. Scroll to the bottom and relieve my ignorance: is this considered to be a “van” in Europe? https://ruby-on-wheels.github.io/blog/the-first-ride/ Because I think you’d be hard-pressed to find someone in the U. S. that would call that a camper van.
Ha! I'm not a native speaker. I used the word "van" because I didn't want to write "campervan" all the time. But maybe "camper" would have been better?
> A campervan (or camper van), sometimes referred to as a camper, or a caravanette, is a self-propelled vehicle that provides both transport and sleeping accommodation. The term mainly describes vans that have been fitted out, often with a coachbuilt body for use as accommodation.
My mobile home is built on top of Mercedes 209D and is 6 meters long and 2 meters wide. It almost fits into a regular parking lot. I leave it up to the experts whether this is a van, campervan or whatever?
Well, I hesitate to get too strict on definitions, as I genuinely am just curious about the differences in terminology and I'm not trying to be the #vanlife police. For instance, that first picture in Wikipedia article you link to, you can buy something similar in the U. S. built on a Sprinter chassis (Winnebago Navion/View). Technically, yes, it's probably a "camper van" as it's built on what was once a van chassis. Most folks in the U. S. would not call it a "van" probably because the only difference between a Navion and a traditional Class C RV is the chassis it is built on (a Class C uses a truck chassis).
To me personally, and I'd extrapolate to the U. S. population, a "van" or "camper van" is a camper that kept the original body. For instance, classic VW Westfalia, Chevrolet/Ford 1/2 ton conversion vans (RoadTrek), VW California in Europe, Sportsmobile in U.S./Canada. But the instant the original body comes off (or more accurately, never had a body to begin with) and a new one goes on, it's an RV. To put it another way, when Westfalia received VW Vanagons to build out, the Vanagon had a full body (just stripped). When whoever built your camper received the vehicle, all it had was a frame and a drivetrain, with no body.
But, again, you need not answer to me, call it whatever you want. :-)
Campervan in the US is associated more with Class B's
The difference is Class A is a complete custom body, Class C is a cutaway where the cab is built by the chassis maker but the house body is not like yours. Class B is basically a van body on the outside.
There are variations, Super C's, B plus and so on.
Hey everyone! I'm the author of that article. I just started the blog and still have a ton of things to write about. I like all the (critical) feedback. That inspires me for further blog posts. Thanks for reading!
Thanks for writing this. It made me very sad because the traveler life appeals a lot to me but I still quite like the things I have in the city, so I have always been extremely conflicted about a nomadic life (or a period).
How do you deal with the toilet troubles though?
Also, can you give some details on how do you avoid cold weather? My girlfriend tells me there are areas in Spain, Portugal, Italy and Greece where summer is much longer and the winter basically means 13-17 degrees without snow -- in the worst case scenario.
I was profoundly touched by your article. I am at a point of my life when I feel a desperate and very strong need for a change. Reasons are a lot and I don't want to derail this thread by making my comment a public confession -- suffice to say, I realize I dislike a part of my life and I want to do something about it.
Truth be told however, I like my mega-strong internet (Bulgaria). I like being able to go buy cooked food when I feel lazy or sick or tired and don't want to cook -- telling yourself "get a grip and cook!" sounds like stress and forcing myself and not like something that relaxes you. I like being able to go to a cinema on a whim.
The city gives me the sense of being able to spontaneously do various things.
I really want to try some nomadism -- or at least travel to 10+ places during a period -- and as a 37 y/o with a burnout, nature's appeal grows in me with each passing week.
Overall, I am happy your format worked for you -- it made me consider some traveling very seriously and I started to weigh pros and cons.
So do. The van part is totally optional. Go to Chiang Mai and find a coworking space and an AirBNB. If you don't like it, go home! We have a fixed base we spend 50% of the year at, but also like to go and spend 6 weeks working elsewhere.
When i had a burnout I quit my IT job and walked the Camino de Santiago de Compostela trail, it was a liberating experience and a great introduction to nomadism.
I am actually interested in the details. Though my situation was different, I actually lived in a van for 5 years.
So:
- How do you manage having no home address? Do you use PO boxes, do you have relatives who provide you with an address for administrative tasks (taxes, ...)? For me, I used my parents' address.
- Winter is coming! How do you plan for cold weather? Gas heater? And while going to the toilets or showering outside is great in the summer, it is much less fun during winter. Water tanks freezing may also be a problem. Winter was a bit rough but manageable in southern France, I can't imagine Germany... BTW, a heated blanket is a great ally, though it uses a bit of power.
- Your van is clearly a RV. RVs are not always welcome. Didn't you have too much trouble finding nice places that are also van-friendly? I suppose you also need internet coverage, access to grocery stores and laundries, a fresh water source and waste water disposal, etc...
In an RV, it is clear that someone is sleeping there. Someone who would be better off staying in one of the hotels and spending money. There are some places where such vehicles are associated with prostitution, or other "undesirables" like gypsies.
