How to Van Life: Your Guide from Full Time Van Lifers

In this guide, we are stepping away from the technicalities of converting camper vans and focusing on van life logistics. We sourced our community on Instagram for their most common questions about taking the leap into van life! If you have any additional questions, please feel free to leave them in the comments section below this article and we will add them to this guide with answers.

We hope this guide can serve as a jumping off point for you journey into VAN LIFE!

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Van Life Q+A Quick Navigation

How do you find places to sleep as a van lifer?

Finding a place to sleep as a van lifer can be difficult, especially at the beginning. However, it becomes second nature after a few months! There are a couple of buckets of “where to sleep” that all have different methods:

Boondocking
City “Stealth” Camping
Quick and Easy

Boondocking

Boondocking is probably what got you dreaming of van life 😉 It is dispersed (“amenity free”) camping on public land. Think: beautiful views away from buildings, facilities, people, and often down Forest Roads.

You cannot boondock everywhere. To find legal places to boondock, you can use IOverlander (an app). We use this sometimes, but find that as the years go on, spots get more trashed. Instead, we opt for finding public land using OnX, or other online maps. And then, we sleuth around satellite views for places that look accessible, and park-able. GoogleMaps sleuthing will become your newest party trick. Just be sure you are on public land, not private land.

It is important to note, that boondocking will absolutely not be your life every day, mayyyyybe 50% of the time if you are lucky! The other 50% of the time you will need to do one of the other options listed below.

City ("stealth camping")

City days are unavoidable because you need food, gas, and maybe water depending on your system capabilities. (We fill up from fresh water sources, but most don’t). When you need, or want, to spend a night in the city, you will “stealth camp”. This pretty much means not creating any disturbance; simply sleep, and move on. This can vary greatly depending on what city you are in as some people care more about vans visible from their house than others.

Our process goes like this:

The first thing we do is research if sleeping in your car is legal.
If so, we do a quick search for if there are any designated “RV overnight spots”.
If yes, we tend to head there as we know we won’t get the “knock”.
If not, we drive around until we find a spot on a side street that isn’t directly in front of someones house. We prefer apartment complexes (easy to blend in). Or, near parks.

If we are sleeping in a small city, we like to buy coffee, or support the local economy in some way.

Long Haul (driving) Days

On long travel days, you want something easy and reliable. Below are some tried and true places that vans, and RVs are historically allowed to overnight at.

Cracker Barrel
Walmart
Hotels (love this one)
Rest Areas (can get noisy from trucks and traffic)
Cabellas
Casinos
Trailheads (double check for “No overnight parking” signs)

Of course, things change, so it is important to double check any signage around, and call ahead to confirm overnighting is allowed.

What is the hardest part of van life?

For us, it’s the logistics. Finding the time to rest and enjoy nature when you have to find a place to sleep, fill up on gas, make sure you have water/power every day, can be difficult. For the first few months, you will feel like you are always “on”. Which is exhausting! To overcome this, we recommend limiting your driving times per day and intentionally doing things that bring you peace.

How do you get insurance for your camper van?

Insurance is incredibly important on your camper van as it is not only your car, but it is your home, and everything you own. We personally insure ours as a “custom vehicle” through State Farm. We have the base chassis insured AND everything we put into the build. Additionally, we have renters insurance on our personal items. Depending on which state you live in, you may be able to insure your van as a Recreational Vehicle. We recommend looking at your state requirements for that prior to building if you wish to do so. These requirements typically include a toilet, and a permanent cooktop, and you will want to make sure you build these in properly.

If you get your camper van professionally built out, it will be easier to have it insured because there is an actual price associated with it. If you DIY your camper van like us, be sure to itemize and keep track of everything that goes into it so that you can insure the right amount. And, of course, to have proof. We recommend getting an appraisal as well.

[Couples] How do you manage a relationship in a tiny space?

Van life will absolutely test your relationship. Here are our tips for success:

Consciously plan time apart ( walks, hikes, workouts, coffee shop, etc).
Because you are spending 24/7 together, you might forget to make time for romance at the beginning! Be sure to keep date night on the calendar once a week.
Each of you should maintain parts of your routine that make you happy. For me, I take a morning coffee walks outside, and Eric sips his coffee inside because that is what we both like!
Remember that you don’t have to do all activities together.
Adress conflicts early.

How do you cook meals living in a camper van?

There are two ways that van lifers cook: propane or induction. We purposefully have no propane on board, so we cook with two induction hobs. This is our highest power draw appliance (1300W each) so we sized our inverter to 3000W.

If you choose to cook with propane, you can either go with a portable camping stove so you can cook anywhere. Or you can go with the stovetop/oven combo (which we slightly envy sometimes!!). There is also the drop in just stovetop option.

Additionally, we have seen some alternative ways of cooking on the road. With the following you want to triple check power usage and be sure you don’t drain your batteries. These include:

How much food can you store in a van ?

This varies GREATLY by person, or couple. Between our slide out pantry and fridge, we can go about 5 days without stocking up on groceries. We could absolutely go longer, but we love to cook, and eat, so we are pretty elaborate with our meals. If I had to estimate the average van lifer, I would say 5-10 days.

What are some go-to van life meals?

