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As Lockdowns End, Some Want to Continue Working From Inside Their Vans (msn.com) 81

During the lockdowns I edited dozens of Slashdot posts from the front-passenger seat of my car (using a cellphone for a mobile hotspot).

But according to CNBC, I wasn't the only person working from a vehicle... When Erica Horn received a work email in May 2020 saying her company would be fully remote for the next year, she knew right away it was time to live out her long-held dream of living out of a van... Horn is not alone. Many workers with jobs that let them work remotely during the pandemic left behind their sedentary housing situations and moved full-time into vans. These remote workers drive from location to location in their homes, working from internet hotspots in their vans and spending their free time in nature and exploring new places. As vaccines roll out and states start to open up, some workers are returning to their offices.

But many workers who've adopted the van life don't want to give it up...

Like overseas backpacking, van life appeals to those with a love for travel or the outdoors who have the privilege to work remotely and the budget to spend thousands of dollars buying and setting up their vans. They can shift the money from rent and car payments toward a lifestyle of endless travel... For some, working out of a van is less about travel and more of an alternative to leasing an office. Kenzo Fong, CEO of tech start-up Rock, began working out of his van in May 2020 after his children began doing their schoolwork at home during the pandemic. Fong still lives in his San Francisco home, but during the days, he gets into his van and picks a new location in the city...

Some van lifers only need a laptop. Others have more elaborate set ups complete with multiple monitors. But most carry at least two hot spots from different network providers so they can catch signal from at least one of the services as they hit new locations... Despite the challenges of life on the road, those who spoke with CNBC said they plan to continue their nomadic lifestyle until their companies stop allowing remote work or until they get burnt out. Horn said she originally planned to live on the road for at least a year, but that's now changed.

"At six months, I still feel like I'm just learning this, just getting the hang of it and just getting started," she said. "I could actually see myself doing it for closer to two years, and who knows, maybe longer."

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As Lockdowns End, Some Want to Continue Working From Inside Their Vans

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  • by FudRucker ( 866063 ) on Sunday June 20, 2021 @05:16PM (#61504886)
    obligatory living in a van story
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]
  • While I have no plans to live in a van, the idea is certainly ver attractive to me. What vans are favored? How do people handle electricity? Showers?

    • by fermion ( 181285 )
      Dr Bronner soap. Good for washing your van, your body, your hair. Just need to find a lake. Truck stop showers have gotten high class as well. Caravan living is a good way to combat the high cost of living. A colleague of mine moved to a van when he moved from an area where rent is under a thousand back home to colorado I guess I worry about him in when it is freezing but Insippose he could pull a Trailer Park Boys and go to jail for the winter.
      • ...he could pull a Trailer Park Boys and go to jail for the winter.

        Ricky: There's nothing better than being in jail at Christmas.

      • For heat and vans, that isn't really an issue. $150-$200 gets you a Chinese diesel heater from Amazon that has a ten liter tank, and uses .14 to .35 liters per hour, depending on how warm you set it. It takes some work to install, and locating the exhaust port, but it provides more than enough heat, even in temperatures below zero.

        Now, cooling in a hot climate is a different thing altogether. Places like Texas and Florida, one can't use a swamp cooler due to the high humidity, so one needs both an A/C, a

        • Running the vehicle's engine can work as power, but if one considers one idle-hour 25 miles of driving, it may mean that one needs to change engine oil and other items weekly, as well as other wear items.

          On a diesel, one considers one idle-hour three miles of driving. I have a hard time believing a gasser could be that much worse.

          • This is what Ford states when comparing idle-hours to miles. Other makes of diesels may be more or less.

            • For which engine, Ford 6.7?

              • For the 6.7, it is 25 miles per idle/hour, as per the diesel forums.

                • Would be easy to test.
                  Take a road no one complains about slow driver.
                  Put in gear one, and let the car roll in idle power for 10 minutes, then multiply by 6.

                  • It's not easy to test. Idle wear is a complicated subject.