Some beaches explicitly prohibit RVs, or put gates that make it impossible for such large vehicles to pass.
Campervans are less problematic, because unless they are heavily customized they look like regular vans, so you can park almost anywhere without raising too many eyebrows. They also tend to have a smaller profile, which helps with road restrictions.
My parents toured Europe several times and they use an almost stock white cargo van for the reasons I stated above.
Great blog. I plan to do the same with my wife in near future, but we want to buy a new campervan to have better fuel economy and emission standards.
I would love to read more about places where you stop. How do you decide on that? Are they free/paid? Is it easy to get rid of waste and fill in fresh water? How long do you stay in one place?
It's amazing that you can do this even in a small place :). Gives us hope that this lifestyle can be opened up to more people regardless of what passport they have / country they live in.
Israel is a tiny country. You can spend a week on the top of some mountain not seeing any human being, and then drive 30mins and be with your friends. I enjoy being able to choose when to be completely alone and when to be surrounded with friends and family. Besides, I can definitely stay in the middle of Tel-Aviv with my bus (without paying the crazy rent!). That's where I am currently, actually.
This is cool, but honestly I think there's a bigger problem that people don't seem to want to address: Housing affordability.
Why do we allow home prices to be so expensive? Simply no one from my (millenial) generation can afford to buy a house. Home prices are so beyond insane, and it's crippling my generation.
I make $200k a year and I'm unable to buy a house where I live. That's how fucked it is.
Housing prices follow pretty straightforwardly from incentives. Savers have counter-parties who owe debt. After the federal government ($19T), the next biggest is mortgages, with $14T, of which $10T is one-to-four family residences.
Whether it's direct ownership of debt or intermediated through pensions, insurance companies, or banks, saving for retirement is largely done through putting others in debt. More people savings more aggressively means money gets cheaper until the market clears. Cheaper money means you can finance higher bids on assets prices such as homes and university educations.
I have no idea how to fix it. I don't even know if it's possible. Making housing cheaper on a national scale means nuking pensions as people walk away from underwater mortgages. Probably the best bet is to inflate away these nominal obligations, but that has its own host of issues with screwing over retirees. Between lowering birth rates and improving health care, we as a society have been steadily ratcheting up the percentage of our economic output going towards supporting retirement. That's not sustainable when combined with how we've been also ratcheting up our standards of living. These trade off against each other, and it feels to me like the Boomers chose "both, but our kids pay for it".
Your absolutely right. and no one realizes the enormity of the tragedy. With people traveling 10x longer commute distances the cost to the environment is also 10x as much as well!! Traffic on the highway gets clogged, causing people to spend even more time on their commute. So, CA laws that obstruct building like CEQA (an environmental protection law) are doing more to harm the environment than help it. Meanwhile, the next generation is being driven out of the bay area and eventually out of CA. And that's just the tip of the ice berg.
All the solutions proposed by politicians (affordable housing, regulation) only serve to make the problem worse. The answer is, we need: massive increase in housing supply or a decrease in the # of employers/jobs in this area.
I'm sure there's countless VCs and founders that want to solve this Housing/Transportation problems ~ potentially a multi-trillion dollar opportunity. But, it's absolutely unassailable: the barriers to entry are so extreme, and the amount of government legislation and politics in the way is so insurmountable, I don't even know of a single company or startup that's legitimately working on this problem. It's a man made problem, that will require a man-made solution. It'll take an army of politicians to make this happen, perhaps a startup filled with politicians, not engineers.
Maybe this is not brought up because this is not a universal problem. In the two metro areas I am most familiar with, Houston and Detroit, plenty of my millenial peers can afford and do in fact own homes. Admittedly, these are often starter homes well outside the urban core. But owning a single-family home close to the city center is a fairly delusional goal regardless of income, in my opinion.
A lot of people are going to jump on this comment and say something along the lines of "change your lifestyle and you can afford one".
That's not the problem here.
House prices (in my location) have risen from 4x the average annual salary to 10x. Like the above commentor, I'm better off than most and I can just barely manage to scrimp and save enough to enter the housing market, by buying the parents home at a slight discount. There's not much more I could sacrifice.
I have a huge advantage on the average Joe for a number of reasons and am still struggling. Sure, it's possible for me, but it's not possible for them. And that's the problem.
Remember all that money the various government treasuries loaned to banks to keep them afloat? Take a guess where it's being spent. There is so much currency in circulation due to quantitative easing that investors are running low on things to buy. So they are parking it in the few places they know to be safe; government bonds and real estate.
This is written in October. He's been living in the van since the middle of May. Basically late spring, summer and early autumn.
How is he going to feel after another 150 days? Camping in winter can be fun, but it's not warm. At all. Trying to work in a van when it's below freezing outside will be pretty hard work. I can't even type when the room drops below 15 degrees. Vans like the one he has are basically uninsulated steel boxes - they get cold pretty fast.
