Van Life YouTubers Are Full Of SH*T! (influencers exposed)

in my video about why I quit van life which has now received over 650 000 views I was very honest and vulnerable and told you guys the reason why I quit van life so in this video I want to be honest with you guys once again I want to explain to you guys how van life YouTubers make this lifestyle to be so easy and carefree meanwhile it's really not now if you're new to the channel I used to live in a small tiny 2021 Dodge Ram ProMaster city van I bought the van brand new and outfitted the van with the Cascade camper build I lived in it for an entire eight months because I wanted to document the entire process and see what it was like while I lived inside the van I made a bunch of videos starting from the beginning all the way towards the end and I explained all the positives as well as all the negatives in a lot of my different videos since the beginning I knew that this is not something that I'm going to be doing permanently it was only something I was going to do for a few months while it lasted eight months I was absolutely candid about my entire experience and so now that I'm no longer living inside the van it's taken me some time to think about all these things and I've watched a bunch of other videos recently but they're not being 100 honest with you and I thought I make this video to share with you what the real experience of living in a van is really like aside from parking next to the beach having your doors open and getting this amazing view and the sun in your face cooking out in the open yes there are a lot of great experiences but there's also another side to it that I want to discuss with you in this video this video is dedicated to anyone who's sitting at home just like I was during the pandemic and watching van life YouTubers and thinking that this is a great hobby or a lifestyle maybe they want to pursue it full-time or they want to do it part-time or maybe they want to be a Weekender but I wanted you to see the other side of it this video will be broken down into nine sections the first section I want to start out with is the best personality type to do van life and that personality type is the introverted personality type and there are a number of reasons why you may or may not realize it by now but I talk with my hands I love to talk and even though in my videos you may not have seen me with other people I love to socialize with other people and when I don't my energy level Goes Down And while I was doing fan life for eight months even though I lived with Rambo a lot of the times I was bored and a lot of the times it felt very lonely I need other people around me and if I don't have other people around me my energy level goes down now on the flip side if you're an introvert you'll feel right at home with Van life there are a lot of Van life YouTubers that just don't like people in general they don't like to be around them they don't like to be around a lot of cars you'll often find them parked in deserts and places that there are absolutely no people and no cars or nothing around that's the type of person or personality that would thrive in Van life not my type I grew up in the city I love the city life I love the hustle and bustle I love to be around people I love to socialize and if I'm not doing all those things my energy level goes down and I feel like there's something lacking in my life so just putting this out there that van life is perfect but it suits a specific type of personality type now if you are an extrovert and are doing van life then find creative ways so you won't be bored of course having a dog is perfect but not everyone can afford to have a dog because dogs come with its own expense and of course you there's a lot of other responsibilities that comes with it as well so number two everything takes super long inside of a van and what I mean by that is most van life YouTubers will create videos they'll be anywhere between 8 minutes to 15 minutes long but what if I told you that that video took the entire day to produce or it took multiple days to produce but meanwhile you saw very fast cuts and you saw that meal being prepared in anywhere between two to three minutes and then an additional two to three minutes for cleaning sessions and then maybe going outside or doing something entertaining this entire video that they create online for you guys including my own videos If you go watch some of mine took a long time because when you're cooking inside your van it's a very small little space you need to make sure that there's enough space for your food for your cooking utensils for your pots and pans for your burner now I understand there are there are bigger Vans out there with more space but still a small little van anywhere between 30 to 100 square feet is just not enough space things take way longer than you expect so speaking of tidiness now let's jump on to number three your van is going to get constantly dirty every single time you step in and out of your van which is going to be about a hundred times a day summer times too hot inside the van winter time too cold in the van so you're always going to have to go somewhere else if your van doesn't have air conditioning or an inbound heater shopping malls coffee shops restaurants places where you can take your laptop to work are perfect for escaping the heat as well as the cold that means getting in and out of your van to get whatever you need to get all the time