                    I'm actually supposed to idle my ISC up to temp every single time I run it, which takes like 15 minutes at best, and more like 30 if I want the transmission temp to come up too

                • That's really rather poor. But then, I've moved up to medium duty with an ISC

          • Agreed that the equivalent to 25 miles is a bit excessive an estimate; the car/engine with which i'm most familiar (Ford Crown Victoria, 4.6L "modular" V8) chugs about 1 gallon per two hours when idling. The amount of wear on an idling engine, assuming it is maintaining oil pressure, and the oil/coolant temperatures are sane, is much lower than any normal driving condition. Oil dilution is also likely a bigger (but still not huge) issue with gasoline, in large part due to the larger (specific) amount of fue
        • The old VW busses (air cooled engines) used gas as their heaters.
    • A 1968 Volkswagen Camper Van, of course.

      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]

      However be sure to remember that if the van’s a rockin’, don’t go a knockin’.

    • by ShanghaiBill ( 739463 ) on Sunday June 20, 2021 @06:02PM (#61504988)

      What vans are favored?

      I lived out of a Plymouth Voyager minivan for two years. But I had a cubicle at work where I spent much of my working hours. I used my van mostly for sleeping. If you live in it full-time, I recommend getting something bigger.

      I parked in the company parking lot. I got a bonus for being on-call. When my boss called me at 2:30 am, I could be dressed and in the server room in 5 minutes.

      How do people handle electricity?

      Buy 12v LED lights and run them from the cigarette lighter.

      Get a 110v inverter for the few things that don't run on 12v.

      Get a 12v roll-up solar panel to top-up your car battery. Available on Amazon.

      Roll out the solar panel on the windshield while parked facing south. The angle is perfect for max efficiency and you won't forget about it when you drive away.

      Showers?

      I joined a gym. It had showers, a spa, and a steam room.

      • Showers? I joined a gym. It had showers, a spa, and a steam room.

        Then came COVID.

        • Then came COVID.

          Yes, I lived in a van before Covid.

          But we are now moving into the post-Covid era, and gyms are reopening.

          I live in the SF Bay Area, and rent is the biggest expense for most of my co-workers. For many, it is more than half their income. For people living the van lifestyle, a gym membership is a good option.

          • by Anonymous Coward

            For people living the van lifestyle, a gym membership is a good option.

            free shower & sex

          • For people living the van lifestyle, a gym membership is a good option.

            That's backwards. What you would want to do is park your van in one corner of the company parking lot, set out a few power-generating workout machines adjacent to it, and charge othe employees a nominal amount for the privilege of keeping your van charged.

      • It wouldn't hurt to find yourself a battery bank or "solar generator". Don't buy the cheap no-name brands. Buy yourself a Goal Zero, Jackery, or other top notch brand (Hobotech is a reviewer which does a lot of torture tests.) From there, charge it from the cig lighter when moving, use a solar panel when you have space.

        From there, get a 12 volt fridge/freezer. Ideally one with two compartments, one for frozen stuff, one for a fridge.

        • Depending about your driving habits or scare about theft, I would take move able, roughly 2yaed x 1 yard panel, that can either put on the roof, or to either side of the van to optimize utilization.

          Of course if you only can put it on the roof, you should be able to adjust its angel, and then just turn your car around at specific times.

      • And the customer center Flying J, Pilot, and Loves also have showers you can rent. I try and use those for road trips simply because when they are nice enough to host showers, they are usually very clean as well and more food options for the kids besides chips, hot dogs, and snack cakes.
    • The Dodge/Mercedes full-size vans seem preferred, but the RV makers are on to the market, and have their own offerings as well. Electricity is largely provided by "house batteries," which are essentially just car batteries that are charged by the engine running or from a solar setup. Most things you'd want to run now can function an a 12v setup native to automobiles. The bigger stuff is run from an inverter or an intermediate device like a Jackery. The larger vans have built-in showers, but getting rid

    • For showers, truck stop showers are pretty expensive. For the cost of two of them you can buy a month's membership at a planet fitness if you're close to one. Also, you can buy access to a campground showers.

