New York Times article - How NOT to experience van life........

[Calaverasgrande]

wow that articel is less about van life and more about what a wreck the author is.
Also, that van conversion they rented seems terrible. Just a 12 passenger church van with some kind of folding bed thing and a terrible paintjob.

 

[Catalyst1]

Was it politics, though? Bob talks about similar things in his books and videos. But okay.

Philosophy. Bob is a philosopher extraordinaire.

 

[thebarefootbadger]

Hmmm. I do believe there IS a strong and concerted effort by those who would profit off it to keep the wheels of unfettered capitalism on the rails. There's a lot of propaganda aimed towards selling people against living simply and sustainably without being in massive debt.

I would NOT doubt that there is backlash against the movement of people getting out of the mortgage or rent/wage slave/debtors spiral. I've seen a lot of articles and videos about "the hidden downsides" of tiny house/nomadic living, as well as about the supposed waves of regret after "The Great Resignation." The latter articles especially (even on NPR!) have been total fluff with no actual supporting evidence that the people who have left their jobs are actually sorry, just a few stories about how a few were disappointed when they thought they got better jobs and found that their new employers were even more exploitative than the previous ones. Which to me, is an even stronger argument for abandoning the rat race and finding new ways to live.

Those that have a vested interest in keeping most Americans locked into this cycle so that they can make money off it constantly produce content to keep people buying. Magazine articles in why you need to update your house's style and what to buy and how many thousands of dollars it will cost you but how it's worth it. Or what the latest new convenience is that you HAVE to have to make your life "easier". Or glamour pieces on huge splashy homes, etc. Why wouldn't they produce content to keep people afraid of leaving a life revolving around conventionally built sticks and bricks and wage slave jobs?

After I was widowed, had to give up my house, and chose hike the Pacific Crest Trail, I realized what a sham it all is. You don't need a lot to live happily. My biggest concern is taking care of my two cats (who I left with a trusted friend to hike), or I'd be doing a small van build myself. As it is, a 26' 1995 Class A should be more than sufficient. Yes, it's taking a lot of time and money to launch, but once we do, I'm hoping to live in a way that keeps me debt free for the rest of my days.

I have to laugh at the puff pieces whining about how hard it is to live on the road, or in a small space etc. Actual nomads and tiny house dwellers do have legitimate struggles and hardships, but they go beyond the crap I've read that is supposed to make people reconsider doing it. Things like how you have to be more organized and not buy as much stuff. Or how you have to be cleaner or it smells bad. Or how much harder it is to have big dinner parties. Oh no, how terribl

Nice thread! You're right too. I think some people still believe in being that hamster on the wheel. ..and love that role
Me myself see my once nice neighborhood going through deteration.
I don't want to be one of those seniors that got stuck in the sticks and bricks and can't move or there's no place to go.
I'm still working on my 1992 camper van and hope to test the waters.
I could use a little adventure in my life and some clarity.
I love having the option of being a nomad as things change you change.

I know a lot of hamsters who have no idea they are hamsters. Just never wanted to live an examined life at all, or even consider the idea of considering the idea.

 

[CosmickGold]

I noticed she had a negative attitude at the start of her article, so I stopped reading it right there, realizing it meant she'd be slinging mud on anything she looked at. I have no reason to want to put caustic junk in my head.

Stay positive, and life around you will too. We find what we look for, and experience what we most believe in.

 

[Morgana]

I noticed she had a negative attitude at the start of her article, so I stopped reading it right there, realizing it meant she'd be slinging mud on anything she looked at.

Mostly she was poking fun at herself rather than slinging mud.

There's a whole -- what would you call it? genre? trope? meme? trend? thing that writers do, anyway ... of humorously showing your own flaws and/or the flaws of an (over-)idealized situation. You see it in some travel writing and memoirs, or think of any fictional anti-hero. It can be brilliant, and very joyful, when done well. This was not done particularly well.

 

[Bunpoh]

I'm just struggling to see where we got political. And in the end, the personal is political. Most of what was said is stuff Bob has actually said himself. There was one post that talked about 60's hippie infiltration by government agents trying to control a subculture (which is actually well documented and not a "conspiracy theory") and the possibility that negative propaganda was being produced now in a similar manner.

My response is that it doesn't need to be that nefarious or a conspiracy theory to be true...that we're constantly surrounded by commerical social engineering to keep the fat cats fat.