and as a result of that your van is constantly dirty while I was living inside my van especially with a dog there's dog hair everywhere so you constantly need to vacuum so I bought myself a portable little vacuum and once a day I vacuumed inside the car and then maybe once or twice a week I had a deep clean vacuum session where I took everything out because you have no idea how far small little hairs will go in places where you never imagined not only that but Vans start to smell after a while because they're just small confined spaces so it's either you by yourself or you have a partner or you have a partner and a dog which makes it even worse so at that point things start to get really smelly so you constantly have to clean the van and so these are some of the things that van life YouTubers won't ever tell you how bad it smells inside the van because you can't really smell it and they won't ever tell you so let's jump on to number four because now I want to talk to you guys about the summer months and the winter months so when I started van life I started in September during the month of September the weather was still a little bit warm but not super hot so I didn't really get to experience full-on heat but I was always hanging out near the beach but not everyone who has a van is going to live in San Diego or stay in San Diego the weather in San Diego is always a cool 72 to 75 degrees at the coast but if you live in Florida with your van or you're traveling inside of it let's just say that one of the most popular places Utah as an example it's super hot there in the summertime how do you deal with the heat and on top of that how do you deal with all the moisture that comes inside your van moisture develops into mold then at that point it becomes almost unlivable because who can live inside of a van that has mold in it on top of that cooking inside your van whenever it's super hot is next to impossible so you're always going to have to do it outside or you're going to have to eat outdoors and that can also come with a lot of expenses now on the flip side a lot of Van life YouTubers create these beautiful epic dramatic Winter Wonderland scenes for you a van life YouTuber which I'm not going to mention went all the way out to the Arctic sometime last year it was amazing and I enjoyed it thoroughly but they're not going to explain to you what it was like to sleep at night with that kind of cold they may have a heater but there are a lot of issues that come with that as well not everybody has a diesel heater not everybody knows how to install the diesel diesel heater or have the budget to install one so a lot of people are going to be sleeping in the cold and so these are some of the things that no one ever talks about and YouTube Van life videos me personally I rather tolerate winter than the summer in the summer it's impossible to get away from the heat but in the winter at least you can get a portable heater or layer up and if it gets too hot which I doubt it will you can layer down winter is always more tolerable than summer in my opinion and now let's talk about number five because there are a couple of things you constantly need to replenish inside your van so as an example I had a small five gallon water tank inside my van but I did not have a gray water tank so for me was a lot easier but the bigger Vans they have a great water tank fresh water tank and depending on your van and how big it is you may have something that stores all the waste water which is kind of gross when I think about it so a couple of times a week or maybe a couple of times a month you have to refill all that stuff and then your gray water gets full it's not like you can take it to a restaurant or dump it on the ground you have to find a place that accepts gray water tanks and Wastewater and all that other stuff which in my opinion is kind of gross and Van life YouTubers never ever talk about this kind of stuff some van life YouTubers have showers inside their Vans but I guarantee you that ninety percent of the time they don't use it you know why because it takes a lot of effort to get rid of all that gray water at the end of the day where at the end of the week or month that's a lot of work and no one explains this kind of stuff and now let's talk about number six because I want to talk about bathrooms now if you're lucky enough to have a large van I'm talking about one of those vans that cost a hundred and fifty thousand dollars to two hundred thousand dollars you may or may not have a bathroom inside of it but chances are it's one of those cassette toilet bathrooms right but if you don't have one of those things even though your van might be small and you can have one inside of it then you're gonna have to constantly find a bathroom to do your number one and number twos inside of a lot of people who have the cassette toilet bathrooms I'm talking about the YouTubers they only use it for number one they never use it for number two one of the biggest limitations of Van life is the bathroom aspect of it if you have a cassette toilet it's going to be very difficult for you to do both at some point you're going to get tired of removing your own defecation from your small little cassette toilet these are some of the difficulties that really no one talks about and I wanted to bring it out into the surface which kind of sounds gross but yeah so let's move on to number seven in number seven I want to talk to you guys about not everywhere being