my plan so far

[steveh2112]

so as some of you may have noticed, i've been posting a lot the last few days. thanks to everyone for all the great info. we are looking forward to my daughter finishing school then off to Univ next year, and my wife getting a green card, so we can start on our USA life next spring. (oh, and there's the small detail of selling the house. anyone want a 5 bedroom pool villa, 2 miles from the beach in Phuket Thailand? anyhow, sell or not, we are coming over, we can always rent it out)

i'm pretty sure i'll get something like an Astro passenger van with the seats taken out. stealthy enough to fit in, in an urban environment and easy maintenance, reasonable mpg. i want to set up a full size mattress permanently with enough head room to sit up in bed. i'll make a simple plywood platform for the bed with storage underneath. the bed will fold up to make a sofa. that's about it for van mods (except a winch on the front), no kitchen, no built it furniture, etc, i figure all that just adds cost, weight and takes away space. all other storage in stack-able plastic crates that we put in the cargo area when on the road and move to front seats or outside when parked.

we'd also have one of those SUV tents stuck to the back of the van for a kitchen/living room, and one of those camping shower tent things for shower and a camping toilet.

i'd get a small generator for electric and emergency charge, a 12V fridge and some solar panels for the fridge.

my plan is to park the van up most of the time in dispersed and other free camping about 1-2hrs from Boulder CO (spring-fall only, winter back in Thailand). then get a small dual sport bike loaded to the hilt with luggage racks, to get us, our dirty laundry, food, water, beer, and whatever else we need in and out of town most days. then try find some kind of work in town to pay the bills which hopefully aren't too many.

once every 14 days we have to move the van i guess so maybe take a road trip to yellowstone or somewhere for a few days.

i figure a 2002-2004 Astro van, 100-200k miles about $5-7k, bike $2000, camping stuff and van mods $2000, insurance $1000 so that's about $10-12k plus gas and living expenses.

so that's the plan in a nutshell. anyone see a problem with it?

 

[ttpadilla]

I don't know enough to see a problem, and it sounds good to me! You've probably already seen this, but what about doing this for laundry rather than trying to haul it (and detergent) back and forth on a bike?

http://www.cheaprvliving.com/how-to-articles/laundry-five-gallon-buckets/

Throw up a quick clothesline, and you're done!

Tammi

 

[steveh2112]

my wife is anal about clendlyness (so how are we going to live in a van in the woods you might ask!). i'm also a bit concerned about getting water, it looks like a lot of sites here http://www.fs.usda.gov/activity/arp/recreation/camping-cabins/?recid=28024&actid=34 don't have water so i may have to haul it in from somewhere on the bike which i assume isn't easy.

any thoughts about getting water in CO in the summer in the mountains? i doubt collecting rain is reliable enough. can you dig a hole and find some? i haven't really research that yet.

ACTUALLY, i take that back, all of those site have streams, but i imagine some places it could be a problem.

 

[ttpadilla]

Colorado is a good choice for water in the summer. Much better than California!

 

[akrvbob]

steveh, I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but I don't think it's realistic in any way. Very few couples can handle life together in a van and a tiny percentage of those can handle a couple in an Astro.

You're going to have to be extreme minimalists.
Bob

 

[steveh2112]

Thai girls are a lot easier to live with than white women (based on my limited experience of married twice).

i suspect i'm going to get some shit that that!

 

[jimindenver]

Water in the mountains can be a pain. I would have to make a 100 mile round trip to get water from where I camp and pay for it to boot. The town nearest has gas and beer but no water or trash drop off for the tourist.

Now in the metro areas you shouldn't have as much issue. I generally fill up at home with more water than we will use in two weeks so it hasn't been a issue.

 

[Almost There]

Steve, I tried living as a single for an extended period of time in an Astro that I converted to a camper.

I should say I lived OUT of an Astro rather than in it. There's a difference. I had a 10 x 10 canopy attached to the van when set up that provided me with living space and a kitchen.

For one person it was tight inside. Two would be pushing both the space and the relationship far past their limits. Outside was fine but you can't always count on the weather being suitable for living completely outside. The 10x10 was more than adequate for my needs.

I had a bed that pulled out from sofa/single size to form a double. In an Astro, once the bed was pulled out there was very little room for anything except the porta pottie. You had to put the bed away to be able to get to the clothing storage. Well, okay I could lay on the floor with my legs hanging out the side door and get into the cupboards... Fortunately I also had a cargo trailer that held the kitchen and all the rest of my stuff.