      A portable camp shower is another option, if you aren't shy. In my favorite remote remote working spot I can go days without seeing another human being, and I've used one there.

      Electricity is a hard one. The perfect solution would be a solar panel that fits in a pocket, works on cloudy days, and cost

    • by cusco ( 717999 )

      Showers are easy, 24 Hour Fitness has sites nationwide and their minimum-level membership isn't that expensive.

  • by grasshoppa ( 657393 ) on Sunday June 20, 2021 @05:29PM (#61504930) Homepage

    During the lockdowns I edited dozens of Slashdot posts from the front-passenger seat of my car (using a cellphone for a mobile hotspot).

    That explains quite a bit actually.

  • by stephanruby ( 542433 ) on Sunday June 20, 2021 @05:32PM (#61504934)

    During the lockdowns I edited dozens of Slashdot posts from the front-passenger seat of my car (using a cellphone for a mobile hotspot).

    Yes, we're not surprised.

    Even pre-pandemic, we could tell that slashdot editors were doing their job when they were stopped at a red light, or when they were in the middle of playing a video game.

    • 4th post. I mean it was predictable. The jokes about editors admitting to not doing their jobs basically write themselves.

      • 4th post. I mean it was predictable. The jokes about editors admitting to not doing their jobs basically write themselves.

        Perhaps we should post a dupe response or two. You know, make the editors feel right at home.

        Perhaps we should post a dupe response or two. You know, make the editors feel right at home.

        (oops.)

      • They have to, the editors don't write

    • That's completely unprofessional if you ask me. Can you imagine if we started to post our idiotic replies while in the middle of a ga

  • It's RV life, right? I see the appeal of a van for those under 30 (this is a gross generalization, but think "hostel" age and appetites), but for everyone else, the sweet spot is a class B motorhome, because while vans really, really are cool, they're small and not convenient. Class A's are for Boomers, and the type of people who tell me that class B's are really, really cool but small and inconvenient. Maybe they'll be for GenX when I'm boomer age, though. Class C isn't suitable for the hostel-age and -app

    • by fermion ( 181285 )
      Cars freed kids from their their parents oversight, especially in the city. On the farm you could sneak off, one my friends had sex in the barn every day, but having a car was necessary for sexual active dating for many in the city. I think teens migrated to vans, as documented in the TV show Scobby Doo, as an extension of that perceived freedom, for a sex and drugs lifestyle, funded by their parents. As they aged, they got factory jobs, married, moved to the suburbs. The lifestyle of most in the US was n
    • A big difference between a tiny home and an RV or a travel trailer is the thickness of the insulation in the walls. RV's I've seen have 2x2s for the walls, to maximize interior space for the amount of road width, with the understanding that their utility is for vacation trips in summertime. If I was living in an RV year round, I'd want thicker walls built for year round, and smaller double, or triple pane windows every place but the cab. It wouldn't be that hard to build, and with SIPs [wikipedia.org] made using RV appropr
      • A lot of vans have very little insulation, because of the size. Ironically, they are the RV type that need as much insulation as one can muster. There are many guides to insulating vans, and one needs to be sure to follow the OEM body upfitter guide, to ensure they are not fouling up a mechanism (like the latch mechanism in the van doors). It isn't cheap, but the results are more than worth it. An average A/C only does 20 degrees (F) between the intake and output, so insulation can be the difference bet

        • The other important point is ventilation. People exhale a lot of water. Having it condense on your walls and run down into your upholstery and insulation is a recipe for funky smells and mold.

          • I've found that keeping a little window up high cracked all the time and heating with electricity keeps my little home quite dry inside.
          • This is why a Fantastic Fan is a must. If you don't care about stealth, add a Maxx-Air fan shroud, so you can run the fan full speed even when raining.

    • As a GenXer, I had a fascination with van life in my late 30’s- mid 40’s. Was going to get a Sprinter or Transit conversion— looked at Sportsmobile and a couple others. It was partially a work thing (was doing a bunch of nation-wide rollout types of things where I needed to be on-site for 2-3 hours and move on), and partially a way to build a sense of flexibility into my life.

      Ultimately I realized that while I might not need much floor area, height was very important to me (and I didn

  • "To help combat the spread of COVID-19, we're ordering everyone to work from home and thus reduce the amount of time they are out in public and interacting with different people and places"

    "Awesome! I'll work from my van and travel to new places constantly, meeting new people taking those 'memories' to new places!"

    SMH... some people.
    • by PPH ( 736903 )

      These are precisely the same people that you don't want coming back to the office.

      • These are precisely the same people that you don't want coming back to the office.

        They must smell pretty bad.

        • Every modern Van has a shower.
          Some even have a washing machine.

          If you stay on a camping site, you have access to any infrastructure you want.

          This one is an oldsmobile, that is why it is so expensive: https://www.ebay.de/itm/324210... [www.ebay.de]

          Look at the photos in the inside. Perhaps google for "used caravan", to get an idea. Plenty of them are a very suitable all year living space for a cupel. They have the size, albeit not the layout, of a small single room apartment.

          • Every modern Van has a shower. Some even have a washing machine.

            If you stay on a camping site, you have access to any infrastructure you want.

            This one is an oldsmobile, that is why it is so expensive: https://www.ebay.de/itm/324210... [www.ebay.de]

            Look at the photos in the inside. Perhaps google for "used caravan", to get an idea. Plenty of them are a very suitable all year living space for a cupel. They have the size, albeit not the layout, of a small single room apartment.

            Okay - I see - a language difference I think. That's what I would call an RV. Many of those are quite liveable. Some folks her in America sell their houses and live in an RV after they retire.

  • Is it smart to advertise that a child in a car seat can do your job? We don't want those BIZX suits to know you're overpaid.

  • There's always been wandering vagrants. Why is this news?

  • by Anonymous Coward

    The problem with van-lifers is that cities are getting tired of them. From people taking up parking spots on streets, to sewage dumped in storm drains, to an increase in break-ins, pretty much all the Florida coast from the Keys on up has banned overnighting in vehicles unless at a RV park. California has done the same thing when the dilapidated RVs choked roads there.

    Most people who try van life abandon it after a year or two. Vans are hard to keep cool, keeping warm isn't cheap, even with the Chinese d

  • by Ol Olsoc ( 1175323 ) on Sunday June 20, 2021 @08:48PM (#61505320)
    "When Erica Horn received a work email in May 2020 saying her company would be fully remote for the next year, she knew right away it was time to live out her long-held dream of living out of a van"

    So people now dream of being homeless?

    • People dream of a house, then they fit their dreams into a smaller container when they realize they can't afford one worth a fuck, but they can afford a nice van.

      Some of 'em also have outstanding student loans they've defaulted on for whatever reason and can't buy a house, but they're still allowed to own a vehicle.

      • People dream of a house, then they fit their dreams into a smaller container when they realize they can't afford one worth a fuck, but they can afford a nice van.

        Some of 'em also have outstanding student loans they've defaulted on for whatever reason and can't buy a house, but they're still allowed to own a vehicle.

        Sounds like a pretty well planned lifestyle, amirite?

        I think a lot of young people have been raised on horrid advice, like "Follow your passion, and nothing can stop you!" and "You can be anything you want to be if you only try hard enough!" "Find your dreams!"

        Then they are encouraged to take out 100+K of Student loans to qualify for careers that high school dropouts are just as qualified to do.

        And end up living in a van.

        A harsh truth, but truth nonetheless.

    • Living in a van can be considered not homeless And actually is usually an affordable home in countries were real homes are expensive.

      I considered buying a boat to live on, but as soon es you moor it central Europe most places are expensive. As I'm now mostly living in Asia, that is now out of the question (and not necessary as housing is cheap there).

