I think the advantage of the van over an RV is that it can be nondescript enough that you can get away with parking in a much wider variety of places.

True, and furthermore they are easier to drive and park.

I guess I should say that my issue is mroe about the DIY-ness of the van-life thing.

I've know a lot of folks in schoolies over the years, and while they can look all instagram fabulous, mostly they are never as nice, light-weight, or well-insulated as even the cheaper commercially available alternatives. It might be just a bad perception on my part, and I think it is possible to do... I just don't see it happening for most of the folks I know who.

I'll be traveling from Ontario to Yosemite and back this summer in my Tacoma. I have exactly the same setup. It works.

I've been deeply interested in going nomadic full time for more than a decade, despite it only recently becoming a thing. Family, job obligations combined with a relatively low cost arrangement for living expenses finds me plunked down firmly.

If my wife and I split, god forbid, you'll find me on the road.

PS: Their are no construction standards for trailers/rv's. Their are built as cheaply as possible. I'd much rather do the van thing if only for the structural integrity.

We have a Thor Class C on a Sprinter chassis. Chassis is awesome, if you have the means I highly recommend one. Thor build quality (and RV quality in general) is laughably bad. I'm confident the "bones" are good, but what's screwed to the frame is screwed on as quickly as possible. I've been through just about every inch of that thing while I was installing and running wire for solar and a big inverter. If it's behind a screwed-on panel (IOW, customer will never see it), there is leftover shit everywhere. Saw dust, wire ends, whatever.

I'm surprised when I go to unscrew something and find that the screw was actually screwed in straight. I'm dead serious, there aren't a dozen straight screws in the whole thing (well, there are now). Assuming the $WHATEVER even got a screw; I keep forgetting to run to Home Depot for screws for those brackets that are hanging by two wobbly screws.

So, yeah, build quality on RVs is shit. But if you can do your own van, you can redo anything in an RV. And the RV is already plumbed and wired, mostly. You can fix the stuff they missed. :-) Despite my complaints, I've put in far less effort correcting Thor's mistakes than I would into building my own van.

> Their are no construction standards for trailers/rv's. Their are built as cheaply as possible.

https://www.rvia.org/standards-regulations

If you look you can find RV's that are built to last. The vast majority are built as cheaply as possible though.

Membership is voluntary.

Well, the wife left me and my kid is graduating HS this year... that's actually part of the motivation there.

As for the "cheap"... yeah, that is true, but I just don't see the DIY people ever getting things as light as the RV manufacturers... and that is a big deal when driving.

I also run a minimal setup in the back of a tacoma. Having a camper that doesn't look like a camper is really nice. Four wheel drive comes in handy and is, imo, prohibitively expensive in vans right now.