If you really want to go the Astro/Safari route, you should seriously need to think about adding a small cargo trailer to the mix. Either build it out for living space and use the van for storage or use it to carry all the things that two people will need.

The toilet tent sounds good for daytime use but you better check with the wife to see how she feels about getting dressed at 3 AM to go out in the dark to use it at night. IIWM, I'd tell you no way, no how, don't even think about it, ain't gonna happen!

Taking the van to town for shopping, laundry etc will be far more practical than 2 on a bike. Think about how much space groceries and laundry take up for 2 people for a week. I look at my groceries and a weeks laundry for one person and know that it's not going to fit on the back of a sports bike even with one rider let alone 2 and forget room for the beer....

The sports bike might be handy for you running back and forth for work if you can find it. I'd actually wait on buying one until you need it for work. I don't want to be too much of a downer on your plans but as someone who moved back home after 14 years living in a different country, I had an incredibly hard time finding work. I had no current local employment references and ended up taking a really menial minimum wage job just to put food on the table. I hope you don't find the employment situation as horrible as I did but you should be prepared for it.

The budget should work but you don't have anything in there for emergencies.

 

[dunjuz_van]

I think you're in for a huge surprise once you actually get out 'in it' as they say. I completely agree with the small utility trailer idea. Sounds like 'Adventure City' tho, and definitely keep a log of your trials and tribe.

 

[akrvbob]

Try to be fairly near a USFS Ranger station, you can almost always get water and dump your trash there. You can get water from most campgrounds (not all). But not all will let you drop your trash.

A simple backpackers filter will treat all the water you need for the summer and creeks are common all over the Rockies.. I prefer the gravity filters. Easy, cheap, simple and foolproof. Figure two gallons a day for two of you as a minimum and that's without showers.

Your Thai wife many not appreciate the cold. You only have three months of summer. May and September can go either way, be nice or miserable. On a heavy snow year the mountain roads won't open until mid-June--or later. The backroads you'll be camping on aren't plowed in the winter.

You'll need to set up a nice outside camp to make it bearable. You'll keep the mosquitoes well fed!!!!
Bob

 

[steveh2112]

all great info, thanks. i'll look into the trailer idea although i think i'd rather store extra stuff on the roof.

i can imagine that once the novelty/adventure factor has worn off, van living could turn out to be a pain in the behind. i'm not morally opposed to finding a cheap, short term rental unit to live in. just looking around craigslist, it seems the cheaper summer rentals are in ski country, not Boulder, which is find except harder to find a job there i think.

i am a very experienced computer programmer so ideally i'd find some kind of technical job (programming, tech writing, tech support, etc) in which case we'd set up shop more permanently anyhow.

 

[steveh2112]

i guess the alternative to a van is a small RV, or towing a tent trailer but then i'd have to double or triple my budget. at that point, i think i'd rather just find a cheap rental.

i want to try reduce the complexity of my life, less stuff, get down to basics, so i guess i need to make an inventory of all the stuff i think we actually NEED and figure out how much space to store it.

it seems that these rooftop cargo boxes are made for SUVs and minivans. http://www.amazon.com/SportRack-SR7...c/dp/B00BCLL7VM/ref=pd_sim_sbs_auto_4?ie=UTF8
i guess i could make something bigger or put 2 of those on the roof

 

[steveh2112]

An Astro van is 77" wide, so i guess is the roof is a bit less than that but not much, its pretty square in the back
so i put this on http://www.realtruck.com/bully-van-rack/R183241P2002Y72MA.html if it doesn't have one already
and 2 of these http://www.amazon.com/Thule-669ES-Mountaineer-Rooftop-Cargo/dp/B00152VYNE/ref=zg_bs_6389525011_18

that adds 34cuft storage for about $1000

also, i worked out there should be enough space in an Astro for a full size mattress and a camping toilet like this
http://www.amazon.com/Camping-Porta...6FA2/ref=sr_1_6?ie=UTF8&qid=1425864885&sr=8-6
we can put a curtain around it for a bit of privacy.

my wife has seen some van living videos on youtube and is ok with it. she grew up in a house with a dirt floor, sheet metal roof and bits of coconut trees for walls, so she's willing to try less than 5 star comfort for a while

 

[steveh2112]

i just checked the avg night time temp in Nederland, CO, which is where most of the dispersed camping is
http://www.usclimatedata.com/climate/nederland/colorado/united-states/usco0652

that is cold at night, even in mid summer. i'm used to Yosemite in the summer, this is a lot colder! guess we'll be cranking up the buddy heater a lot