Van Life Romanticizes Poverty, amirite?

Yep and unless you have a bunch of money there's not much glamours about it. Don't get me wrong exploring the country is worth it, it's amazing and there are so many beautiful and interesting things to see. But living on the road takes a certain kind of person.

by Anonymous 1 week ago

So many of my exes wanted to do van life. I was adamantly against it knowing damn well we had no money and would make life worse. If we had amazing 6 figure work from home jobs hell ya that sounds amazing.

by Anonymous 1 week ago

Thats like saying camping romanticizes poverty. It's all different when you have somewhere to go when you're tired of roughing it.

by External-Grass4192 1 week ago

There's a big difference between living out of a tent for a weekend and living in a van full time.

by Howardjones 1 week ago

If people were camping in Wizarding tents that had thousands of dollars worth of amenities in them then yes it would be like that.

by Traditional-Wait-183 1 week ago

I would love to live like that.

by Anonymous 1 week ago

"Van life" is just homelessness for influencers.

by Impossible_Tooth 1 week ago

Some of those vans cost well over $100,000. I think van life romanticizes freedom.

by paytonlegros 1 week ago

Poverty ain't going away anytime soon, might as well romanticize it.

by janaabernathy 1 week ago

my favorite is the one that sets poop on fire

by Anonymous 1 week ago

Nothing physically different at all, but it's not as glamorous as instagram and tik tok would have you believe. Then you enter the realm of stinky star fish, itchy ass, and grease butt. All of which are not pretty after 3 days of "glamping".

by Anonymous 1 week ago

No. It romances less responsibility's

by Anonymous 1 week ago

Tiny homes makes living in a trailer sound a lot better to.

by Anonymous 1 week ago

I've heard a lot of cases where people go in expecting to casually explore the country and then caught off guard when the Wal-Mart security guard or cops tells them they don't want homeless folks parked in their parking lot all night.

by selmer91 1 week ago

Well they're just trying to make the best of a bad situation. Tho I hate it when they have like 4 kids and they stuff them all in there with mad grins. Kids need space

by ProperPossession 1 week ago

Van life is about having a compact, comfortable mobile base while you explore the west. A good sprinter or Transit trail is not cheap. It's also, I imagine, a way for young, single tech workers to opt out of Bay area housing costs. If I were twenty something and coding in SF, I can easily imagine living in a van for a few years, saving all my money, and then getting the hell out of dodge and going back to the Midwest with enough cash to buy a house outright wherever I want.

by Moist-Possible 1 week ago

It has nothing to do with poverty and everything to do with freedom and travel. People aren't choosing a sleeper van over a home because they think it's chic, they're doing it because in most cases they're young, single and don't want to be tied down to one physical location.

by Anonymous 1 week ago

It doesn't romanticize poverty because it's actually quite expensive for them to do it. These van life people are actually quite well off. those vans and all the upgrades they do can cost in the hundreds of thousands of dollars as well they have the financial security to be able to just travel in their van and go wherever they want because they're generally well off people to begin with. It more is a flex of their wealth than romanticizing poverty. In reality people who have to live in their van wouldn't be able to travel much because the gas cost and maintenance costs of the vehicle would be very high and they need to work in order to buy food and essentials. Van life influencers have the financial freedom to not have to worry about any of that.

by Plane_Situation 1 week ago

I always saw van life as reaching a point financially in life where you can let go of the material anchors you were using to earn that money and instead embrace the simple life of exploration

by Icy_Ear 1 week ago

Yeah, the hundred thousand dollar vans really pump up the poverty! LOL, what a dorky take.

by Eliaslang 1 week ago

when people act like it's all glamorous and cool yes

by trenton02 1 week ago

I've found the van life and tiny houses to be significantly more expensive that just living in a small traditional house.

by Anonymous 1 week ago

I think that's kind of the point. It's people making the best of the situation we're finding ourselves in these days.

by Anonymous 1 week ago

Everything hard is romantisized. Knights, Samourai, homesteading, farming, working 200h weeks, being in the army.....

by Anonymous 1 week ago