I don't actually think it's political as much as it's the very core of why Bob writes and makes videos and has RTRs...we all need encouragement that it IS possible, because we are constantly being fed a lie that it's NOT, and that it makes us dirty hobos and bad citizens to be nomads. I got a small taste of it on the Pacific Crest Trail. We humorously called ourselves "hiker trash" because of how we were viewed by many people. Understanding the enormous social and legal pressure to not be nomadic seems important to me.

I understand that her piece was meant to be humor aimed at a specific upper middle class zoomer demographic, and of the type that pokes fun at one's own ineptness and anxiety. But it a bigger sense, the fact that someone can write a piece that is supposedly about "van life" (when she was actually writing about an expensive van camping vacation) without any acknowledgement of the reality of so many people's lives where they have no choice but to live this way, or the actual real reasons one would choose it rather than Instagram pictures and being a la mode speaks to me of a tone deaf culture of privilege. Also one that highlights how "impossible" it would be to choose something different than is expected, to give up the daily comforts of how everyone is supposed to live, in houses and apartments. Its cluelessness is at least partly a result of how we are so programmed. The fact that it's published in a major paper, even though so annoyingly written, to me, speaks volumes. Not a conspiracy, not political more than everything is, just more commercial pressure to stay in place and keep your nose to the grindstone. How the average person's anxiety and ineptness means that they shouldn't even consider doing something different.

 

[Morgana]

But it a bigger sense, the fact that someone can write a piece that is supposedly about "van life" (when she was actually writing about an expensive van camping vacation) without any acknowledgement of the reality of so many people's lives...

Totally agree that this

The fact that it's published in a major paper, even though so annoyingly written, to me, speaks volumes.

I'm a semi-retired copyeditor and I never ceased to be baffled by the extremely wide range of quality that makes it into publication (including pretty cr@ppy stuff published by prestigious institutions or written by high-ranking experts). Some stuff just slips through ... pretty much everywhere. (Not to mislead; personally I never worked for anyplace like the New York Times.) But OTOH, has anyone had a career where you did not see some pretty skeezy stuff slip through?

I agree (at least I think this agrees with you) that it's less of an intentional political or economic conspiracy and more careless assumptions and lack of curiosity. Sometimes I think those things do more harm than the intentional conspiracies. Always be asking!

 

[Cagey]

I ran across that article too. Although the writing was okay, it was really only about her personality and not vanlife in any consideration. Some people should just stay indoors.

Truly: as only one example, the number of paragraphs expended on an absurd (purely invented?) suffocation phobia was bizarre (perhaps it was done simply to meet a word-count quota? i.e. filler?).

wow that articel is less about van life and more about what a wreck the author is.

Or the author's generation (ducks)?

Would I be wrong if I said that there's more than one kind of van-dwelling? and that she seemed to be trying (however half-heartedly) to check out the more luxurious-cocoon end, rather than the self-reliant / community-building / adventurous end?

I agree.

IMO the gulf between my perception of vanlife as lived by forum members (and shown on Bob's YouTube channel and the many like it) and that which the article's author made a slight attempt to experience, is embodied in the '#' character used in the headline of the article (and frequently within it). The article was about a hashtagged meme #VanLife, created and defined by a social media milleu that I personally (and I suspect most forum members also) am completely disconnected from. I suspect this disconnect is largely generational: I grew up pre-internet/cellphone and while I am a (retired) software developer, I never partook of the social/cultural aspects of the www (forums such as these are about as far as I am willing to go along this path).

The article/writer states this explicitly (all highlights mine):

This time, I would spend a week in California, living out of a converted camper van, in pursuit of the aesthetic fantasy known as #VanLife. Living full time out of a vehicle has become aspirational for a subset of millennials and Zoomers, [...]

and later

To prepare for this regular-shaped mission, I threw myself into the #VanLife corners of TikTok and Instagram. Accounts of popular “vanlifers,” as they are known, are an infinite
reservoir of gorgeous, unpeopled scenery previously encountered only in desktop backgrounds: sunrise canyons, sunset oceans, high-noon highways that stretch on, carless,
forever.

She evidently did not throw herself into vanlivingforum.com (hah!).

Reinforcing the deluxe lifestyle ("glamping"?) aspect of the version of #VanLife being tasted:

Our $70-per-person overnight fee included use of the resort’s spring-fed soaking tubs, [...]

