Sonja, Thanks for the guidebook suggestion. I’ll check it out.

Chris - Very cool stuff. I love reading about people who have very eclectic loves like that and can make careers out of them.

Thought you might find this video interesting:

http://www.elizajane.com/bio.html

She bought an ambulance and drove it around the U.S., recording accents and dialects:

J

http://adventuresinvoluntarysimplicity.blogspot.com/

Thanks for the note. You’re sort of in the situation I’m sort of trying to avoid by doing my traveling early in life before I’ve gathered much stuff. Which isn’t to say that I don’t have more than I need at my parent’s place, but at least most of what’s there is easily packable in boxes and isn’t furniture or larger items.

Good luck with your travels! Hope everything goes smoothly for you and you get lots of good pictures taken!

Sorry couldn’t resist.

nice blog, by the way. glad i stumbled upon it.

My current sitch is making me consider van dwelling. Although it’d technically car car dwelling. It’s won’t be easy to live in a Mustang. It’s so cramped. Thought about trading it in, but that’s when I realized that I’m thinking trading in a new car just to solve 3 month long bunking situation.

You write interesting posts. Been all the way back to entry one. :) Actually started from yer old blog.

@Joe,
Riverside Cali? All of inland empire is a pretty small (read not much to do) place. Although Riverside is still more fun than the surrounding Redlands, Yucaipa or Loma Linda.

However, go to Barnes and Noble during the day and just read books. You will enjoy. They have some collection! Plus you could have a cup of joe (bad pun), and sit around reading. You could meet other people as well. It’s well air conditioned and no one will be upset if you spend more time there. They want people to spend more time there.

The Coffee Bean also allow free wifi, so you could sit there and surf teh internets.

Good luck.

I agree with Lo about being positive when you tell people about what you are doing. I’ve had a friend respond by saying that I am having way too much fun with this. When I tell people what i’m doing, I tell them that i’m basically camping for a year, however, they just dont get it. I dont argue with them or try to persuade them to understand, but if they ask questions, i’m happy to answer them.

On another note, I received good news today that my student loan went through. I’ve been looking for places to share/live on Craigslist and it is roughly coming to around 500 incl. utilities. It seems that now that i’ve gotten a taste of this lifestyle, I feel that I can do this and I would hate to be a quitter. The real fear was just stepping out of my comfort zone. After that, everything seems to be working but with a little more effort on certain things. I’m pretty sure i’m going to stay with this as long as I can. I dont think I could go back to paying for rent, when I know that this option is available.

Sorry Jessica for using this as my journal entry. Once I start writing, I just keep going. Hey Lo, what ethnicity is your bf and yourself and what part of cali do you live?

You’re right when you point out that people who WANT to be snubbed will find ways to SEE themselves snubbed. I dress, smell and look normal. I think the closest I’ve come to being condescended to is when I get a look of uncertainty while I’m cooking with my doors open. Sometimes passers-by will give me a quick look of surprise. It’s not positive or negative - people just don’t see van-cooking every day.

I contend that nobody is getting snubbed unless they’re doing more than just living in a vehicle. You can get the stink eye for getting caught ’showering’ in the sink at a Denny’s, and some people give the stink eye to anyone with tattoos and piercings. Vandwelling, in and of itself, doesn’t garner much attention. If someone is a snobby asshole, they’ll never find out where I live, ’cause I just won’t bring it up. If a snobby asshole happens to discover me, I doubt they’ll say one word. I’ll give a big smile and move right along with plan A: living life.

I agree with your viewpoints here, and think you worded your thoughts very well. It’s exactly how you said it.

What I would say is that, at least within the circle of people I know here in DC, finding out that someone lives in a car/van can definitely elicit more than just pity. What’s super weird is that I have a feeling that there may be more ill will towards a vandweller that does NOT NEED to live in a vehicle but is doing it for other reasons. It challenges certain people’s sense of self in a way that feeling pity for someone who is down on their luck does not. Even if it is not verbalized, there are definitely people who will automatically harbor negative feelings towards a vandweller. On the othere hand, if you don’t really experience it that often, why should the vandweller really care?