I'll probably spend the winter down in southern Portugal/Spain where temperatures are around 15 degrees in average during the winter. I've also installed an old heating that works with Diesel and electricity. But yes, summer life is easy and I'm looking forward to experience my first winter in the van.
Inland Portugal can be freezing cold in the Winter, we got -2 C several days in a row last year (I know, -2 C is balmy elsewhere but try it without central heating). You should be okay if you stick to the coast as the sea breezes keep the temperatures in the 10-15 C most of the time.
If you've got a good sleeping bag, -2 C isn't that bad. I've spent the night with those temperatures in the high country of New Zealand. I know people that have spent the night in -15 C temperatures.
That may be OK for sleeping but it is very hard to work. I spent a couple of Winters coding without heating with indoor temperatures around 12 Celsius and it was very hard. I wore mittens, bubble hat, a blanket and even an electric foot warmer and still had to stop working and walk a bit every now and then to warm up.
He'll go down to the Algarve like all the other young surfers and retirees do in the winter. Loads of sun, dry, and air temps 16 to 20 degrees. It's generally gorgeous, like an extended autumn.
I've spent 4 winters in the Algarve. While they don't get the classic beach breaks of SW France (Hossegor, Seignosse, Capbreton), there are some excellent spots down there (the point breaks at Arifana and Zavial in particular). Also, when massive winter swells come on the west coast (i.e. too big to surf), drive 30 minutes to the south coast and enjoy glassy perfection.
Locals have no problem dropping in on you, however; not as civil as the French are in that respect, but can't blame them, spots can get crowded.
>How is he going to feel after another 150 days? Camping in winter can be fun, but it's not warm. At all.
Depends on the country. There are places where winter is like 30 degrees. And you can always have a portable heater -- in a small van it will heat it up completely.
Driving from Berlin? Most of southern Europe can be very cold (even Portugal and Spain) in winter. Maybe some parts of Turkey will stay warmer but not sure about that. Or maybe southern Greece.
And the problem is that weather is not independent. If it's very cold in Portugal for a few weeks it's usually also cold in much of the rest of Southern Europe.
It's trivial to get with the van to Morocco, Turkey. And with a rather inexpensive ferry ride, you can go anywhere in Africa / Middle East.
In places like Malaga, Crete, Cyprus, etc it's the average low temperature is like 10-13 degrees (52-55 f). Hardly very cold if you've ever experienced NY, Chicago, Canada, Norther Europe levels of cold. And of course it's very easy to heat a small van.
Yes but I'm not sure if that's where the author would like to go. 4G coverage will likely be weaker (making it harder to code on the go) and with fewer camper vans you'll not meet as many people. Security can also be a concern, as can be political influences (esp in Turkey at the moment).
This is true, but if you can drive to southern Spain you can get an inexpensive ferry to Morocco. From there you can go as far south as you could want.
Are there any women here who have done something like this and would be willing to comment on it? Theoretically it sounds cool, but I'd be a bit anxious about personal safety.
Learn to use pepper spray. It's fairly simple and will empower you a lot. You can buy some that shoots a jet ~10feet. Also when you park lock the doors and make sure you can easily hop into the front seat and drive off. Most of the time no one bothers you, at least here in the U.S. I'm sure it depends on location a bit too.
Nice man that looks awesome, pretty jelly. I can work remote and have been thinking about leaving for a while. How much was the initial cost of the van? How did you maintain your internet connection? What would you say is the biggest struggle?
I'm working with 4G. Works perfect all most everywhere in Europe! I use a pre-paid Italian SIM-Card that I can use all over Europe. It costs me 9 Euros for 20 GB. I usually need around 30 to 50 GB a month. So it's roughly 20 Euros per month.
I'm currently in Madrid. Living the van life in big cities is more challenging. Especially if you don't want to stay in the suburbs. I plan to write a article about my city experiences in Madrid soon.
>Giga International: 9 € - including 20 GB data valid for 28 days. The activation fee is 5 € and the SIM card is 9 €, making the total cost 25 € for the first month and 9 € for subsequent months. This offer is only for customers with foreign citizenship.
Living in a vehicle can cost as little or as much as you want. It depends on your budget and wants/needs. You can build a simple van for a few hundred dollars or a huge overlanding rig for hundreds of thousands.
An inexpensive, decent van build can be done for <$5000. My bus cost somewhere around $50k so far, including the vehicle.
Steven Roberts is a good inspiration for that; after computing across America on his amazing bicycles during the 80s, he has moved onto boats: https://microship.com/
He's on his third boat. The first was the Microship trimaran, designed by him (using off-the-shelf parts) and could run on wind, sun or even pedal power.
Interesting idea. Does sailing a boat typically allow for one to be immersed in coding for longer periods at a time (a few hours)? Or would you just park it while you work?
I suspect you would get the most done while in port. Like, this guy isn't working while he drives.
Would pretty amazing way to see the caribean or med!
That makes sense - though with a boat, it might be reasonable to work while sailing, making it even more attractive. But I doubt that would be particularly realistic, w.r.t. internet connectivity, being able to pay attention to hazards, etc.
