I work from a Van! Vanlife
Tags: showdev, work, programming, coding
Published: 2020-07-06 07:38:41

---
title: I work from a Van! Vanlife
published: true
description: I'm a software engineer who works from a van! 
tags: showdev, work, programming, coding 
cover_image: https://dev-to-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com/i/6jwlxf9s0q65sg3x7tr0.JPG
---

So I've been m.i.a. from here for a while. I ended up kind of reinventing some of my life. I've missed it here! So I figured I would start with a new post about my current situation.

My work started us on a "work from home", since march. It's been a long 4 months. I've loved it, but love it even more now that I WORK FROM A VAN!

Yup! You read that right. 

I was a month in, working from home and struggling to stay focussed with the kids hitting me up every 5 minutes to play or them using my zoom calls as their opportunity to see who can scream louder. 

Around the same time, my buddy was telling me that he was going to buy a van and live in it. My response was WTF? 

He simply replied, #vanlife.

After a hour of scrolling, I was hooked and the seed was planted.

I had already seen that you could live in a van, when I was watching Steveo's video podcast which is does part of it from a van. I thought it was a cool idea, but only saw it as a temporary thing. 

Side note, I've alway found tiny homes fascinating and part of me always wanted one. 

By now, I'm really running the idea through my head. I say to myself "Wow, would this be a great solution for a mobile office? Could I work from a van?"

After watching Chrome, from youtube [Vancity Vanlife](https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC85rJiWmYQV8Shk3QWXT8MQ), he had me convinced I could do it. He's a full time vanlifer.

So I started looking for a van, two weeks later I was the proud owner of a 1996 ford e-150 cargo van. ![van](https://i.imgur.com/QtgLKQy.jpg)

The build took me about 2 months of all the extra free time I had. I did everything myself with basically no knowledge of what I was doing. 

But I'm a software engineer and I learn lightening fast when it's something I'm interested in. So I turned to online tutorials and a lot of guess work, trial and error. 

I'm damn proud of the results, and most of all I love coding from my van. I'm in it right now at a park as I write this article.

Each day, I drive down the the park in Phoenix, and open up my door, poor myself some coffee, setup my laptop and I'm off to work.

<img src="https://i.imgur.com/ZHS0wxh.jpg" width="50%" alt="Indian Steal Park" align="left"/>
<img src="https://i.imgur.com/tNKgK3y.jpg" width="50%" alt="Encanto Park" align="right"/>

This is the inside as of now, still a little work to do but for the most part it's done. I have a seat and desk. My table swivels, I can code from my seat or the bed.

![van inside](https://i.imgur.com/4qn7zMV.jpg)
![van inside 2](https://i.imgur.com/Qlnd28B.jpg)

I have a coffee machine ( priorities :P ), fridge, a kitchen with running fresh water, bed for relaxing (it's also a camper van for the kids), essential oil diffuser.

I also have power provided via solar and batteries, a mounted iPad on swivel arm for a second monitor and tv, photos of my family, lots of lights, both colored and normal over head lights. Multiple fans to keep me cool. 

A little food storage to keep me fed during breakfast and lunch. 

Oh and I can cook steak for lunch... on my George Foreman.

![steak lunch](https://i.imgur.com/IUEcHz1.jpg)

Having a quiet place to work from has been a huge improvement to work life. Being able to change locations and being able to look out my door as I code, has helped with my mood and mental health. 

So far the wifi provide via AT&T's hotspot has been awesome, but I'm only a month on it and I'm not sure what it'll look like once I had my max and the slow down begins. We shall see. 

I know this isn't your typical post about code, but with most of us revolving our lives around it, it's important to share life as it come with it. My life is now coding from a van in Arizona (yup, it's like 114 on days) and a smile on my face. 

![sunset](https://i.imgur.com/mCxiYkZ.jpg)


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