#video by #lifeoutofmyelement after 8 years of #vanlife giving a tour of her #Honda-Element conversion #toread
on 02026-02-16#video by Rosa (#lifeoutofmyelement) after 8 years of #vanlife claiming that now vanlife is “kind of normal” and has “become normalized and more accepted by society” but describes her relationship with her car as “very attached and kind of codependent”. She recommends iOverlander.com and freecampsites.net for finding places to camp; in the urban areas where she spends a third of her time, she recommends rest areas and Park & Ride lots. She’s driven 214000 “miles” (344000 km in modern units) over the 8 years, 43000 km per year (118 km/day, 1.36 m/s). Now she’s spending US$3000–4000 a year on car maintenance, but gas is more expensive still. I feel like you could probably cut those costs by an order of magnitude by driving less, but maybe not the car insurance (and she also says she has to pay for health insurance, phone bill, food, and gas). She’s on her third iteration of the build of the furnishings using Amazon shelves and whatnot.
on 02026-02-16#vanlife #video in Rosa’s 2009 #Honda-Element car named Elrond with a Sodastream. A 7-gallon jug of water was inconveniently heavy; her “build” was under US$200, and she’s been living in it for six years plus US$11250 for the car. She cooks on a Coleman 2-burner stove on the tailgate. “My entire conversion is actually held into my car using zipties.” She built it out of plywood from Home Depot and piano hinges. The interior is too small to stand up in, but the car is pretty boxy and voluminous for being a car, and it's 4WD, so like halfway to being an SUV. Also the rear doors are backwards-opening “suicide doors”, so you get a double-door effect. She uses aluminized bubblewrap windowshades with blackout curtain taped to the outside with black duct tape, which she says blends in better from the outside. Rear windows are tinted, which would make the blackout hard to see from the outside. She showers at Planet Fitness. Stores water (two 1-“gallon” bottles) and a tarp and a folding chair in the passenger footwell, and a backpack on the seat, so someone looking in through the non-tinted forward windows would see that the car is being lived in. But she hasn’t made any modifications to the outside of the car, so there are no solar panels, shore power, stove chimneys, etc. To work on her laptop she goes to cafés, libraries, and Whole Foods (“really great Wi-Fi”). On the road for the first few years, she worked seasonal jobs at national parks and resort towns, and Subway and similar chain restaurants. Then, when Covid hit, DoorDash, InstaCart, etc., and now she’s a YouTuber (“#lifeoutofmyelement”). She feels like roof racks or stickers are not good for stealth camping.
on 02024-05-08