Modern yachts basically sail themselves on an autopilot. If weather is not rough you can do whatever you want, as long as you still keep looking around from time to time
I bought a 33' sailboat and lived on it for two years in Wilmington, NC while we were starting NextGlass (now Untappd).
It was by far one of the best experiences of my life. The soothing rocking motion, loose halyard clanking, and salty ocean air at night certainly helped get me through the 60-70 hour weeks.
P.S. A little hack for anyone who might try this, put your wifi router and modem in your dock box. That way you can shove off any time without having to unscrew the coax cable.
This is awesome. So much so, I'm going to borrow his idea and kick this off next Spring.
If the author is reading this, some questions:
- How do you deal with solitude? Most can handle it but seeing as everyday is a new day in a new place there must be an urge to share that with somebody.
- This mode of living must have an impact on the ol' love life. What do the ladies say - if you meet many at all - when you suggest going back to your van/office/home?
- What are your plans for the Winter? I imagine just go as south-west as possible to chase the sun.
> How do you deal with solitude? Most can handle it but seeing as everyday is a new day in a new place there must be an urge to share that with somebody.
I haven't experienced solitude so far. Sometimes I even leave crowded spots because I want some time for myself. I travel in Europe, not in Alaska. I meet people everyday and on top of that I have a regular job and interact with my co-workers every weekday. Mostly asynchronous and sometimes synchronous.
> This mode of living must have an impact on the ol' love life. What do the ladies say - if you meet many at all - when you suggest going back to your van/office/home?
Yes, this is can be a problem. Sometimes you meet people who don't love the "simple" life like I do. I respect their opinions and either spend time with them in their world or make a compromise, e.g. stay on a campsite that offers all the facilities you have in a regular apartment.
But at the end you usually hangout with people that get a long with you and your life style?
> What are your plans for the Winter? I imagine just go as south-west as possible to chase the sun.
Yes, I'll follow the warm weather once my naked feet get cold here.
This reminds me of those tiny houses you've seen where people can live very well on a low budget but with the benefit of being mobile. I've thought about it but it becomes impractical quickly with a family.
When I'd go on week long + backcountry hiking or canoe trips I always felt like all the other stuff you have just don't matter. Time away from stuff doesn't make you miss it, it makes you realize you don't need any of it.
I tried this around SF Bay Area. Unfortunately SF isn't as van-friendly as I would have liked, and the high crime rate and high rate of break-ins left me less than desiring to stay in SF. Had a friend successfully camp out in East Bay, but got sick of it.
I moved down to Redwood City but the cops basically harassed me, and treated me like a criminal. I finally would park in my van outside of Social Capital in Palo Alto.
Palo Alto remains a legal place to live the van life. You'll also meet a bunch of other van dwellers from tech companies around there. There is even a couple of secret facebook groups for nerds working/living out of their van in and around SF/BA.
That's the first big strike against vanlife for me. In the US there's no cheap and reliable way to park and sleep without being harassed by police.
The second is illness: I ate some bad chicken earlier this year and was violently ill, projectile liquid from both ends ill, for three whole days. It was miserable but bearable because I had an apartment with a bed and a bathroom. I can't imagine what it would have been like in a van.
> That's the first big strike against vanlife for me. In the US there's no cheap and reliable way to park and sleep without being harassed by police.
The US is large. There are tons of places you can park without issue. BLM land, for example, is explicitly available for anyone to use. Most cities don't have anti vehicle dwelling laws. All you have to do is go somewhere that doesn't care.
> The second is illness: I ate some bad chicken earlier this year and was violently ill, projectile liquid from both ends ill, for three whole days. It was miserable but bearable because I had an apartment with a bed and a bathroom. I can't imagine what it would have been like in a van.
OP has an RV with a bathroom. It'd be much like your apt but with less distance to travel between the toilet and your bed.
> In the US there's no cheap and reliable way to park and sleep without being harassed by police.
IF you want/need to live in a city. The west has tons of public land with an LTE signal. I'm hanging out on BLM land in the middle of gorgeous Utah right now.
Should that happen to me I'd just check in at a cheap airbnb for a week until feeling better, possibly with a friend taking care of me while i complain about being sick
I went from feeling fine to could-not-walk-three-steps-without-vomiting in the course of an hour. Could probably not have seen it coming and booked an airbnb in time.
Oh, I think I attended one of your talks last year (about Mikado method). Nice to learn that you live this van life now, keep updating the blog, it's very interesting!
I like the ideas behind the writer of this post. However I have worked remote for over a year and I have to comment.
First of all working in a van for a long haul will probably be painful for your back. No standing desk no office chair and desk set up will not be comfortable to code for more then a few hours.
Most of time working remote you need power and wifi. There is an expectation that you will be online during similar hours as your co-workers as peers. Maybe not exactly but similarly. So you gotta have a pocket wifi if doing this.
