I am by no means an expert on vanlife, but in the short 16 months since finishing my van build I have had some pretty amazing weekend trips and I am planning a month long extended trip out west (I’m based in Virginia) where I’ll visit Vanfest outside of Salt Lake City and kill three weeks in my van and then attend a conference in Denver with some of the world’s most successful financial advisors (XYPN Live Conference).
As a CERTIFIED FINANCIAL PLANNER™ professional and vanlife enthusiast, I have some insights that can help you get on the road faster. Here’s how you can afford not only your van itself, but also the time to enjoy it as an average American earner. Of course if you’re independently wealthy or an Instagram influencer who gets paid to do vanlife, you don’t need this advice, unless you want to use this advice to help you get started.
Get your rig. It doesn’t have to be fancy or cost you $100,000. Just get something and get started. I knew that I wanted to be able to stand up in my van without crouching and I wanted to be able to store my bikes, grill, queen-size bed, etc so I bought the Ford T-250 high roof, extended length. I found a used 2015 van that was formerly a bread delivery truck and purchased it for $16,000. I did all of the build myself, except for the electrical for the house battery, receptacles, lights, and fans. The build itself cost around $6,000 so my entire camping van only cost me $22,000 total and it’s a pretty decent build. Here’s where it took some finesse. I wasn’t able to get a traditional car loan on the van because it was considered a commercial vehicle. Apparently banks consider certain models can only be used for certain purposes according to their financing rules, regardless of how you intend to use it. The same held true for the insurance. It had to be insured as a commercial vehicle. Luckily for me, I have a residential painting business so I was able to get a business loan and business insurance to get the van. Without that, I would have had to try something else. Perhaps a different bank or buying a shorter model van. It took me approximately 5 months to build out the van. I parked it in my backyard and would work on it during nights and weekends. For me, doing the actual work of building the van was just as much fun as any trip I’ve taken it on, though I haven’t taken it to Utah yet. Of course, you can get a van for much cheaper than $16,000 and put much less than $6,000 into the build. So get a loan or save up the cash and then get a van and start converting it.
Once your van is built, I recommend going on some short trips first to work out all the kinks before going on an extended trip. I remember the first time I drove my van and all the cabinet drawers flew out because I didn’t realize I’d have to secure them first. Later that day I installed some hooks and some bungee cords so that wouldn’t happen again. Through the months I’ve attended different music festivals and seen some really cool accessories that people had on their van builds that I wanted to incorporate with mine. I bought these accessories and tricked out my van bit by bit so I believe it’s more versatile and ready for its first long haul.
Okay so how do you actually finance the lifestyle of being able to take weeks or months off at a time to “do vanlife?” This answer will be different for everyone. There are myriad different ways you could work remotely so that you don’t actually have to take time off of work in order to travel. This might be freelance work, social media influencing, working different jobs locally along the road, working on a crab boat 6 months out of the year, etc. For me, I’m a financial advisor and manage my clients’ investments. I will be checking in with email and the markets at coffee shops along the way so I’ll be working, even though for 3-4 days in Utah I’ll be completely off the grid. I’m also preparing my clients ahead of time so I won’t be in the middle of any big financial plans or projects. I would never have the luxury of doing vanlife during tax season because that’s when I’m at the office doing 30-50 tax returns and quarterly rebalancing of my clients’ investments. But aside from working, you can also save up the money to spend on your trip. You’ll obviously need money for gas, food, water, park entrance fees, and anything fun you want to do along the way. Living in your van out in the BLM or national forest can be inexpensive because you’re fixing your own food, but you still need to be prepared for emergencies. You need at least $10-20,000 saved up or access to a credit card with that much of a limit in case you need to get something mechanically fixed on your van, need to replace an accessory, have a medical emergency, or some other kind of unexpected expense. Some employers are loathe to give you more than one week off in a row so you may need to be creative. Maybe you could choose to do vanlife in between jobs by quitting one job, traveling for a month or two and then pursuing a new job elsewhere. Or maybe you have a job that allows for several days off in a row such as nursing, overnight construction, etc. If you’re a student, then summer break would be a great opportunity. But if you’re in a job that you want to stay in, but at the same time you want to take several weeks off to travel, talk to your boss about, consider leaving, or consider becoming an entrepreneur and owning your own schedule. Ultimately, it will be a challenge to have both the money and the time to do vanlife. If it was easy, everyone would do it. That’s where you need to be creative. I worked my butt off for several years growing my real estate portfolio, my financial planning client list, and my side hustle of residential painting to be able to now travel in my paid for van with $250,000 in the bank, plus remote work so that my income won’t even pause while I’m traveling.
Make sure you have the proper insurances not just for your van, but also health insurance. If you have an emergency on the road, having good insurance could be a lifesaver for your finances! If you’re traveling internationally (I definitely plan on taking my van to Mexico someday), buy travel insurance which covers medical emergencies in other countries.
Turn your van into a rental. You could make your van nice enough that other people would want to rent it from you for $500-1,000/week or more. If you can’t live in it year-round, then this could be a great way for your van to literally pay for itself! Gocampervans.com provides you with the rental insurance, marketing, and everything you need. You can simply list your van with them, and they take care of everything else!
When Daniel is not giving financial advice or managing investments, he enjoys renovating properties, real estate investing, drinking coffee, hanging out with friends, spending weekend trips in his camper van, and exploring the outdoors on a hiking or biking trail in his hometown of Roanoke, VA and beyond.