This post might be the downsides to van life or times when van life is not fun. Because let’s face it, there are downsides to van life. Everything is not sunshine and rainbows so we are going to list nine downsides to van life that we wish we knew before we took it over.
This post is for all of you aspiring van lifers or anybody that wants to live van life.
For anybody that lives van life right now, you’ll get a laugh out of this. We basically gonna go over all the things we wish we knew before i started van life
#1: Pooping In A Van
If you’re living van life, you’re probably gonna pee in your van and you’re probably gonna poop in your van. If you have a partner, you’re probably gonna be pooping and/or peeing in front of your partner or at least in the same van.
This is gross !!
We don’t really want to talk about this but if you’re not putting all of the pieces together and realizing there’s situations where you can’t get to a toilet.
You might not be somewhere where you can jump out and dig a hole. You’re definitely going to run into instances where you either have a toilet setup.
That is a little bit more sophisticated or you’re gonna be pooping in a bag or pooping in a bucket.
None of these things are what you see on social media in relation to hashtag van life so just keep in mind that you’re probably gonna poop in a bag at some point and or you might be cleaning up your partner’s poop.
If you have a dog, you’re used to picking up their poops. It’s not that big of a deal to you.
#2: Filling up water supply
Everyone knows that when you’re moving into an RV or a van you have a finite supply of water. That’s obvious but when it actually comes down to it your water supply is so precious.
Every time you want to rinse a piece of fruit, you want to brush your teeth, you want to fill up a water bottle , you have to use your water
When you’re in urban environments and you know where your next water fill station is it’s not a big deal but sometimes when you’re traveling, you don’t know when you’re gonna be able to fill up clean and purified drinking water .
Therefore, filling up water becomes very stressful . Basically you become a water snob. You become obsessive with saving water. That’s one of the reasons that we have in nature sets.
We literally do dishes with probably two cups of water that you’d be amazed at how frugal you become or conservative you become with your water
#3: Shower
if you have a shower in your van, you have the luxury of being able to shower whenever you want but showering uses up your precious water supply
Therefore something I wish I knew before moving into the van is that even with a shower, you’re only gonna use it when you absolutely need to
so you have to get used to being a little bit dirtier than you want to be. Think about how many times we shower per week on average, I’d say we probably shower in our van about twice a week
so you get really creative at getting yourself clean in other ways that don’t use water but definitely something you should know is that having a shower does not mean you’ll be able to use it all the time
#4: Your car is now your house
Your car is now your house which sounds cool. You can take your house anywhere you want. You can travel to exotic destinations. You can park down the street
You can do anything you want but if somebody breaks into your house maybe they steal some things but in van life when somebody breaks into your house, it’s somewhat probable that they will drive away with your house
Someone can literally steal your entire house and you might not ever find it again.
That’s not something that happens with a regular house. No one can go inside your house and pick it up and move it and take it somewhere where you can’t find it
And the worst part is most of the time insurance companies won’t even cover what the vehicle is worth. It won’t even cover what you put into the vehicle.
They cover the Blue Book value which means you might get half of what your van actually is even worth from the insurance company after someone steals your house
This is an added level of stress that a lot of people don’t think about
#5: Someone can crash into your “house”
Someone can crash into your house or you can crash your own house. This is definitely a huge added layer of stress.
There is a lot of pressure to drive your house if something happens everything you own is at stake even if you do get into a little fender bender .If your van has to go to the shop to fix for a couple weeks or a month, where are you gonna live ?
#6: You are always dirty
You are always dirty or you’re always cleaning. The van is a small space. You get a couple of people maybe a dog or a cat in that small space. You get dog hair, sand , dirt
Let’s say you’re hanging out with your window or the door open and the wind blows and a bunch of dust goes in. It will cover your entire “house”
You pick up a blanket with dust everywhere. You have to sweep probably four or five times a day. You constantly cleaning the countertop and the floor
#7: Noise
If you’re a light sleeper , you’re gonna have a hard time sleeping . If you are in an urban environment trying to stealth camp, it will take you a really long time to get used to the noises of the street
When you’re living in a van, you don’t have a bedroom to go back to. You don’t have a house in a quiet neighborhood all the time and when you’re parked in an urban setting, your bedroom is on the street or in the middle of the city
There’s dogs, cars and people making a lot of noises. It will take you a really long time to get used to it
You can either have a fan running in the background. I know there’s even some apps on your phone for white noise. Therefore you have to learn to get used to it.
This is definitely something I wish I knew before living in a van is how noisy it can be when you’re trying to sleep.
#8: Weather
You’re really at the mercy of the weather. Whether it’s hot or cold or raining or snowing , you can’t really get out of the elements except for inside your vehicle.
The worst thing is rain because it makes the inside of your van extremely humid.
Everything gets wet . You can’t open any windows or doors or else. Rain and water starts to come in which means it’s hard to get ventilation and if it rains for days on end, you don’t want to go out and get muddy.
You don’t want to let the dog outside. You’re just kind of trapped in this humid car until it stops raining. This is just our personal opinion.
#9: Height restrictions
If your vehicle is a lot taller than you’re anticipating, there’s gonna be places that you want to go where you can’t because of how tall you are.
They could be parking garages or drive throughs or some streets where there’s low-hanging trees. There are trees which are super low but as you can see they grow across the street so you definitely have a possibility of running into them
This is something you have to keep in mind especially if you have a weboost or solar panels or a roof vent fan that’s sticking up higher than your vehicle
If you catch that on something, it could cause a lot of damage
so if you’re somebody who really likes to shop especially at the mall you might run into an issue when you try to get into a parking garage to go pick something up just another downside so basically those are nine things that we wish we knew before moving into the van life
These downsides of van life are definitely not outweighed by the positive for sure. There’s probably a hundred things that are positive about van life but everybody sees those painted all over social media
Hopefully you guys won’t be scared away from van life because we think van life is awesome.
If you want to share your thoughts or ideas, please feel free to leave them in the comment box below.
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Source: Trent & Allie