Working in a van most days alone can be isolating. Trust me you will feel it. Even when you go to an office and don't speak much to people it still helps with social aspect. Being online and talking to co workers does too. If you have a pocket WiFi and are not totally off grid able to engage with famile or friends and colleagues online then it will be helpful.
With climate change worsening sometimes it's hot really hot. It will be difficult to be outside for long stretches of time in a wide variety of places due to worsening climate change. When you are in the office you will not notice how bad it's getting less. Reading the news daily and seeing all the issues connecting to climate changes helps but working outside you really feel it directly. Historically a town might have had temperatures of 23 C now it's 28 C to 30 C on the bad days. However during working at an office you are usually in an AC building from 9 to 18 missing the hottest parts of day. When you work remotely to you will know how bad things are and it will trouble you more if you try to work in a van connected to nature. It's gonna be hot.
Working remote is great but there are some drawbacks like everything in life. Those you need to be mindful of before onsetting on that path.
> Working remote is great but there are some drawbacks like everything in life. Those you need to be mindful of before onsetting on that path.
I totally agree. Working remotely is not just awesome. But I prefer it over a regular office job which has more downsides for me.
> First of all working in a van for a long haul will probably be painful for your back. No standing desk no office chair and desk set up will not be comfortable to code for more then a few hours.
I do a lot of sport (surfing, cycling, swimming pull-ups and other exercises for my back). I usually take regular breaks to avoid sitting in the same position for too long. My back feels great!
> Most of time working remote you need power and wifi. There is an expectation that you will be online during similar hours as your co-workers as peers. Maybe not exactly but similarly. So you gotta have a pocket wifi if doing this.
> When you work remotely to you will know how bad things are and it will trouble you more if you try to work in a van connected to nature. It's gonna be hot.
Yes, sometimes it just to hot. I've experienced this in the inland. My solution: I drive to the mountains or the beaches where the climate is milder. Or I take a siesta and wait until the sun sets to work. I can work whenever I want. Another advantage of a remote job!
I drove around Australia whilst still maintaining several django projects for a web hosting company back in 2011. Started with an old 15 inch Dell and a Samsung Galaxy tab but got a 11 inch Mac Air later.
Great fun! You really learn to optimise your setup around current draw and avoiding overheat :) My biggest lessons were combining mosh and tmux It'd be more of a struggle as a front end developer.
It was a lucky mix of timing and life circumstance. Single, late twenties had just finished most heavy development work in 2010 and the sytems were running smoothely, a good bossfriend who knew I was hard to replace and I had a sister to catch up with on the other side of the country.
Could you give more details about how you combined these? I'm aware of both of these tools, but wasn't sure how they could be used together. At the moment I heavily use mosh which is pretty much perfect aside from the fact that it kills my local scrollback history.
Well tmux gives you back some scrollback (when you remember the key combination). I was doing linux sysadmin style work on remote cellular networks so mosh was great for the occasional dropouts. Also tmux gives you an extra layer of persistence and window organisation.
We've been doing the same for a few years now. Funny.. these days I just want to go to Berlin and stay for a while! That's because I have wound up missing the buzz of a tech scene.
I lived 5 years in SF & then the Hacker Dojo was born just as I was leaving. Since then, while sitting in my van, I just dream of sitting at the hacker dojo!
Some of it is a great lifestyle. Tips on cheap data: Morocco, Portugal, Italy, Slovenia, Croatia, Spain (not as cheap). ($1/GB) Somehow almost everyone else is ridiculously expensive. More like $10-20 / GB.
The US now has Verizon unlimited. Something like 80 a month for unlimited data!? It's tempting to put the camper on a boat & go back.
Also, if you are going to work out of a van, you are going to need consistent power. Please do not use a generator! Stick about 4 flexible solar panels on the roof. They can be attached with good 3m zip tie mounts & zip ties. One hole drilled through the roof. Get a lithium (lifepo4) battery & a controller from electrodacus.
Living in a van might also be part of the answer to the skyrocketing rents wherever there are jobs worth their salt.
Which -housing- is one of the real big markets that desperately needs to be disrupted as it siphons money out of the productive sector into the rentiers' black holes.
I know a couple who spent a year driving around New Zealand in a house-bus with their kids. It is possible.
With kids, I don't think it would be a great thing to do for super-long term. I remember reading an article recently about a family that has been traveling the world for several years with their kids. I wonder what sort of effect that would have on their social development, since they wouldn't be able to form any long-term relationships.
I think it's really sad and pathetic that someone can enjoy such a simple, non consumerist based life. How are you supporting the global economy? How are you proving that you are worthy? This sounds like homelessness to me. Without a home, are you really a worthwhile human being deserving of a mate? I don't think so. Unless you shop and own, man, you don't really exist.
We get this a lot. We're sailing cruisers - similar to the van thing, except on water and you use wind and pull on bits of string for propulsion, with the diesel engine only a secondary (but important) means.
