RE: Tips For Making a Good Stealthy Urban Van "Apartment"
You've got some great insights for stealthing. Our budget and diets require us to make food 95% of the time, so a kitchen was a must, and so our Rialta was a compromise on something we could stealthily use, and still have enough space for two and be able to make feel like a home.
If I was solo, I think choose a similar setup to yourself. What are some of your favorite places to stay around LA, e.g. best neighborhoods? Do you have any idea how much longer you'll be living the vanlife?
I'm definitely interested in this topic, and I think a lot of other folks will be too, the larger the user base grows. It seems folks our age are realizing this lifestyle as a viable mid-term option, and a great way to accomplish unique things that others cannot.
-Onward Indian
Hmmm. Yeah, I can totally see that adding a second person drives up the need for space.
You know what was actually another contributing factor that probably got me into vanlifing was that I was living on Soylent at the time. So I just had a case of that under the bed.
Playa Vista is great for it. Lots of unregulated parking in the neighborhoods just north of the airport.
Venice is the classic place for it... but it's too much of the wrong kind of vanlife...
Lately I've been staying around downtown. I've found an outdoor long term lot that's cheap enough. And then I have a OneWheel that I use to get around. It's been pretty great.
Soylent...is that real, like Soylent green from Futurama?
I know LA made some new regulations last year, basically to mess people up who have no home and must live in their vehicle. Have you encountered any issues with that?
We got to roll through LA last year, but we have a friend in Studio City, and we were able to pull into his yard, it was cool, it looked like the set of a 90's sitcom.
I know downtown can be a bit rough in different areas, has that been an issue for you? Appreciate the correspondence on your experiences.
Also, Venice seems like it would be lots of fun, but seems difficult to find spots consistently, and I guess by wrong kind of van life you're referring to some sort of ne'r do well populous of stoned out skateboarders...
Haha.. yeah, Soylent is a real and thriving company, last I checked, anyways.
https://www.soylent.com/
I, personally, have never come into contact with police or anyone for that matter hassling me about my vanlife activities. And it has been about 2 years.
The best parking situations I've found have been in Playa Vista where there are still lots of middle class residential areas with very little parking regulation -- many areas don't even have street sweeping.
Downtown has changed dramatically in the past 5 years or so. There are still some seedy elements to be found, but nowhere near as many as you might think.
Venice is difficult because of the tight parking and also just that generally seedy boardwalk. Cool to visit when you want to see some silliness, but just not a day-in day-out kind of place I want to be, in my opinion.