Van Life Collective: Hood River Oregon

I recently had the experience of taking a look at Van Life Collective here in Hood River and I must say I was very impressed with the workshops they have and yes I mean workshops – two large shops dedicated to working and fitting the vans for the mobile lifestyle.

I had the pleasure to do a quick chat with the owner, Andre, of Van Life Collective here in Hood River:

 

What exactly is Van Life? Van Life is living or dwelling out of a van as your lifestyle, and this way of living has some unique advantages over other ways of living if you can do it.

 

Some of the advantages of van life include not being tied down to a property, if you know perhaps a friend or family member that is willing to allow you to park or camp for a while and if you have a work from home job that allows you to permanently travel consider the van life!  Cheaper living expenses, seeing sights and things most can only dream of while living a free and traveling life.  Visiting many places that others can only dream of as well as living with only the essentials, which does bring up one important thing that van life can teach you, that you don’t need so many things that society tells you that you need, that you can live a life without the clutter of modern living.  Especially with the new technology coming out and that is actually out van life is more possible and more of an option now than it ever has been!

 

Technology has allowed many advancements to allow this type of lifestyle. From mobile internet such as 5G or even the new Starlink from SpaceX you can work from virtually anywhere now. Amazing what technology allows us to do now, not even just that but this van life allows us all to do what we, even just a few years ago, may have thought impossible to do, which is travel and work at the same time. Spend parts of the year in one part of the country and a few months in another location.

It is amazing to see what is possible now. Consider also the price of a van is much cheaper than a house or condo, with its fees, maintenance, taxes, rent, amongst a myriad of other things, this society is built on the idea that you need to buy a house, rent, or pay a landlord and the answer to this for many people is quite possibly the van life.

It does take a certain adventurous mindset to jump into the van life, but even some professional athletes such as Daniel Norris and Alex Honhold have vans even though they are paid professional athletes. I personally think that if you have a great love for the outdoors and are able to work from home this may be a great fit for your lifestyle. In particular if you live in the Northwest this part of the country has tons of campgrounds and places to check out in your van. Of course as I live here in Hood River I am partial to this area that I live for coming in your van, I see tons of people here living out of a van. When you visit be sure to come say hello to our local Van Life Collective here in Hood River. If you don’t have a van you can rent one here, or look to buy one as well.

 

 

Nice video on unfiltered video of a random day of Van Life:

What Vanlife ALONE Is ACTUALLY like – YouTube

 

 

 

However, the van life is of course not for everyone. Some of the drawbacks may include having to see if your local city has rules and regulations for things like living in a car or van. Check with your local city for those.

For more information please check out our local Van Life Collective here in Hood River, they can answer any and most questions, and as an added bonus they rent vans for you to try it out first and if you like you can of course purchase a custom made van here in Hood River.

 

Helpful Links and More on Van Life:

https://www.calltoadventure.uk/post/whats-van-life-really-like

#Vanlife: The Social Media Movement New York Times article from 2017