Especially from the mate's mother: "When are you going to stop this nonsense and get a real job and a home?".
There's a whole community of us global travelers who have shunned the whole "being an adult" thing.
I know several people that have been backpacking and doing the working-holiday thing for 4 or 5 years. Never staying in one city for more than around 3 months, and moving countries when their working holiday visa expires.
Their families have mostly been saying the same thing. Settling down isn't for everyone.
Funny about the adult thing. When I managed other peoples computers, had I fucked up really badly, about 1200 people would've not been able to do their work and some company would've potentially lost a few million buckazoids. If I were to fuck up really bad when sailing (or boat maintenance), I and those nearest and dearest to me would die.
I live and work to travel and go on adventures and what I don't live for is work. Why would someone want to mix the two?
I work full time remote out of a home office, but I couldn't think of much worse of an idea going on a "working holiday". I've done it and it just distracts me from enjoying my time.
I mean, is the author really productive or just having fun and doing much less work?
I'm not judging anyone for working less, I'm all for it, but this taking your work with you everywhere sounds horrible.
In school, and now out of school - I keep the same routine. I work 50 to 80+ hours a week programming, emailing, etc.
Primary, Ive worked a full-time job as (senior) software engineer and on the side (as much as a possibly can get away with it) building businesses for the last year of college + the last three years. During that time I never once took more than a single day break from coding. That is four years with no vacation / adventure.
I coded after everyone went to sleep, on planes, trains, ships, etc. Believe it or not I'm also married and have a fairly active social life.
I found that traveling, and working makes it possible for me to see things I otherwise wouldn't. I also noticed that changing up my scenery made it possible for me to be more productive. Might not be like this for everyone, but I'm more invigorated when new stuff is going on. It keeps my brain on point.
I should note, that since then I took my first real vacation in four years. It was two weeks doing w.e., traveling with my wife. Honestly, it was awesome to be away. That doesn't mean I don't bring my work with me now (as perhaps I'm overly ambitious), but I do intend to unplug now for at least two weeks every year.
However, I can see how this guy would be able to travel and might even be more productive if they do it right.
I'm in the process of converting a van to a camper to make weekly commuting cheaper. Lifestyle will be slightly different to this as I will still be running a factory and in the UK winter, however, I am hoping that one day I can do some extended periods somewhere warm and outdoorsy using.
Sounds cool, main concerns are bathroom and internet connection. What about security and parking?
The photo of laptop side of caravan in front of the beach looks nice though unsure in practice (smell) can you focus sort of thing, regardless cool, like the mobility idea it's what I strive for some day.
I still haven't found the time to write a little "About" section. @sampl is right, I work as a full-time employee for GitHub. Meanwhile you can read a short summary on my unmaintained developer blog: http://mikrobi.github.io/about/ :D
Not to mention children going to school. I don't think this model is very feasible for parents. Certainly not single mothers/fathers.
I find Assange's early life [1] relevant to this conversation. He lead a nomadic life, lived in over 30 towns throughout his lifetime. One could say it affected his nomadic adult lifestyle.
Very inspiring, I wish I could try something like that for a while. Question: do you still declare your income in your home country (Germany, I assume) or have you found a different solution?
That is interesting. I wish one could acquire a "nomadic" status and pay only a fraction of the income tax in the country he lives in for a given period. But that open a bigger sets of problem, like health insurance, etc.
It's gray area legally. If you have income in multiple countries you should pay income tax in each country (how much you earned while working there) but if you are just traveling in a van and don't have any residence and are on the move all the time, not sure how you can do that without it getting too messy. Probably easiest to just declare all income in home base country.
>It's gray area legally. If you have income in multiple countries you should pay income tax in each country (how much you earned while working there) but if you are just traveling in a van and don't have any residence and are on the move all the time, not sure how you can do that without it getting too messy. Probably easiest to just declare all income in home base country.
Most countries have agreements to avoid double taxation, meaning you just declare the income in the home country, as long as you spend less then half a year in the other country. The agreements usually have some rules regarding which country counts as the home country if you e.g. own property in both of them.
Yeah but most nomads don't spend much time in home country. They might spend 1-2 months in home country and rest of the year travel around. Or even less, could be home just for Christmas. Then it gets quite tricky because technically you haven't even spent enough time in your home country to count as resident there.
This is nice. However I need two monitors - I'm not in my 20s anymore, my brain can cache less and I need the second monitor as the look-aside buffer, quite literally :P
I lived, coded in van. No money.. Apple laptop eat battery in 2 hours. Cannot recharge, no money for gasoline. Parking next to library to have internet..... never again. I hated it everyday. I do not recommend this to anybody.
> However, once they have kids, they have to settle and are back to square one.
I don't necessarily think it's back to square one. One doesn't have to settle in a big city.
I moved out of London when my first child was due. We moved to a mid-sized (250k population) European city. I was able to find work, in an unrelated field to my previous experience but still using similar technical and management skills. The remuneration is less than I was earning in London, but the cost of living is significantly lower too.
