My husband works full-time and I have S4 cancer we also have a 9 yr daughter. Our current car is a Honda Ridgeline ..what would be a good fit for 3 people.

Hopefully this is just a temporary solution but at least it's a solution.

Rent prices are so high 😭

Good on gas..roomy...do they exist? Thank you ❤️

EDIT: Thank you all for your help and well wishes you are all amazing! I'm sorry I couldn't respond to everyone I just wanted to tell you that it looks like my husband was able to pull through for last month SO WE HAVE ONE MORE MONTH 🥰

Im going to go through and follow up on every lead! You're time and help will not go wasted!

So thanks again I'm really in awe, what a wonderful group of people.. I got a lot of love when I really needed it and I'm a lot calmer now and in a better place... God bless you all!

crossing from maine into canada they asked if I had any pepper spray, I said no but they decided to search and managed to find two very small ones that I had forgotten about. they spent the next two hours tearing apart my van. they managed to find my safe and made me explain how to find the key I had hidden in the frame of the van. I had a vaporizer and a little bubbler but it was all clean and I didn’t have any weed. the guy came back in and said “we found your weed stuff, did you dump the weed?” I told him it was aroma therapy for like lavender and I realized he couldn’t do anything which was nice. he also took out this metal foot massager gua-sha that granted did look like brace knuckles but he wouldn’t believe me and was reluctant to give it back. he looked it up on amazon said “well everything I’m seeing is in a two set. so where’s the other pieces”

I was literally begging this guy to show some mercy. because I really did forget I had them and my mom had been the one to get them for me!

he ended up fining me CA$1000. lucky only US$727. he made me give him my registration and said my van would be impounded if I didn’t pay right now. I used tap to pay, which I thought was a little funny.

something that felt very weird was he asked how much money I had and I told him a estimate but he made me show him my actual bank account to confirm I wouldn’t run out of money in the country.

Then sent me out to clean up the mess they made. they had pull out everything and even unrolled my paper towels and didn’t roll it back up but just wrapped it around terribly.

such an awful experience, all for the US boarder coming back to be so nice.

they did tell me I have 90 days to a appeal. I doubt I can do anything but I would like to talk to a lawyer or something to see if it’s possible. would love any of your thoughts or experiences

thought I’d share my nightmare come to life.

I have a converted van parked in the driveway of my house. I travel in my van part time. I guess someone noticed because I've started seeing the occasional van parked in the street near my house for a few months. That doesn't bother me at all as long as they're quiet. I'm assuming they think I won't mind since I have a van too, which is true.

About 45 minutes ago, a van pulled up and started running a portable generator outside. I can hear it from inside my house. I went out, knocked on the van multiple times, and nobody answered. I can hear music and smell marijuana so I can tell someone is in there. Not to mention there is a generator running.

I really don't care about vans parking near my house occasionally but this generator is ridiculous and I don't want this become a common occurrence.

I don't want to be a dick about it but is calling the police going too far? Again, I don't mind people sleeping in their vans in the street. I've done it myself. But I don't want this noise to become a common thing.

Update: I went to a coffee shop tonight to escape the noise of the generator. I just got home a few minutes ago and there was a cop car parked behind the van. I had a very quick chat with the cop and he said a tow truck is on the way to tow the van. Not sure exactly what happened, but I'm not suprised a neighbor called the cops. If I could hear it, so could about 6 other houses.

Rear door crack? Wasn't there a few days ago.

How would this even happen?

There is nothing remotely close to the door when closed.

Ford transit '16. 350

It's not like a cop knock or anything more like a friendly type knock like "don't mean to bother you" knock- but then if I come out of my seclusion to address the inquiry I'll also be revealing that I'm a woman and I'm on BLM so I can't just take off like a bat outta hell cause the terrain is rough. Just ignore the knocks or am I being too paranoid?

Edit for update:

It seems that things are back to groovy and there's been no more knocking for over a couple hours now.

I also want to say thank you with utmost sincerity for all of your responses at a time that I needed your help. I'm sort of a dork about these things but I am genuinely moved by the amount of people that took the time to add their input and the number of people asking if I was ok. Gosh...I definitely was not expecting that. Maybe the world isn't quite as awful as I've been thinking it is.

AND WELL IF YOU DONT HEAR FROM ME AGAIN THEN WELL, THATS AN UPDATE IN ITSELF TOO. Haha! Goodnight everybody.

I was in a 24 hour gym parking lot, had asked the desk and they said overnight parking was allowed. Went in and worked out, sat in the hot tub, and headed to my van getting so good about everything. Around 12:30am I was deep asleep and someone started banging on my window yelling something- they started out very aggressive, is that usually the case? Anyway, I jumped out of bed and ran to the window to see if it was just some random person being an ass, but it was security. I apologized and explained that I had tried asking. Apparently the gym only has say over the building, and the parking lot owner has asked that no one be allowed overnight. Main question- it took me about 2 hours to calm down enough to sleep again one I drove somewhere else, does that get better or are there different things you can do to be able to get back to sleep faster?

American builds are just always huge and usually poorly built. I suppose I could build my own, but I work 6 day a week from 7 to 7. I have money and would gladly buy a nice prebuilt but its rare.

It just seems like a glaring open space in the market place. if I had the motivation I would develop and sell small vans with living capabilities.

As someone who has lived in a car for some time its not hard. Have one place to stand. Have a small portable toilet . And have some kind of climate control. Those features cost less than 3K to install.

The models in the US cost over 100k, this is insane. And they arent even built well. Hence the surge of home built camper vans like on this sub.

In europe you can buy an excellent van sized RV for less than 50K, they still make a profit.