van life friendly now I lived in the beautiful state of California specifically San Diego San Diego is perfect for Van life if you've never come to San Diego inside your van chances are you're missing out come by here the beaches are full of people who who live in Vans and no one bats an eye no one cares there are certain places where you can't park your van and that is in public parks well actually you can park there but you can't park there overnight but near the beaches you can park in side streets and no one no one would hassle you but this is just San Diego because San Diego is very van life friendly but if you move out of state it can become very challenging people get tickets people get towed and these are some of the things that van life YouTubers never talk about most van life YouTubers that I know of Park in remote places where it's away from the city they may go to the desert they may Park in places where just there's no civilization like there's no stores so if you like doing that parking in the middle of nowhere then van life is pretty easy to do but whenever I did travel to different states there are parking signs that do say no parking between 10 pm to 4 a.m at night and you're going to encounter a lot of that kind of stuff just imagine it's late at night you get somewhere and it's hard for you to find parking to sleep it can be very stressful and it's something that no one really talks about so that's another thing I wanted to bring up in this conversation finding parking is very difficult and not every state is Van life friendly let's talk about number 8. van life YouTubers do not discuss breakdowns or they may not discuss it that much luckily for me I bought a brand new van it was a 2021 Dodge ProMaster city van I bought it with probably 20 miles on the odometer but not everyone can afford that especially with a build that comes on top of that which will bring it up to anywhere between 40 to 45 000. there are a few that can't afford it but I would say most people have older generation bands that have 50 to 100 000 miles on it which requires a lot of Maintenance and requires a lot of repairs Electronics inside the van might be old need to be upgraded you may need to install upgraded solar panels or a new battery system the amount of expenses can add up and these are some of the things that people really don't explain much about it's a lot of fun to do van life but I think it also comes with a lot of expenses so these are some of the things I wanted to make sure that you realize before you actually did it so thank you so much for sticking around till the end of this video we are at number nine number nine is the fact that you get super tired moving around constantly van life YouTubers have this as a job they won't ever complain about doing it however I want to tell you and I want to be absolutely candid with you moving around constantly does get very tiring now there are people who will comment in this video that yes you live in an RV park completely understand that's your thing good for you there are people who live out in the desert it's the middle of nowhere as I mentioned in the beginning of this video you may be introverted that's perfect for you because it's just you and your solitary location and you're completely okay with that but as someone like me who likes to constantly socialize and be around people loves to hustle and bustle of city life I can't do that I need to be in a big city where everything is Within Reach maybe walking distance maybe driving distance anywhere between five to ten minutes to get to wherever I need to get to I like the conveniences of life and so if you're doing van life just realize that if you're not stationary in one place for a very long time you're constantly going to have to move around and Van life YouTubers even though they do this as a living they won't explain to you how much it sucks I think most van life YouTubers start this out as a hobby in the beginning but later on the channel grows their expectations they get anywhere between 30 to 100 000 subscribers and suddenly they feel as if this becomes a job and they continue with the grind and they do it even though they don't enjoy it honestly that's my opinion and I think YouTubers are doing it only because of the income but that being said I think I made the best decision of my life living inside the van for eight months and I cherish those memories I'm so happy that I documented all the good and the bad points of Van life and I'm really happy to make this video for you guys to share with you my experiences and let you know the good side and the bad side of Van life because it truly is a great hobby but I think as a hobby it's great but to live in it comes with a set of challenges and I want it to be 100 honest and candid with you and let you know so I hope hope you enjoyed this episode please give it a like and please subscribe to the channel this video was kind of serious I told you about all the negatives of Van life and I was just honest with you about everything but I promise you that things will become a lot more fun with me and Rambo and we're going to do some great adventures Outdoors not just inside my apartment but until the next episode thank you so much for watching and I will see you guys soon take care ciao for now

Channel: Will & Rambo

Views: 308,151

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Id: ODor2-AV6fc

Length: 15min 54sec (954 seconds)

Published: Sat Sep 24 2022