This was a lifestyle choice and the environment is much better, in my view, for raising children. Only my view of course, but in this case "better" means things like more green space, less pollution, less crime etc.
It's not been 100% plain sailing. I have had to overcome a language barrier (not fully achieved that). I do feel culturally adrift sometimes. And Brexit seems to be trying to screw everything up.
However, I still don't feel like I'm back to square one.
Don't you worry about the objectively lower education for your children there ? As much as I dislike cities, I can't imagine raising children somewhere else. Education, culture and network potential (through friends) is just not the same.
No, it's not something I worry about at all. I'd be interested to know why you think the education would be objectively lower.
I'm still living in a city, just a small one. Having checked Wikipedia, it tells me the population is officially 320k. There are six Universities and the city is UNESCO listed as a Cultural Heritage site. I just don't see this location disadvantaging my child. In fact, I think it's a location with a pretty good mix of culture and nature.
Nothing is perfect of course, but I think we're in a better position than if we'd stayed in London.
If we were to move back to the UK, I'd be looking at somewhere like Cambridge or Edinburgh perhaps.
Not sure where are you from but in Europe many cities smaller than the one parent settled in have their own universities and significant cultural scene... Basel, Perugia, Lille, Salzburg are some examples of cities with less than 250k residents where you would have all of the above.
250k doesn't seem to be small enough to have a serious negative quality of education.
I grew up in a city of 100k, and I had all the opportunities that someone growing up in a bigger city would have. The quality of teaching was fine too. I did go to a larger school, with 2300 pupils though.
In my country, a public school from 5th largest city, with population of less than 100k, routinely makes it into top-3 high schools. It gets worse only when population is < 10k or so and can't fill a full-blown school. On the other hand, quite a few schools in big cities are notoriously shitty...
He said he moved to a mid sized city with 250000 people — I expect that most European cities of that size have decent public schools. Even a lot of small cities often have a good school. And even if that‘s not the case, in most places your kids can just take the bus to a school in the next city.
Lot of top universities around Europe are in smallish cities (200-300k people). I don't know why you think top universities are only in London/Berlin/Paris. That's not true at all, especially in Europe. Not sure about US.
There are many "mid-sized European cities" that have better education than London. Most of Estonia is an obvious example. And a city of 250k people is still large enough in my book to allow for a large enough pool for networking.
> In particular, finding your long-term partner can be a huge struggle in a big city in times of Tinder where nobody is committed anymore
You're projecting here -- the article never mentioned anything related to a partner. Also, wait what? COMPETITION for a spouse? If you look at your desired gender that way, I think it might actually do you good to live as a nomad for a while.
"Nobody is committed anymore" -- change your social circles. Go attend local events related to your work and hobby. Go hold a lecture somewhere and have drinks with a few of the studens.
You can do a heckload of things to change your environment even without moving away from the city. You sound bitter, you need to work on some change in your life.
Think you misunderstood. My message was that people who do this nomad thing are doing this because they struggle with city-life and my bullets were examples why they might struggle. I just said finding long-term relationships got harder because of Tinder and the current zeitgeist. I didn't say that I struggle: I didn't bail out and went the nomad route. I know that it's tough but once you got used to it, you learn, adapt and improve.
Thank you. I still think "Tinder and the current zeitgeist" is a status quo isolated to certain circles (although big ones). There are still tons of people out there who bond and click pretty naturally.
I for one am not very happy in my current city anymore but that might be because of shitty rented flats. Currently actively seeking my own place but my internal voices never give me a moment's peace because I think I want to live by the sea, which is practically impossible in my country because the "cities" there are awfully small, boring, and have mediocre Internet.
If they have kids, the types of people who choose the nomadic lifestyle are probably more likely to question norms and pre-determined life choices, therefore less likely to have kids.
First: Not everyone wants or can have children. Second: You may be back at geographical square one but you have picked up a lot of baggage in the form of knowledge and emotions that probably changed you (hopefully for the better, I'm betting it does) forever.
Also, this life style is nice for getting to know yourself, what do you really want? Maybe you thought you were a city dweller but now you know you feel better closer to nature. You also learn that you don't need much as a human, that is a very comforting though that can get you through difficult times.
Changing your lifestyle may not always be pleasant (at first) but you learn about yourself. For example, I though I was a real backpacker, turns out I get very stressed when I have to get in random taxis and I convince myself almost everyone wants to screw me (in the bad way) and I have constant inner dialogue about why I would care about being screwed for a couple of euros. Now I plan thing differently, maybe I someday really learn to relax. But it won't be by sitting at home, I know that for sure. For now, I have kids and already learn that I don't like my life style to adventurous (maybe I'm not even that adventurous without kids), and I'm ok with that... even though that took some time to accept.
Maybe you are right, maybe not. I just think those stories where people worship their nomad life represent not the entire truth.
It's not because nomad life is so great, often it's because they struggled because--again--life in developed areas is tough and so they opted for the easier way.