I have some fun Van Life Friendly recipes in a Pinterest board. Here are some more general meals:

Stir Fry
Thai Curry
Anything “one-pot” (Pinterest search 😉
Pastas
Tacos
Overnight Oats
Soups
Grilled Sandwiches

Do Van Lifers have storage units?

This varies! We personally sold everything and kept only what we could fit in the van. However, we know many people who have storage units for seasonal switch-outs, and things they don’t want to get rid of. And, we also know some folks who just keep a small amount of personal things with family, or friends.

You do not need to sell everything to consider yourself a full time van lifer!

How do you make friends while living van life?

We really struggled with this our first few months of van life and the problem was distilled down to our route choice. Generally, we find that van lifers are in similar areas at similar times, and we were going pretty opposite of the “common routes”:

Winter: CA, Baja, Southwest, or some Colorado/Utah

Spring: PNW

Summer: Alaska, West

Fall: Midwest, Northeast

Because of the adventures we go on, we are often in areas during the “van life off season” so we had a pretty isolated few months. If you want to be around van lifers, or caravan, we definitely recommend following the more common routes. Additionally, we recommend going to van life meetups, or reaching out to people on Instagram. We have found IG to be a great source of finding like-minded van lifers.

Our last tip, is to put yourself out there! If you see a van in a parking lot, or at a trailhead, introduce yourself. We are all have common ground to start from. And it’s super common to be approached by fellow van lifers.

On Working and Van Life

We have always been van lifers with full time jobs. It’s not easy, but it has been worth it! Below we address the common questions we receive about working and van life logistics.

How do you get reliable internet?

Talking about Van Life Internet is my bread and butter. Getting internet is easy, but getting reliable internet is a bit of a task in a camper van. There are changing obstructions and signals. And of course your camper van is one large faraday cage. Luckily, I have the perfect solution figured out: a dual modem router and externally mounted roof antenna. Head on over to our dedicated “Ultimate Guide to Van Life Internet” guide to learn more and compare your options including hotspots and Starlink.

How do you balance work with Van Life logisitics?

The hardest part of working full time on the road is balancing 8 hours of intense focus with the need to do van life logistics. Every working day, you need to make sure you have a safe, quiet, and comfortable place to work. And, on top of that, you have to make sure your water and power needs are met. This is a fine balance that has taken me months to master. Here are some of my biggest tips:

Be to the place where you will be working the night before. There is nothing worse than planning to drive to a good spot in the morning, getting there, realizing it won’t work, and having a meeting in 5 minutes.
Invest in high quality noise cancelling headphones. Often, the good spots to work are in areas with other people.
Isolate your driving days. It is a recipe for disaster to work and drive everyday and think you will actually enjoy your surroundings. Instead, we recommend to isolate your driving days to 1-3 days a week, and then plan on staying in one spot for the other days. A huge part of van life is actually enjoying adventures outside, so you have to make time for them!

On Hygiene and Van Life

Where do you go to the bathroom as a Van Lifer?

Personally, we have a composting toilet on board. We LOVE it! However, we also lived in our first camper van without a toilet at all. In that case, you will be using public restrooms, and nature. It might sound tough, but you will learn that restrooms are everywhere: gas stations, grocery stores, coffee shops, trailheads, etc. It is also really easy to boondock, because you have public land that you can use (responsibly, please!!).

Check out our entire guide to Toilets for Van Life to learn more.

[Ladies] How do you deal with your period in a campervan?

Besides logistics, this is one of the hardest parts of van life for me. Before van life, I preferred to use menstrual cups. However, I find them less than ideal with van life because of the disposal; I don’t want to dump it in the sink, and it is hard to finagle it back in with our composting toilet. Anyways, I digress.

When you are doing van life and getting your periods, I find tampons to be the cleanest, along with period underwear. When I have my period, I keep a separate ziplock bag of trash just for the tampons and TP. (Even if you don’t have a toilet, you should keep TP on board!). Additionally, I tend to pee more when I have my period, so if you don’t have a toilet, you should at least have a pee funnel and pee jug. When we didn’t have a toilet, I just keep our old oat milk jugs.

Where do you shower as a van lifer?

We have a shower in a bench (DIY design plans) and we love it. In our first camper van, we simply swiveled our sink head and attached a shower head using a 1/2″ brass nipple. This was also awesome, but is purely outside, so winters were tough. Lastly, showers outside of your van are quite easy to find as van lifers.

Here are some of the common options:

Planet Fitness membership
Truck Stops
Local Rec Centers
Local gyms
Beaches

Check out our Shower Options for Van Lifers guide for more information.

How often do you shower?

In the winter, we find ourselves showering less (3-4 days) as we don’t sweat. In the summer, we at least rinse every day as we sweat while running and hiking. Often times, my hair is the tell tale sign that I need a shower. (LADIES) I recommend oil training your hair so that it doesn’t need washed often!

What do you do with toilet waste?

We can only really speak to our composting toilet, not black water. Because our #2 waste is fully composted in our toilet, we dig a large hole in the woods and bury it like we would any other #2 trip. For our #1 waste, we either dump it in a public restroom toilet, or disperse it well on public land.

If you have black water, you absolutely need to go to an RV dump station.