I think you’re right. If you engage in fringe behaviors, society/media will call you a freak, but not necessarily individual people. But once you become convinced of your own oddness, and feel shunned by society, you will look for examples to back up your beliefs. This is a fundamental human trait that applies to almost anything, not just being weird. We give undue weight to evidence that supports our own prejudice.

Even though I live in post-racial America (ha!) in ultra-tolerant California, it’s still very unusual in my area to see interracial couples. At first, living here and dating my boyfriend, I really noticed when we got looks. Then I started looking for them, and my opinion that we were judged and different was verified anytime anyone looked at us. But hell, people might have looked at us because we wear funny t-shirts, they think I’m hot, who knows? There’s no question that we are treated differently as a couple than I am alone, but even that has decreased dramatically over the last year.

Or has it? I really doubt that society has changed drastically over a few months. The real reason it happens less is that I’m not looking for it anymore, so I don’t see it. Maybe it’s still happening and I’m oblivious, but the most likely explanation is that it was mainly all in my head.

I spent my entire childhood, adolescence, and part of adulthood believing that I was so “weird,” and out of the mainstream. When I got sober, I dropped that completely and constantly emphasized in my mind the ways that I’m the same as everyone else. Only then, when I stopped believing I was unusual, did I actually become unusual.

But so what? Nearly everyone has something weird about them. If you live in a van, your quirk is more visible than most, but do you honestly believe that any of these “normal” people don’t have some twisted, fucked-up part of themselves? Of course they do!

The reality is that most people keep their uniqueness hidden. It’s a shame, because if everything were laid bare to the world, most would find their secrets are not so strange at all. Those who are most ruled by fear become judgmental of other’s oddity to protect what they consider to be something evil or wrong in themselves. It also means that they’re isolated in their fear, likely believing that no one but them finds ear wax to be sexy, or like to drink pickle juice out of the bottle, or cheat on their wife with older men, or whatever.

So when someone judges me, I’m most likely to feel compassion. I don’t tolerate it, simply walking away from the most abusive. If they’re only mildly rude, I don’t defend myself but rather describe all the advantages for me personally (this makes it much less threatening!) and if they’re still hating (they never are), drop it. I don’t tell anyone why they should walk instead of driving, I merely describe how I got rid of my car as an experiment and found my life drastically changed for the better. As Jessica does, just talk about how much you love your lifestyle, and emphasize “it’s great FOR ME.”

I have unknowingly convinced people to try carlessness this way on a couple occasions (that I know about, maybe there have been many more!) using this method. The cashier at quiznos tells me: “Hey, I started walking to work! You made it sound so great I decided to try it and wow you were right.”

Finally, remember that people will react much more to your tone and courtesy than the fact that you live in a van. If someone is giving you a hard time, their problem is likely with you more than the van.

And hey, you never know. Maybe that uptight soccer mom had a rough time 10 years ago and was forced to live out of her car and turn to prostitution. You’ll never convince her that vandwelling is romantic or awesome, but who cares if you convince her? You like it, she didn’t. So what?

J

http://adventuresinvoluntarysimplicity.blogspot.com/

Second, I tend to ignore people who question other people’s lifestyles.

J

http://adventuresinvoluntarysimplicity.blogspot.com/

Like I said before, I’ve never been a journal type of person but do you have any suggestions about what to write in the posts?

My journal website is http://livinginthecar.livejournal.com

I’ve got no real solution for coolers during the heat. I have a little cooler that plugs into the cigerette lighter, but it’s no real good. After a while, I just give up on having anything stay cold, and buy things as I need/want them.

Things are going alright. I’m struggling to find things to do, plus I live in Riverside, which is constantly over 100 degrees everyday. The temperature makes it unbearable to stay inside the car. I tried to leave the cooler in my car, but since it is so hot, the ice melts too fast. So my solution was keeping it in my storage unit. That way I wont be spending too much money on ice. Right now i’m just constantly bored because I have nothing to do until my school starts. Once school comes around and the temperature cools down, I think things will be easier. I’m pretty committed on doing this and it is saving me a lot of money each month, which is great.