Moreover, those have still some home base in an developed country, a back door where they can always settle again, so it's not really nomad, it's just a long vacation labeled as something adventurous.
For us from developed countries, it's so easy to take our backpack and travel dozens of countries and just spent a fraction of what we would spent in NY, London or Berlin. You know it's really nothing special or something people should admire. Everyone from a developed country can do this. But nobody from not so developed countries could and want to do this. I personally would miss a goal and again the challenge. I can just buy a ticket in 5 minutes and go, find some remote work and live for peanuts. Where is the problem, everyone can do this There is no risk and no goal. And because your FB friends got tired of all your useless and boring nomad posts you need to write now public blog posts and spam social news sites telling people that what you do is great justifying your goal-less endeavour to yourself.
So, another popular reason of being a 'nomad' might be: I am struggling with the high competition in my current environment, want to save money or spent a fraction in an underdeveloped country and live like a king. But not like I want to know who I am (maybe they know it afterwards but I think it's rather unrelated).
Ok, here one of those nomads for already mmm... 12 years?
Not all of us want to escape. We just want to see the world and learn. I grew up in a small town, I dont have a place I could call home apart the earth...
On the other hand, I know there is an increase of people that want to escape, but maybe they have a reason to do it. City life is not for everyone. Many of us want to have a slower life, cherishing small things in nature and learn about the world directly, without intermediaries.
And I dont think is about struggling with the high competition or have a cheaper life somewhere else. Some of us just prefer to have a different life style. Some people chose to have 2 cars, a house and lots of stuff inside, some others just prefer to have only one backpack with their belongings in it and move slowly around the world...
Hi, I have a question, maybe too personal, feel free to answer or not... Do you have children? I do and many rules are inhibiting nomad life (even shortly). Kids are obligated to go to school for example. If this was more relaxed, I'd love to go away for several months at a time (I have a small caravan with a bunk I made for the two kids). I'd love to teach them about everything while traveling Europe. But the kids have 6 weeks of vacation at most during the summer.
I dont have kids yet. I totally acknowlede that its quite a different thing when you have kids and this lifestyle becomes quite impractical (not impossible though). Probably the day I have kids I will do similar to what you do :)
My point is that there is not one way of living. I was raised in a way where I had to follow just one path but seeing people living differently made me realize the diversity of lifestyles and made me aware of so many options in life.
> of us want to have a slower life, cherishing small things in nature and learn about the world directly, without intermediaries.
Which is exactly what small town life is. No need to go nomad for that. In my experience, backpacking is neither slow life, nor cherishing small thing. It may be compared to multi-million city, but it's not compared to living in small town or village.
I didnt go nomad because of been raised in a small town. I went nomad because I like it :)
I just mentioned that to contrast the first comment where suggested that people from big cities become nomads to escape from them.
Backpacking is not black or white. There is backpackers who multihop cities every couple of days to get laid in backpacker hostels, some others travel slow, some to remote places, some others move where there is food and work, some others follow adventure, some others backpack while volunteering...
I get it that backpacking/nomading crowd is diverse. It's just weird when people attribute living slowly to that. I know some backpackers do embrace living slowly. But their lifestyle look too similar to small town (or even backwoods) living. Well, aside from the part how they got there. And likely not-so-slow period of change to move to next slow destination.
Just my two cents but there are a lot of people who don't have problem with competition in these big cities (can outcompete majority of people and are top 1% earners in NYC/SF/London etc) but they don't find the office/corporate/busy life fulfilling so they decide to go and travel around or work remotely for few years.
I know couple of people like that. Just to make a point your argument about these people trying to escape because they can't make it in a big city is not necessarily true. At least not universally true, there might be people that fit your description.
If you can convince an employer to let you work remotely and maybe let you fly in for monthly meetings you could move to a satellite city that has cheaper rent
you have to home school to be on budget, otherwise they come home from school wanting new things. which also means your partner cannot have a full time job or has to work remote too.
you could start a remote business and make the hours longer allowing for kid related interruptions.
I also live in a vehicle. I have a 25ft (7.6m) former airport shuttle bus I've converted to my home. It took me over six months of full time work and it's still not complete.
I've lived in it for a bit over four months. Overall it has been good but not without challenges. I'm currently busy working which has led to neglecting stuff I need to finish on the bus. I can't travel far until I finish these things.
Here are some recommendations and tips if you're considering this life:
* If you haven't spent time camping in a vehicle rent one for at least a week and try that first. It's not exactly the same but similar.
* Don't jump in blindly. Do significant research into what others have done, what works and what doesn't, etc.
* If you decide to build something yourself expect it to take at least twice as long and cost 50% more than you plan.
* Evaluate if it makes sense to do the build yourself. I wanted to build something physical instead of just writing code. Financially it would have made more sense for me to continue working full time and have a place like Sportsmobile do the build. I wouldn't have learned the skills and had the experience though.
I have a lot of build photos on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/driverdan/
I'm happy to answer questions.