I could certainly relate to their experience in Yosemite, but my excuse was that I experienced the massive overcrowding in the pre-internet era (1980's), where I had no practical alternative but to "fly blind". In 2022, only a tiny amount of research effort online would have revealed the existence of this "challenge".

I'll just leave this last article quote, which I'm sure was meant to be self-deprecating, but contains (much) more than a grain of truth:

I flop between my bed and my couch, typing up inane thoughts all day with my laptop on my stomach.

 

[Calaverasgrande]

I think a lot of it boils down to the bright, airy, cheerful Youtube and Instagram accounts which strive to portray van life as a never ending vacation with no bug bites, toilet issues or piles of clutter.
The best Youtube channel I've seen for accurate portrayal of the diversity of van lifers is https://www.youtube.com/c/NewJerseyOutdoorAdventures
The host does videos on maxed out adventure vans for guys with deep pockets, to retired grandmas living out of Toyota Siennas.
Some of his stuff strays heavily into sponsored content territory. But those are brief.

Honestly the NYT article doesn't feel like a gotcha or heavy handed exposè.
It's just trite fluff. The kind news outlets manufacture by the truckload.
At least it isn't painting van lifers as drug addicts or dangerous terrorists.

 

[NomadCat]

I have to laugh at the puff pieces whining about how hard it is to live on the road, or in a small space etc.

Completely agree that we can expect resistance from our (former) corporate masters, lest the other slaves start getting ideas…

And the difficulties! LOL. For the most part, the same difficulties most humans in most times and places have lived with. Being able to use tech and fossil fuels to create a perpetual comfort bubble around oneself is a very recent phenomenon, still available to only a minority of living humans. Hasn’t been good for the planet, either.

 

[user 29855]

NomadCat, I agree with you! I have spent time in countries and areas where "house" was either a tarp, or for the rich folks, a hut.

Pet the cat for me.

 

[Sofisintown]

The article is result of a 'mission': Her boss told her to go vanlife herself for a week, and she did.
I also lack memories from jobs I had in the past. Jobs that didn't held my interest, and my foggy reoccurring memories of them is "So much Solitaire!"

 

[user 423]

Her boss told her to go vanlife herself...

What a naughty boy.

 

[wanderin.pat]

I'm not a boondocker at this time, but this reminds me of the kind of thing that I experienced when I lived in Colorado. I always appreciated when people would post in places like California or Texas what a terrible place to live that Colorado was. By the way, it really sucks. I don't live there anymore, but I got to watch out for my friends. To be a little more clear, the place just keeps getting more and more crowded.

So, clearly, the nomad life is NOT FOR EVERYONE. So, frankly when someone dumps on it, that's one less person who will go limp and complain consistently about how messed up it is.

I'm currently living in an RV Park. It just so happens that my neighbor 3 sites down is someone I met at the RTR in 2017, and listened to them and read their comments on the older cheaprvliving.com forum complain about the quality of the FREE help they were getting. My opinion is she should stay OFF of the road and the nomad life.

That applies to myself as well; though for different reasons. I'm stuck here for the time being. Maybe for good. But dear Lord, I do miss that life sometimes.

Pat

 

[CosmickGold]

The article is result of a 'mission': Her boss told her to go vanlife herself for a week, and she did.
I also lack memories from jobs I had in the past. Jobs that didn't held my interest, and my foggy reoccurring memories of them is "So much Solitaire!"

What article? I'd really like to see it, but your link https://www.youtube.com/sofisintown goes to a channel instead of a video or article.

 

[jacqueg]

What article? I'd really like to see it, but your link https://www.youtube.com/sofisintown goes to a channel instead of a video or article.

As noted at post #37 above, posted by the other CosmickGold I guess, you can read it here - https://archive.ph/FtkCN

 

[CosmickGold]

As noted at post #37 above, posted by the other CosmickGold I guess, you can read it here - https://archive.ph/FtkCN

Nope. Only one CosmickGold here. I simply got lost.
Next, I'll probably stand in front of a full-length mirror, asking the guy in front of me why he won't turn around and show me his back.

 

[wanderin.pat]

No politics or conspiracy theories please.

Ah, come on, man!! I was just going to expose ALL KINDS of stuff!!! Darn it!