#vanlife

With Thanksgiving behind us, it’s time to turn to that other meaning of tongue weight as we drag the baggage of past holidays down the highway and forward to the next. I’m speaking, of course, of small camping trailers.

I spent Thanksgiving in a yurt at Trap Pond State Park in Delaware. Yurts are an ancient form of portable housing so lightweight that they require only the single horsepower of a single horse. My rented example was made by the Colorado Yurt Company and firmly fixed to the ground. It seemed well-designed and also well-made. If a salesman had walked up and asked what it would take to put me in a used yurt today, I would have at least entertained the daydream. CYC is now known as Secret Creek, which sounds like more of a yurt-as-a-service setup for discreet assignations in the Mongolian style. In reality, Secret Creek is just a Big Tent roll up of a yurt biz, a tipi biz, and a tent biz under a single umbrella. They still sell yurts. Your basic no-frills Chevy Chevette of yurts runs about 11k and they probably run up to ‘if you have to ask’.

Eleven thousand dollars is also about the blue book price of a used 2008 Sprinter cargo van. It’s yurt, I mean yet, possible that Instagram will buy the current Sprinter business from Mercedes and pivot from photo filters and collecting data of minors to #vanlife hardware vendor. An Instagram van wouldn’t be dumber than the Facebook phone and it would pair well with Oculus. Big cross-promotional potential with a Ready Player One sequel.

This is the kind of thing I would think about in my yurt. Unfortunately, I have nowhere to put a yurt. An almost arbitrarily dilapidated Sprinter could be parked in front of my house for years without moving if I paid the city a few cents a day for an annual parking permit. If I parked a yurt at the curb, the city might actually crush it with a front-end loader, possibly while it was occupied. The middle ground, a camping trailer with no tags plopped in a parking space somewhere in the city would probably receive occasional tickets and be subject to a threat of towing.

This is the kind of thing I think about in my comfortable house. #vanlife may already quietly adding more housing units to historic Capitol Hill than new construction. I have much curiosity about this but little insight. I have compassion, but do not know exactly where to park it here. I think it is mostly with the unhoused neighbors in tents who lack everything, down even to the dignity of being as overlooked as a parked car. If the city towed my imaginary Sprinter, they would do it with more care than they do with tents. Then, amazingly, they would store it safely for as long as years in impound.

As a purely practical matter, #vanlife is terrific in my neighborhood for myself and my fellow gentry. Large, heavy, stationary vehicles lining the curb protect pedestrians and homeowners (even renters!) from drunk drivers. Less available parking on the street drives up value of my off-street parking. I may not be a prepper, but I know how to buy real estate with dystopia in mind. More optimistically, less available parking may encourage more neighbors to use transit.

Mostly what I think about when I’m in my house thinking about what I would think about in my yurt or Sprinter is that van builders are now de facto manufacturers of housing whether they intend it or not. What’s more, the build quality and price are surprisingly competitive with other builders of housing. In ten years, a dilapidated ex-delivery electric Ford Transit van will be sitting somewhere on my block providing electric heat and AC to its occupant, and perhaps also an incinerating toilet. Amazon Prime real estate. What else could we have American industry build as we transition to an electric vehicle fleet? I hope it includes more housing.

Looking to help somebody get off the street this season? Covenant House does good work for unhoused youth in DC and could use your support.