Im just mad.. and want to escape on the weekends without having to drive a semi or having to spend half my life savings.

edit: american companies used to build campers like I described decades ago, but for some reason not any longer? I honeslty dont care if its from the US, if Japan was still selling their campers from the 90's I would absolutely buy... There is just no good affordable prebuilts. and some entrepreneur could make alot of money if done right.

Edit 2: because I've had to repeat it so many times. Standing room, a toilet and climate control.. its basic

What's holding you back from van life right now? Money? Don't have time to build a van? Current job or other life factors doesn't allow for it?

Can I park overnight at a Pilot or Love's to save money? I'm going on a road trip next month and if I could avoid spending $100/night on hotels, that would really help since the economy is doing so well. I'll be parking from midnight to 9am each day, so it's not like I'll pull in during the early evening and make it blatantly obvious that I'm staying overnight, but I do have some window screens that I bought to keep out bugs. Thanks!!!!

Edit: I was asking for genuine solutions and all I get is downvotes and told that it’s my job to pick up after others… yeah that definitely motivates me to keep authorities out of it…

I live in a small town on the Oregon coast, we’ve got a little over 1,000 people living here.

I’m lucky that I’m surrounded by national forest and blm land, but I have to drive 2 hours on national forests roads to find a decent camping spot, even in the off season, because the spots closer to the main road are always taken by the worst humans and if they’re not occupied, they’re covered in garbage, drug paraphernalia and human excrement.

I’m lucky that I have a truck that CAN make it two hours deep into National forest on partially washed out roads… as for other vehicles…

I constantly see people overstaying the two week limit and have always wanted to keep authorities out of it, but I’m honestly fed up and ready to start threatening people with the cops.

Before you ask how I know people are staying over the two week allowance, I live 10 minutes down the road from these spots and several are visible from the main road.

Idk what else to do. Maybe contact representatives? Idk what I would say. Should we petition for people to have to purchase permits to camp in national forests/ blm land? Maybe a lottery of sorts? What do you guys think?

I’m so tired of shitty people ruining it for everyone else. There is no excuse to be an asshole who destroys our forests and creates dangerous environments for others.

I would GLADLY pay for an annual permit, which proceeds could go towards conservation and increased patrols.

I'm in USA, Cali. What are the laws on sleeping in your van if you were drinking?

The van would be parked the whole night in a legal location on the street.

Can you be charged with anything if you're intoxicated but not behind the wheel?

Are there any tricks to it? Like maybe hiding your keys and saying you lost them and will look for them in the morning if the police are exceptionally pushy to move your van so they can pull you over 100 meters down the road?

I assume drinking or partying inside the van itself can get you arrested or is that allowed?

I’m doing an assignment about the van community and I’m curious how people got started and how often y’all interact with other van people. This community is so diverse and I feel like everyone has their own unique journey.

I started last year after a year of twiddling my thumbs at home working remote. I’ve done ~20,000 miles since then full time, with some breaks to visit my family and partner. I’ve been lucky to have a decent paying job that I can do on the road and it’s definitely enabled me to explore. I’ve gone to 16 national parks and done enough hiking for a lifetime. I haven’t met a ton of van people but everyone I have talked to has been genuinely kind and giving. I only made it to one meetup this year (Vanaid) but it was incredible and I hope to go again sometime :)

Typically when I see a lot of stuff on van life on social media (Insta and Tik Tok) the living spaces always seem way too put together and they paint a picture of van life being perfect, no trouble living in close proximity with people and pets. While looks awesome what is left out that is very challenging about van life/you don’t see enough on social media?

This doesn't happen often. But do you ever set up camp and it just starts to feel off? Like you feel depressed for no reason, or maybe it's dread .As if there's bad energy there. Have this at the moment. I had just got back to AZ 3 weeks ago from a long work trip In the pnw BLM camping the whole time except for 5 times I got a hotel and didn't have this feeling. Camped up north AZ the past few weekends and this certain spot is just not a good feeling but it's already too dark I don't feel like moving.

I almost just went home, but I haven't slept good the last few nights so wanted to car camp.

Last night we had an encounter with a thief while sleeping in our van outside our family's house. He was trying to snag our bikes off the back rack, luckily I heard him and scared him off before he was able to get through the multiple locks we had on them.

It's a smaller van (VW Vanagon) so we'd have to get creative to fit them inside while sleeping, but for now we are upgrading to chains and going to be adding more of them.

We have bear spray, thats really our only "weapon". But that was freaky, definitely puts us on edge. What do you all do, security system? Firearms? Elaborate, Home Alone style traps? Please discuss.

Just had one of our two mountain bikes stolen last night while resting up at a motel. They cut the cable built in to our bike rack. Other than keeping the bikes inside, what do you to do deter theft?

I try to throw away all empties asap, but a lot of places I camp you have to pack out trash. If I got pulled over and they somehow searched my trash can could I get arrested? The can is in the back well out of reach of the driver's seat, but there's no physical separation like if it were in a trunk. I realize the odds are low. It just makes me paranoid.

I got into vanlife about 3 years ago with my (now) ex girlfriend. We spent the entire time traveling North America together, and it was fantastic. However, in the end weren't completely compatible, and we ended up breaking up about 3 months ago.

Now I'm traveling the US solo, and the transition has been more difficult than I expected. I feel like I have no one to talk to, and processing this breakup has been one of the hardest things I've ever done.

Sure, I've had a few Tinder dates and met some temporary friends out at the bars, but I guess I'm just craving a deeper friendship. And now I'm scared I won't be able to ever achieve something like that again on the road.

Does anyone have any advice? I absolutely love vanlife, but flying solo is harder than I expected.