Here's some week one of urban vanlife thoughts for you all:SF is uniquely well suited for vanlife because its houselife...ain't all that different. In my van, I struggle with street noise and whiffs of sewage from the sidewalk, sure - but those are challenges I also faced in my multimillion-dollar turn of the century Victorian home before!Since I'm parked a block from my gym and half a block from my grocery store, I'm living a walkable lifestyle! I suspect this gives me the same mental health advantage over houselife that dog owners have over cat owners - talking more walks is shown to make you happier.I'm also more intimately connected to my neighborhood in a way I wasn't before, since I'm out more often. Like European street culture, I'm recognizing faces and weekly happenings over time because I'm so often out and about.It's vaguely hilarious how well I blend in with normal techies as soon as I'm outside my van. When entering and exiting, I'm a street rat - but as soon as I'm on the sidewalk I'm just another pedestrian!It feels a bit like solo backpacking in that I have everything I need and can go anywhere at any time without any external dependencies. Even if I don't exercise that mobility, the feeling of possibility is exuberant.One way to force cleanliness - live in such a tiny space that you can't do anything without cleaning away the last thing you did π
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#435 - Week one #vanlife, IRL zombie diseaseβ¦
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Here's some week one of urban vanlife thoughts for you all:SF is uniquely well suited for vanlife because its houselife...ain't all that different. In my van, I struggle with street noise and whiffs of sewage from the sidewalk, sure - but those are challenges I also faced in my multimillion-dollar turn of the century Victorian home before!Since I'm parked a block from my gym and half a block from my grocery store, I'm living a walkable lifestyle! I suspect this gives me the same mental health advantage over houselife that dog owners have over cat owners - talking more walks is shown to make you happier.I'm also more intimately connected to my neighborhood in a way I wasn't before, since I'm out more often. Like European street culture, I'm recognizing faces and weekly happenings over time because I'm so often out and about.It's vaguely hilarious how well I blend in with normal techies as soon as I'm outside my van. When entering and exiting, I'm a street rat - but as soon as I'm on the sidewalk I'm just another pedestrian!It feels a bit like solo backpacking in that I have everything I need and can go anywhere at any time without any external dependencies. Even if I don't exercise that mobility, the feeling of possibility is exuberant.One way to force cleanliness - live in such a tiny space that you can't do anything without cleaning away the last thing you did π