  • Back when I thought I was going to be a nomad, I bought a 5th wheel travel trailer, and a used pickup with a 5th wheel hitch to pull it.

    The trailer was small, for a 5th wheel, but it had a bed, shower, and bathroom. And sewer and electric hookups. Not top of the line by any means, but it was new, and it was something that was meant to live in.

    Traded in my car for the pickup. Total outlay for the two couldn't have been more than a decent van.

    • I work on RVs. Virtually all RVs are total pieces of shit designed by fuckheads and built by morons. In an accident they are no more safe than you would imagine of a wooden shit shack built by the lowest bidder. If they are set alight, they burn like a firework. They cost more to maintain than an actual house because of the flimsy fuck-off way they are assembled, and most of them are really not designed to be maintained at all and you have to take them half apart to perform what should be a simple equipment

      • As someone who has worked on RVs, you have an extremely high opinion of RV makers, with your high praise about their build quality.

        For example, if one doesn't make sure the warranty fix for absorption refrigerators is done (which is a hack), there is a change of the fridge catching fire. Or, you just rip the fridge out, replace it with an electric fridge, making sure it runs from a decent battery bank, with some solar panels up top to keep it going. Absorption fridges in general, for the most part, are ju

        • There are absorption fridges which require neither pilot nor power. Unfortunately, as far as I know only Norcold is still making them. Dometic used to, and I have one of their vintage Swedish mini 12V/LP units. They also made the unit in the Westfalia Vanagon. These are all millivolt LP systems which run on a thermocouple.

          Most horse trailers are also crap. The only exception I've seen so far that I've found really convincing is higher-end living quarters horse trailers by Four Stars. In fact I just serviced

      • I work on RVs. Virtually all RVs are total pieces of shit designed by fuckheads and built by morons. In an accident they are no more safe than you would imagine of a wooden shit shack built by the lowest bidder. If they are set alight, they burn like a firework. They cost more to maintain than an actual house because of the flimsy fuck-off way they are assembled, and most of them are really not designed to be maintained at all and you have to take them half apart to perform what should be a simple equipment R&R.

        The companies dominating the RV industry, notably Forest River, give absolutely zero fucks. Their assemblers get paid by the staple. And then there's Jayco with the electrical systems assembled by Amish, literally. No, they do NOT do a good job, by ANY standard. Airstream has interior panel gaps big enough to fit a hand into, and inconsistent enough that some places on the same panel you can fit a hand and some you can't fit a pencil. Winnebago is the absolute king of inadequate meat for fasteners and drawers and cabinets simply self-disassemble.

        RVs are like Mercedes. You can't afford to own a cheap one, and you can't afford to maintain an expensive one. The difference is that the occasional Mercedes is assembled correctly.

        Well, I met my wife two weeks after beginning my theoretically nomad-ish life, so it all was moot anyway ... the dealer got the 5th wheel back at a nice discount in a month or so. It lasted the month well enough :)

        The pickup was nice though (in a brutally utilitarian way). Unfortunately I didn't really need the 5th wheel hitch nor two gas tanks anymore.

  • All this van living depresses the f out of me, because it’s the result of housing prices doubling over the past 20-30 years. It’s a mistake to discuss van nomads without mentioning the harsh economic reality.

  • Remote working from a van or RV means that you can spend most of the time you're not working in nature if you want. Remote working from a fixed address means that you can spend all of the time, including when you're working but not teleconferencing in a state of nature.
  • in their vans and spending their free time in nature

    his children began doing their schoolwork at home during the pandemic. Fong still lives in his San Francisco home, but during the days, he gets into his van and picks a new location in the city

    Yeah, drive around to go see nature, or just drive around to not be around your children [guim.co.uk], because it's not like driving around is destroying the biosphere or anything.

  • I did it all over the country as a kid but bad things happened (fucking Texas) and I wouldn't feel safe doing it again. I might have considered it if I was alone and someone let me park on their property / a campsite situation.

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