Joe - Sorry I’m not very good with the daily posting! Glad you’ve liked the website. I have a couple new things I’m working on for it too. How’s the car living going for you so far? Have you found ways to make it work?

Luke, glad it went well. Organization definitely comes with time. You might want to check out an article I wrote for the Indie travel podcast a while back with a list of good places to park. I have written a future article about modifications I recommend for making a vehicle livable.

Screens with velcro would definitely solve the ventilation issue, thanks for the tip!

I was like, um.. thanks?

To people I don’t see very often (our volunteers, for example who I see only for a couple hours a couple times a year) I wouldn’t be surprised by this reaction.

I thought it was clear without me having to constantly say that I’m doing living in my car because I want to. In fact, I feel that if you do constantly say that it’s because you’re not doing it because you want to.

Despite my comment about commutes and rent, I totally get why that works for some people. I’m not a vandweller who hates the corporate lifestyle. For the right job I’d go back. It has pluses and minuses just like living in the car does. Right now, this is what I want to be doing, but I have no expectations of doing it forever.

Luke - I don’t really do anything to handle it, actually. Just keep my windows up, but I don’t often stay in really hot muggy places where I’d really want to have a breeze. But I heard of making screens though and it’d be pretty easy. The wonders of Velcro once again. ;) One side around the car windows the other on a piece of screen material, (when I worked in a glass and screen shop we sold it for something like 50 cents a square foot). It’s the sort of thing I’d only want to use if I were in a camp ground, though. Not super stealthy. I’ve heard of people putting vents in the bottom of their vans, but I don’t know how to do that. More construction than I have ability or desire to do.

Good luck tonight! Come back and leave a comment about how it went.

I’m about to start living in a Jeep Grand Cherokee, tonight’s the first night actually, and one issue I can’t quite come up with a solution for is what to do about keeping airflow coming into the vehicle at night but keeping bugs out. How do you handle this, especially when you’re in campgrounds?

Of course, I know why you’re living in your car, so it doesn’t seem crazy to me. And I’m definitely jealous at times (although not enough to give up the lifestyle I have - yet!).

Heather - I’ve never even owned a dog so I’m not the best person to ask. There’s plenty of vandwellers who have dogs (I recommend Hobostripper.com) You should also check out Daniel’s Big Trip. He just finished a big trip around the country with his dog in a station wagon.

My brother has a friend who lived for a short time(I think month or two over the summer) in her compact car with her dog. As I recall she said the biggest issue was what to do with him during the day when she was at work because she couldn’t always take him in with her. If you’re planning on traveling though this wouldn’t really be an issue. I’ll try to get a hold of her and see if she has any tips.

As for your second question about some tips, I’m actually working on an article for the Indie Travel Podcast about this. It’s only about half done, but I think it’s going to end up being my article for next month. The one that’s coming to my mind right now is the importance of both tinting your windows AND making some curtains, at least if you’re planning on living in it for a while. Tinting keeps people from noticing you’re in there and the curtains keep you from being bothered by them. It’s amazing how secluded my car feels when I’ve put the curtains.

I’ll come up with some good ones later.

Elizabeth - Heh. I try to mask it as best I can by thinking of the silver lining. Only 5 months of work a year at a job I like, vast amounts of time to do what I want and money in the bank. It’s tough, but I struggle on.

So I actually have two questions for you, and possible ideas for posts.

If I made this trip, it would be with my dog, my best buddy of the past 8 years. He’s gone on shorter trips (3 hours LA -> San Diego, and 3 days LA -> Seattle) so I know that he is a good passenger. Do you think car living is possible with a pet? I ask because it can be hard to find hotels that even allow animals.

Second question: What are some things to avoid doing or perhaps, what do you wish people had told you before starting out? Things that maybe wouldn’t occur to someone until they started trying car living.

Thanks for a very interesting and well-written blog.

Where are you recycling the computers? I have an old laptop to get rid of (the one that a drunken Ben broke the screen on, I might add :) )

Good luck with it today!