hi my name is gabby schulz & recently, moving back into a mobile residence has seemed mighty appealing to me.<br><br>i used to live in an isuzu NPR box truck, the box of which had been converted by a previous owner into something extremely livable. me and a friend converted it to run on veggie oil, and i lived in the thing for a couple of years, traveling up the west coast and then across to vermont to take a fellowship at a cartoon school. <br><br>i sold the truck right before my second vermont winter, because i hated to see the rig slowly dying in the northern cold. i spent the next few years back in normal, central-heating, AC power, refrigerator & shower Real Rent world, and moved to brooklyn when a friend offered me real, real cheap rent.<br><br>now that friend and her husband are divorcing & they're both leaving the apartment, meaning i gotta go too. and since the idea of living in some bedbug-infested tenement room for $700 is not at all appealing to me, the siren call of the housetruck life is calling to me again. (also i need someplace to store my stuff.)<br><br>this time i'm looking for something a little more modest than the NPR -- the high ceilings were real nice, but the mpg wasn't, and i only have a couple thousand to spend now anyway. so, toward that end, i've been checking out the site for conversion ideas to get reacquainted with fitting out a car for living. i think i've got my eye on some kind of cargo van, since they're cheap and durable and stealthy (stealth was a major consideration for me last time, since i was urban camping and not on national parks).<br><br>so, hello! if anyone's got any advice for me, specifically any leads on a used cargo van (diesel especially) for sale between $1k-$3k, i'd love to hear about it! i'm even thinking about moving somewhere west to buy one (somehow), since cars are cheaper & less rusty, and insurance s so much lower there than in new york. has anyone else here dealt with these issues? do you think it's possible to buy a van on the east coast & drive it west before insuring it? or is that totally insane? my future's pretty, ah, open-ended, like it is for so many americans in this economy, so i'd be open to just about any appealing option.<br><br>anyhow, hello again!<br>-gabby<br>www.gabbysplayhouse.com<br><br><br><br>