#Stories-from-a-Van guide to living in a car to save money. Recommends 5%-transmissivity blackout limo tint for rear car windows and curtains hung behind the front seats. Recommends parking on busy streets, in residential neighborhoods with apartment complexes where other unfamiliar cars regularly park, but never parking in front of a house, instead parking next to open spaces or churches or public buildings, or in the overnight parking lot of a train or bus station. In San Francisco he would exit his minivan through the driver side door to go to the gym to work out and shower. But he was wasting US$800+ per month on eating out. He suggests using a UPS Store or similar “CMRA” mailbox address. #video #vanlife
on 02024-05-01#stories-from-a-van #vanlife #video about #stealth-camping in Los Angeles using Spot Angel to find free parking and avoid street sweeping hours. One benefit is that he parked near a Hollywood Bowl show he was going to and then could walk back to the van from the show instead of having to deal with the traffic.
on 02024-04-29#stories-from-a-van #vanlife #video about, mostly, plumbing. A collapsible camping sink and a funnel gains Evan’s approval, but he suggests using a pressurized hand pump sprayer instead of a little USB pump to get running water. He also strongly endorses Further Fabrication’s carpentry skills.
on 02024-04-29#stories-from-a-van #stealth-camping #vanlife #video. Has 200 watts peak of monocrystalline #photovoltaic panels for #energy autonomy, dropping down to 20 watts on cloudy days. Reviews dc-to-dc chargers, automatic charging relays, “shore power” (plugging the car into an outlet), etc. He did the Nissan NV200 (car) conversion in 02018, with only 100 amp hours of deep-cycle lead-acid, after an earlier fancier Mercedes Sprinter conversion with 400 amp hours of LiFePO₄ batteries; he says it no longer makes sense to use lead-acid batteries because LiFePO₄ only costs 40% more. (That was August 6, 02021.)
on 02024-04-29“ultimate” #stealth-camping van #video "Stories from a Van". Looks like a dream come true. It looks like any old ordinary white Nissan minivan, with a gray curtain behind the bucket seats, no side windows, and a tinted back window, but inside it has a cassette toilet, a bed, a desk with seating, a sink, clothes on hangers, a deep-cycle battery powered by roof solar panels, a graywater tank, and a shower (though it is not tall enough to stand up in). He says he lived in it in San Francisco for a year and could park anywhere and nobody ever bothered him. Rooftop vent, indoor 12V LED lighting, Igloo cooler, 1000-watt inverter, dual removable freshwater tanks, and the graywater tank slowly leaks onto the pavement under the van. Wind deflectors on the front windows allow him to crack the front windows to let in air without them looking open or letting in rain. He’s using ice in the Igloo cooler for food storage, says it lasts a week and a half. Probably would be useful to have active refrigeration. He says the “automatic charging relay” that charges the deep-cycle battery from the van’s alternator when it’s running hasn’t been needed because the two solar panels have been more than enough. He has a butane stove to use outside the van, and also a sort of polyethylene foam foil box for low-temperature low-wattage cooking inside of, astonishingly, Tupperware. He says he’s living in Santa Cruz now.
on 02024-04-05