Hello everyone, hope you are having a good week.
This time I want to share with you some pro and cons that I found by living in the van in London. It is a while now from when I started van life and I decided to put together for you some of my experiences.
If you don’t like to read and you prefer to watch videos no worries. I create for you that too. Just head to my YouTube channel to find out these pro and cons and if you like the content don’t forget to subscribe.
Anyway back to us. Let’s start with the cons.
Cons number 1
View. You don’t wake up in a nice field with a nice view. You are on the street. So forget about to wake up and look to a nice landscape. The best thing you might be able to look at are foxes eating kebabs from what people left. Yep it happened while I was sleeping in a car park.
Cons number 2
Silence. You certainly don’t want people know you are living in your van and park in front of their houses. Don’t get me wrong, some people don’t have a problem with it but some others might be. So it is better avoid problems and keep silence while you are in the van. So you are acting like you are dead, which is not funny specially when you are back in the van in the afternoon and you still have the rest of the day to go.
Cons number 3
Food. Because I don’t want to make any noise in the van I stopped to cook. I love food and I love to cook. So basically my meals are made from food that is already prepared, bought from supermarkets like sandwiches or crisps. Of course sometimes I am going to visit some friends, thanks to them I can have a nice meal while I am staying in the city because of my full time job.
Cons number 4
Parking. I don’t like to go to work with the van because near to my job there aren’t too many spaces where to park, plus I finish work at 4PM and the traffic is insane. I prefer to go around London with my bicycle but by doing this I need to leave the van somewhere. Here is the problem. In London during the day there are Pay and Display. This mean that a certain times of the day you need to pay to park. So I need to find every time a place where to leave the van without this rule cause it can be quite expensive during the whole month and It is not easy to find parking space where there aren’t Pay and Display.
Now I am sure you are wondering what the pros are. Well one pro that I found is that actually you save money. You need to be careful to don’t spend too much in food though. As I was saying because I stopped cooking sometimes I like to have a nice meal without annoying friends. Eat out in London can be quite expensive. So if you are careful with this, you can actually save money.
Another pro is the parking space. What? You just said is a cons… Yes I said so but I said is a cons during the day. Pay and Display are only at a certain times of the day. The maximum I found until now is 7PM. After that you can park for free. This mean you can basically park anywhere without paying and this is mean you can sleep anywhere. I park my van in main roads and not in small roads. This is because I feel safer.
These pro and cons are coming from my experiences living in the van until now. Of course yours might be different or some might be similar to mine. It depends on your experiences and of course on your self as we are all different.
Now I decided to share my stories with you not only because of the van or because of photography… I believe there is no failure in what we decide to do, at list from my point of view. There is what you want and your experiences. Do what you feel… of course in respect of others, please remember this, you are not the only one in this world. Respect the places where you are going and of course respect your self. Try things! Because by trying things you discover more of your self, what you like and what you don’t like. You never know where you might end up. I mean I never thought I would be able to speak a second language, I never thought I would lived in a different country and specially I never thought I would live in a van and find out that I love to take photos and share with you my stories. The good experiences will stay with you and from the bad ones you learn.
I am done for today. Hope you enjoy the reading and thank you so much to have passed by. Don’t forget to subscribe to the newsletter so I can keep you update with new posts.
I will see you next. Ciao.
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