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Why do you feel the need for the extra space?
Do you park on a resi street? Can you guarantee that you'll not be blocking light into people's front room or gardens?
Do you exclusively stay in campsites? If not have you considered that a LWB van takes the parking space of three cars which carry 5x more people? And that local roads in popular locations generally just aren't designed for massive vans
Without wanting to be too blunt, I really hate the way influencers have persuaded everyone they need big fuck off vans now. Especially in the outdoors community which I would like to think is conscious of their consumption and outdoor access in general.
A van to me should be closer to camping than driving a studio flat to the lake district for the weekend, and the more people that do the latter are the ones who risk spoiling access in general. Big van owners IME are often more akin to 'love the outdoors' youtubers who spend the weekends walking one mile and then flying a fucking drone over the fells.
Apols to anyone offended! (Except the drone folk)
angelofthenorth-
Live opposite this?
Jokes aside, yes understand and mostly agree.
(^ that is a total blight on that street, painted like that or not)
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Without wanting to be too blunt
Curious to see blunt you.
On your rant I read a great (actually quite shit) reddit thread where someone relayed an anecdote about seeing a couple in a blinged out #vanlife staging photos at a beauty spot, cooking up an amazing set of steaks and assortment of salad, staging more pics only to bin it all then drive off.
I think my deep loathing of Instagram, Pinterest, etc. is that it is democratisation of marketing. Which instead of being positive just results in an expansion and normalization of the sort of the vacuous shit that used to be confined to TV and print media - which everyone understood to be a fake version of life.
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loving your style, ignore the haters ;)
I live in the countryside but you're right, I could no longer park my van on the street as i do have neighbours to consider. I've recently gone from travelling on my own or as part of a couple (mostly wild or municipal aires on the continent) to being a family of four including 2 young kids. No bathroom / shower makes that tricky. Because kids, most of my trips in the next couple of years will be to campsites, but the real reason I want a bigger van is for longer trips to south western Europe and beyond. I spent a month in Morrocco a few years back and can see myself overwintering there more regularly. But you're right, it's a different proposition.
IDGAF about influencers but I certainly don't want to be taken as being one.
You make really good points about practicalities and big vans being so dominant that they spoil access. One of the things about my current van is that it's incredibly stealthy, I hadn't really considered that I was giving that up.
Shit. Maybe I need a caravan :o
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I agree with this 100%.
Theyre hard to find but my favourite is the t5/t6 with a medium height roof or the L1H2 Transit Custom. That extra few inches means you can stand in them (just) and the swb ones are only as long as an estate car. They also remain nice and stealthy
Howard
hugo7
freddo
popdown
Right so I have the opportunity to trade my 11 year old VW California in for a brand new LWB Crafter, which would be a base vehicle for conversion. Upsides: much more space, shower + toilet, newer vehicle. Downsides: obviously much bigger so would only get used for camping (though we have a mini-SUV for family use). After the conversion I’ll be about £10-15k out of pocket due to strong residuals on the Cali.
Crafter owners, any advice for me?