By LEEANNE SLATTEN
Staff Writer
The new trend worldwide is van life. This is where you pack up all your things and move into a van. Anyone can move into a van, but the van life is not for everyone. You have to be comfortable with yourself to live by yourself, moving from place to place every day. Also, claustrophobia is not a great trait to have when moving into a van. If you don’t mind not showering for a couple of days, then this is the life for you. When moving into your van full time, you are completely off the grid.
You can convert your own van or buy one already converted. When converting a van there are many things to consider: do you want a stove, a sink, a toilet, a shower, electricity? All things to consider. When doing this you need to plan out where you are putting these things because a van only has so much space. For a stove, you can always buy a propane one, a little camper stove or electric if you plan on having electricity.
A sink is helpful. There are electric pumps for sinks or foot pumps or even no pump. You could just hang a jug from up high with a spigot. Also, you need another jug to put your grey water.
A toilet and shower can end up taking up a lot of space. Going where you sleep can be a huge turn-off, so if you are not scared of public bathrooms then no toilet is the right way to go. However, there are composting toilets you can buy. An alternative for a shower is a gym membership to not only get a shower but a work out too.
Last but not least, electricity. You can get solar energy and put the panels on your roof. This gets tricky so having someone with experience do it for you would be the wiser choice. This is probably not the best if you want to be stealth, meaning you don’t want it to be obvious that you are living in a van. Or a lithium battery power station. This is good to be more stealth, but you got to charge your batteries. Most of these do come with a solar charging option.