Are there any "Van Life" folks rolling around here on Hive?
About 2 months ago, my former daily driver vehicle, a 2009 Chevy HHR was totaled in a six car pileup on Interstate i40 just outside of Nashville, Tennessee in the USA.
No one was hurt, but all the cars that were involved in the incident, were all completely totaled by a speeding commercial truck that ran into a sitting line of rush hour traffic jammed cars. We all got compensated by the offending driver's insurance pretty quickly, all things considered, and a few weeks after the incident occured I was in need of a replacement vehicle.
Because I am currently living between two nations, with a rented room in Tennessee near my daughter's place and the land and homesite I bought and am working on establishing down in Costa Rica, I have a lot of stuff stored in the USA to sell off and/or transport down to CR with each return flight and a lot of stuff to haul to the dump, or to donation centers and so forth.
For that reason I thought maybe replacing my old smaller vehicle with something a little larger, like a minivan would make sense. Additionally, since I will be living in Costa Rica full time but frequently returning to the United States to visit my family and friends, as well as periodically renewing my visa for six more years until I can retire and gain proper legal residency in CR, I thought it might be fun to make a van I can use as a "Van Life" van for my short return stays, so as not to have to maintain a rental property in the USA for these short periodic returns once or twice a year.
So I decided to pursue that idea and I've always liked Chevrolet Astros, also released as GMC Safaris. Same kind of van just produced under both brand badges. With some diligent searching, I found an excellent example and pounced on it. I've had it a little bit over a month now and done some needed maintenance and repairs to make it safe and road worthy, and I've already completed half a dozen 800 mile round trips in it to my storage unit in another state to proceed with the disposal of things I've kept too long and paid too much to store and didn't plan to take to Costa Rica anyway.
Meet my 1999 GMC Safari "Middie" Van, much bigger than mini vans, but still smaller than full-size vans.
It's in incredible shape for a 25+ year old vehicle, and only some cosmetics and minor deferred maintenance were needed to do on it, as everything pretty much works like it should and still looks amazing to me for it's age.
I will use it for my "USA" base, hauling the stuff from my storage units to sell it or flea market it all during my visits back here to the states, and will set it up as a camper van-life ride for my short visits here in the future.
It's a classic, these have a cult following and maintenance and parts are abundant and straightforward. It's capabilities are fantastic too, thanks to it's size, 5000 lb towing capacity (hitch installed already) and 3700lb cargo area load ability. That would tow a pretty sizable trailer or maybe even a little "yacht"! 🚤
Not your grandma's mini-van, these are more like trucks with pretty quick motors. These are built on Chevy S10 truck platforms, and some editions came with full time all wheel drive making them full time 4 wheel drive from the factory. Some other people even make the full swap to make these 4x4 vans, using 4x4 S10 pickup truck chassis to bolt the van bodies on top of, which is a relatively straightforward and direct fit transition. I probably won't do that, because mine is in such good shape as it is, but I don't really need my USA vehicle to be 4x4 anyway. I've got a 1987 Isuzu Trooper 4x4 at my place in Costa Rica to use on those much more treacherous volcano-side mountain roads.
The Vortec 4.3 liter V6 in this beast really gits up and goes really well too. It's quick, fun to drive and sounds pretty good for a van!
It's just so good, all around, and I was very very happy to trade to it from my now destroyed 2009 4 cylinder HHR, despite having recently spent a couple grand making that one a jewel in it's own right with new tires and front suspension updates right before it got creamed by the truck on the highway.
This van was heavily optioned with a "marketing package" and cost right at $25,000 when bought new per the sticker included along with all the factory books, services manuals and the Haynes book even.
I was paid out just over 5K from insurance for my totaled car, this van cost $2500 flat. It only has 45K more miles on it than my old car, which had 154K. this one has 199K. I will be the one to roll it to 200K in no time though.
After taxes and title and registration, I'll come out ahead with couple grand of insurance payout left over in my pocket on this deal and have a vehicle much more suited to this next travel based phase of my US existence when I am visiting here from Costa Rica.
I spent about a grand of that on various things I wanted to update, replace or repair on the van, but I drive it daily now and it kicks butt and is super awesome on the road.
I really like the way the back doors are configured as "dutch doors" that are split down the middle on the bottom, but the upper section, separated from the lower half, lifts up to offer quick access or to provide a bit of rain or sun shelter when its popped open as well.
I'm really excited about dressing this thing out as a van life camper for my return visits and trips around the USA. It needs new front door panels inside, but the rest is in fabulous shape for living and camping in, and at 25+ years old, it's amazing to me that the seats aren't even torn up, its just "vantastic" all around!
And this thing was $25 grand when it was new. It's very cool that I also got the original window sticker and several things like the dealership brochure, a set of factory and aftermarket service manuals and other nifty odds and ends.
It has some really nice upgraded options installed and added on when it was originally purchased new as well. It's just a really comfortable vehicle and pretty sharp looking, if you ask me!
I've already equipped it for rudimentary camping with a portable toilet, a portable rechargeable shower system (to use outside the van when stopped), a solar panel and battery system that is sufficient to keep a 5G router, laptop and lights running all night while charging my phone back up and not depending on the van's battery or inverters to handle those loads. They all work great and are all portable so I can swap from camping mode to hauling things without really too much hassle or fuss.
So I am curious, are there any other folks out here on Hive, living on the road, doing the Van Life thing or perhaps the RV life thing? I'm always interested in seeing other people's approaches to that and naturally I've spent billions of hours watching Van Lifers do their builds on YouTube, but of course I would much rather be consuming my social media content here on the chain.