Hello everyone, newcomer is here

Hello everyone, glad to be here with all of you! My dream is to buy a van and ride the country. I saw there some topics where people said that they save money for a van - how much time did you spend on it?
Thank you so much! I hope my dream will come true one day

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Greetings & Welcome!

I buy cheap vans and do cheap conversions. My general rule of thumb is to spend no more than 2-3 months worth of rent for the van including the conversion.

Older rigs from the 70’s & 80’s were built better, and will last longer. Well maintained they drive better than anything newer, and with far fewer problems, since they don’t have computers or tons of sensors to go bad.

Spending big bucks just doesn’t make sense to me. Newer vehicles are a depreciating asset, so if they are already fully depreciated, their value should hold, and might even appreciate. So I prefer to start saving money with the purchase, and in the long run they save me a ton of money, with very little risk involved.

Depending on your location and local trends, factory campers & motorhomes could be the best bang for the bucks. I highly recommend factory built, move in ready vehicles if they’re available and affordable when you’re ready to jump in. If not, then vans, buses, and more can be converted, but time is money, and a $2500 rig can be just as comfortable as a $100k rig, just older and more reliable.

In 2010 I bought 1973 Dodge Travco factory camper van that had been gutted for a remodel. I paid $700 for it and drove 250 miles to purchase it. I restored the original floor/walls/ceiling, but changed the original floorplan, to my personal liking. The total build cost ~$300. Over the following 11 years and 300k+ trouble free miles, requiring only normal maintenance, I lived comfortably through very blazing hot & sometimes humid summers, and very frigid winters. Always comfortable, my home on wheels was fully self contained and the most comfortable home on the planet. All for a $1,000 initial investment.

Over the years, I converted a 1976 $2500 shuttle bus into a full time party bus, so I could take friends camping. That conversion was also cheap, under $500, mainly just my time involved. Last year I gained to regular passengers, so I parked my van and switched to my party bus to accommodate the three of us in comfort and luxury. We live in, work in, and travel in our comfortable self contained bus, all for only a ~$3,000 original investment, not including the time I spent doing the conversion. The bus was what was available cheap at the time, but make no mistake, I would have bought a move in ready factory built motorhome if one would have been readily available at the time.

Cheers!


"Be the reason someone smiles today!" ~ Van_Dweller


You are indeed an experienced traveler, thank you for your reply! I will pay my attention to ready factory built motorhome

Welcome Addryn. I’m new here too.
:slight_smile: