WHICH IS BETTER? Van Life Vs RV Life (PROS and CONS to BOTH)

So before we get into today's video we really need your guys help. We've been traveling alone for about a year and a half now and although it's been absolutely amazing we really want to meet more like-minded people. We are currently planning an epic group trip towards the end of the year that any one of you guys is welcome to join us on but we need your help planning it. There's a quick two-minute survey in the link in the description. If you can fill that out let us know how you like to travel, where you'd like to go, it would help us out so much. Thank you so much for being here and now into today's video. So since Lloyd and I met back in 2016 we've lived in our fair share of weird and unique homes. We've lived in vans, hotels, airbnbs, rvs and now our current camper van rv that we're living in now. If you've been watching our channel for a while you'll know that we did try to purchase a camper van back in Mexico. Actually a combi van which ultimately led to the decision to move into an rv full-time as opposed to doing van life. So because we've done both, we've lived in a van and an rv, we thought we would sort of share the pros and cons that we noticed between the two so maybe you can make a better informed decision on whether or not you should do van life or rv life. We're Lloyd and Mandy, a Canadian-Aussie couple that spent the last 18 months traveling as digital nomads through Southeast Asia and Mexico. Now we're in North America having a crack at full-time rv life. So the first van that me and Mandy ever lived in was a 1998 GMC safari that we found on the side of the road back in Canada. We bought it for a thousand dollars. The brakes weren't very good, the tires weren't very good but luckily we only really used it in summer and we actually got about five months of living out of it. Which is well worth the price tag but it definitely had some challenges. Our second van was a Toyota Hiace which we bought in Australia. Again that was a pretty cheap van and we sort of made it into just a weekend trip van that we could take camping along the coast and again that had some challenges as well. And then we finally bought an old vintage caravan in Australia that we did up for very cheap just to make it a bit more comfortable but we had that in the middle of winter and that had its own challenges as well. But it was a bit better because we're actually able to cook and live out of that a bit more than the other vans. So as you can see we've lived in multiple different types of homes on wheels. Pretty much everything except luxury. So I guess this video is more for people that are like us that are looking for starting with what they got or just doing this as a means to spend more time in nature and save a bit of money as well. All right let's get into the pros and cons. Okay so the first pro that we definitely have noticed is obviously you have way more space in an RV. So this is the first pro to having an RV as opposed to a van. They're definitely bigger. You got a lot more space and space for things like a toilet and a shower and that type of thing. Some vans obviously you can have that in them but as you can see like our Hiace for example did not have shower, bathroom, even space to have that. There's always the like little portable toilets you can do but yeah what the amount of space that you have is definitely lacking and RVs are definitely set up for you to have more space in them. But that also comes with a con as well I think because parking is a huge issue. With an RV a lot harder than a van. If you get a sprinter or any van it fits in a regular parking space whereas our RV does not. We decided that that was worth it because we'd rather have that extra space and you know area to hang out and live rather than be able to fit in every car park. But it does make it hard for us when we go to places like cities or you know anywhere that has just regular parking. It's very hard for us to find a spot. We spend a lot of time looking for spots at like supermarkets, shopping malls and you end up having to walk a little bit more which we don't mind because we have bear but definitely something to keep in mind if you don't like having to walk extra further away to where you're going probably stick with a regular sized van. All right the most obvious con for having an RV as opposed to a van is you're not very discreet. So we parked at Walmart the other night and spent the night and we definitely felt like it was completely obvious that we were there. Especially because if we have any lights on or anything you can really see it from outside the van. We don't have like blackout curtains or anything like that. So that's the biggest con. It's very obvious that you're parking somewhere overnight and staying the night but there is a catch-22 to that. So in the first month and a bit that we've been in our RV we found that the catch to that is you don't get moved on as much when you're in an RV despite being more obvious and I think that might be because people associate van lifers or people in vans with like kind of a freeloading community. I'm not saying we associate them with that at all but I think that is like the general consensus. Whereas an RV you kind of look like you're a mature aged maybe retired senior citizens or family that's like spending money as tourists or maybe from overseas and you've hired an RV or whatever. So I think there's a little bit of a difference there even though RVs are way more obvious when you're trying to do like stealth parking. We've found it's not really a big issue so I don't know if that's a pro or a con but it's definitely a difference. All right a huge huge pro to having an RV as opposed to a van or a converted van is that it's already set up to have everything inside of it. So with your van fit outs I feel like there's a lot of things that can go missed in a van fit out because there's so many things to think about but these RVs like they obviously have been making them for so long they're made to have you know ventilation that type of thing set up for so you can actually cook in it. That's a huge one that we notice like ventilation is very very important in your RV or your camper if you're going to be cooking inside of it anything like that. RVs already set up for that and I think a lot of vans that can be a bit difficult because they are just meant to be driven not necessarily lived in at the beginning. Obviously depends on which conversion you're going to be doing but if