When we first got the idea of moving into a camper van, we had very little knowledge about exactly what it would take to live full-time in one. So, we did our research and took the plunge with only a few reservations. One of those was about where to live our new lifestyle.
Think about it… living in a camper van means you have no yard or garden space, so you can’t really make your home anywhere outside either a camper van park or a private residence. That meant we’d need to find somewhere that met just two basic criteria: 1) It would be cheap to rent 2)
It also wouldn’t cost us much money each month in order to maintain the place and keep it clean and tidy. As it turns out, renting a camper van is way cheaper than renting an apartment or house outside of any city.
Camper Van Rentals Are Cheaper Than RV Parks
For what it’s worth, we weren’t too surprised to find out that renting a camper van was way cheaper than a camper van park. We knew that, as an average camper van is expected to last roughly ten years, we could expect to pay a pretty penny for our lifestyle.
Marrying that with the fact that most camper van parks are typically located in rural areas (which is especially important to us as we don’t like being in a crowd or around other people) meant that the cost of living in an RV park would be relatively high.
Now, when it comes to the cost of renting a camper van, we were most surprised to find out that they are often cheaper than normal apartments. Why? Well, let’s step back and think about what a rental apartment would cost us.
The typical rental rate for a one-bedroom apartment would be around $800 a month, but camper van rentals are far less. If you’re renting a small van, you can get one that’s a lot smaller, which will save you money. The main reason rental vans are cheaper than apartments is that you don’t need expensive property to put a camper van in.
All you need is a parking space, a power outlet, and a place to plug in the fridge and electrical cords for the rest of the appliances. An apartment would need to be specially designed for an RV, so when you consider that, it makes sense as to why they cost less.
You Can Live In A City For Under $1,000/Month
With the cost of living in an RV van being quite low and only needing a parking space and plug-ins, we were really happy to find out that we could live in a city for under $1,000/month. This means that you could live in a mid-sized city like Seattle for about $600 a month.
That’s a great price if you’re on a tight budget, but it also means that you could easily spend less than that if you were willing to live outside of the city center. Now, we were pretty surprised to find out that even though you can find cheap places to live, it’s actually not as cheap as you’d expect.
We were expecting that you could make do with a smaller income and still find cheap living, but that wasn’t the case. For us, it meant that we had to make a few adjustments to our lifestyle. For example, we couldn’t just live like we normally would and eat out every day. We had to find a more creative way to save money without compromising our lifestyle.
You Can Find Free Or Cheap Accommodation Anywhere
We were really happy to find out that we could find free or cheap accommodation anywhere. The idea of living in a van was a great way to cut down on the costs of living in a city as well as maintain our low-cost lifestyle by not having to pay for expensive rental fees in a city.
That meant that we could simply travel around the country and find cheap places to live, which was exactly what we did. Now, we were a bit surprised to find out that there are a lot of free options to live in a van.
We were expecting that we would have to do more work in order to find a place to stay in a van. That wasn’t the case at all. We were lucky to find a lot of free options to live in a van, which meant we could save up and travel the country.
You’ll Save On Utilities And Maintenance Costs As Well
While we were surprised to find out that it was actually cheaper to rent a camper van instead of an RV, we were happy to find out that we could save on utility and maintenance costs while living in one as well. For example, we found that it’s often cheaper to live in a van than in an apartment in a lot of cities.
That’s because apartment renters typically pay a higher portion of their property tax and utilities. On the other hand, renting a van means you only pay for the space that the van takes up, so it’s a lot cheaper. Another benefit to living in a van is that you won’t have to deal with maintenance and upkeep as we did with our camper.
We had to make sure that everything we put in the van was in good condition and didn’t cause any issues for us down the line. For example, we had to make sure the fridge wasn’t leaking and that the van’s electrical system didn’t have any problems. That’s a lot of work that wouldn’t need to be done if we were living in a normal apartment.
It’s Easy To Find Work While Travelling
When we first decided to live in a van, one of the main benefits we saw in this lifestyle was the ease of finding work while traveling. That’s because we would only need to travel with the van and not a whole bunch of other things. Now, we were surprised to find out that it actually isn’t all that difficult to find work while living in a van.
We were surprised to find that there are a lot of people who travel full-time and would like to work while they’re on the road. That means that you can make friends and find people who want to hire you when you’re on the road. That makes it a lot easier to find work than if you were living in a city and trying to find a way to make money there.
Final Thoughts
When we first thought about moving into a van, we had very little knowledge about what it would actually take to make it work. Now that we’ve done it, we’ve learned some very important things about how to make it happen.
The best part is that it’s actually a lot easier than you think it will be. Living in a camper van means that you don’t need anything other than a parking space, a power outlet, and a place to plug in the fridge. That means that you can live anywhere you want, which is the best part.
