[jaxtracks]

There's a recent wave of backlash against #vanlife that's pretty amusing to watch as someone who's been living in all sorts of rigs including pickups with campershells, camper trailers, and now a self-built van with radiant floor heat and a hot shower. I think it's good in some ways. I've encountered a lot of people who got lured into this way of living by the sepia-toned propaganda and adopted it with little understanding of the struggles it entails. This particular article is a really poor representation of those though.

The author rented a van that most would only use as a weekender rig for a week, and dealt with challenges that are fairly unique to folks inexperienced with camping, outdoor recreation and, well honestly life outside her abode in general it seems.

I think it's still sort of a useful article though. Last night, for example, I met a couple in the ski resort parking lot I camped in that were openly regretting their purchase of a $150k custom built van. They didn't enjoy working on it, and were distraught over their parking heater "breaking" (air intake had some ice on it) when there were no hotels in town with vacancy. From my conversation with them after I fixed it and invited them into my rig for a beer while theirs warmed up, I feel they're folks that would have read an article like this, and probably not made a really unwise investment into a kind of life they don't know anything about and had completely romanticized.

I also invited a kid sleeping in the back of his subaru on a platform he built so he could chase storms into my rig for that chat. He would have killed for one of our vans and would have had an absolute blast (though a truck camper is probably a better choice for his lifestyle.) My guess is he wouldn't be influenced at all by an article like this one. He'll probably build himself a van one day and have as good of a time as I'm having.

So, I get some of the ire I'm seeing here for this kind of off-hand dismissal for vanlife, but I think I'm alright with it. Countering the propaganda is good, and the folks who would be dissuaded from building a van and living on the road by an article like this definitely shouldn't be jumping into this kind of lifestyle anyway I figure.