you're going to be doing like entry level like us working with what you got there's some things that can go a little bit missed if you're not spending the the extra money to convert your van if that makes sense. RVs are just created and set up in mind for you actually to live in them as opposed to vans so it's easier to fill up water or propane or those type of things you don't have to pull out tanks or anything like that they're already set up on the outside to be filled up whereas a lot of setups that we've noticed and that we had in our vans didn't have those things so just something to keep in mind as well that we think is a pro for RVs. We just want to take a quick second to thank Olafly for keeping us connected on the road. If you've never heard of Olafly they provide international e-sim cards to most destinations all over the world so you can travel and use the internet without worrying about expensive roaming fees. In fact you can even keep your own sim card active while using Olafly so you can continue receiving phone calls and text messages. They offer a huge variety of data packs ranging from five gigabytes a month to unlimited monthly packages and it's super simple to set up using their QR code just make sure you head over to their website and check if your phone is compatible. Simply click the link in the description and don't forget to use code LLOYDANDMANDY at checkout for five percent off your order. Okay so as Mandy was saying one of the pros to owning an RV is that everything's already set up. Because everything's already made according to the manufacturer's standards there's actually manuals for these RVs so if something goes wrong like we have an issue with our furnace right now, we had an issue with the fridge, chances are somebody's owned the same model RV as you and has done the work and probably put the information out there. If not you can find a user's manual online just by googling it whereas if you've bought a custom an already custom made van off somebody chances are nobody really knows how that van works except for the person who built it. That person might be you which is great but if not it makes it a bit more difficult to figure out how to fix all the issues. So one of the biggest cons to owning an RV as opposed to a van is access to roads. We don't have much clearance in our RV and most RVs don't nor are they all-wheel drive or four-wheel drive so you can't really take them bush bashing off-road. Some of the campsites you'd like to go to you can't really access because you're in an RV and whenever we're driving somewhere down a road I'm constantly thinking about whether or not I can turn around because it is so long and so big. It limits what sites or what places you can actually get access to so that's something to think about if you're looking at getting a van as opposed to an RV. There's definitely potential to two more unseen spots in a van. Now there are some things that just can't be avoided in either a van or an RV and those challenging things would be weather. The rain can really get to you in this lifestyle. I think that's why a lot of people chase the sunshine because it you know it's fine for a few days but then after a few days it can be a bit taxing on your mental health but maybe that's just us. We're just getting used to it at the moment but weather is definitely a big one and you need to be savvy with being able to fix things. A forward thinker, a problem solver is a very big one because things are always going to be breaking. You're going to have to figure out how to fix things. Nothing's going to be perfect all the time but I think it's just a very good way of just accepting things as they are and just going with the flow so I think you need to be more The last pro to having an RV as opposed to a van. I suppose this depends on your budget but RVs are a lot cheaper. We had a look at a lot of vans and any kind of van that you want to last for a long time and you want to convert into a full-time camper is going to cost you a lot of money. For instance a Mercedes Sprinter van like getting one of those that's fully converted for under $30,000-$40,000 you're really not going to get much for your money whereas RVs can go for like $15,000 ready to go like ours did but having said that those Sprinter vans and some of these converted camper vans they really do hold their value because they're really good vans like they got Mercedes engines they run on diesel and they last for a long time so that's one pro to owning a van even though they are more expensive if you have the budget it will hold its value which is a good thing. One thing that I really noticed when we were living in the van as opposed to the RV is that I never felt settled and even in the RV sometimes I still don't feel that settled like when we do the free camping and like boondocking sometimes I feel really good when we're at campsites like the one that we're at right now but in the van I was always just aware that I was in a car like I never felt like it was like a home that I could separate from the car but with the RV I do I don't know if that's just me but just something I wanted to mention as well so I guess the biggest thing to consider is just to decide what you need for your life what fits you best we decided for us after everything that we had tried that an RV would be best for us because we need the space we're both quite tall we need to be able to stand up in our home which was a big one for like when we're cooking and things still hit my head a lot of times yeah we hit our heads a lot and even in our first van Lloyd didn't even fit on the bed he had to sleep diagonally so we could fit and I would just sleep like in the corner sort of we didn't want to do that again but it's up to you whatever you feel you feel comfortable with in your life what things you can live without what you can't yeah I hope you guys find this video helpful and just to a side note we love RV life it has had its challenges we've had a few really tough days but also the best days we've ever had as well they say the first six months is the toughest okay and we're only a month in so and it's already improving and we're getting better at it we're not that good at it still but we're getting better maybe we've got another five months of being tough though yeah but that's all right we've done harder things before hope you guys enjoyed the video thanks for watching hit the like button help us out support a small business by subscribing and we will see you guys in the next one bye