WHAT? No One Told Me VAN LIFE Could Only Be ONE THING. THAT SUCKS! haha!!

I'm lying in bed here this morning going through some YouTube comments and I came across this one and I thought I would share my response with you guys. This one says promoting van life while living in a shop he owns. The irony abounds. Love Chrome's personality can't take his van life advice seriously. So here's my response. I don't own the shop I rented for $900 and I sleep inside of my van every night. Living in a van doesn't mean you don't have a place to store stuff like a shop or a storage locker. Living in a van doesn't mean you can't have a place to run a business out of. Living in a van just means you sleep, eat and ---- in a van every single day. Just because I rent a shop as a YouTube studio to make videos in during the winter season does not make me not a van lifer. So to anybody reading this message, don't listen to people like this. Live your van life the way you want. If you want to buy land and live in your van on the land, then do it. It's still van life. Yeah. What do you say, cruisy? Hey, are we non-van lifers, bro? Empty your mind. I don't want to cuddle your butt in the morning. Why don't you put your head up here? Cruisy bear. You little cruisy bear. Hey. Oh, yeah. Well, good morning, everybody. Always keep things in convenient places. Wake up, put on deodorant. It's called Krakenard. Krakenard? Smells delicious. So I know there's a lot of you guys out there that like to read comments on YouTube videos or like to read forums or Facebook groups and things like that on van life. And I know sometimes, you know, a lot of people think that you have to live van life a certain way. And over the years, being a YouTuber, we read a lot of things. A lot of messages from a lot of people that think that if someone lives in a big $200,000 Sprinter conversion, that they're not living van life, real van life. Well, technically, they are. They're in a van and they're living in it, even if they're just weekend living in it. It's still van life. If they're weekending in a camper van, they're still van lifers. Maybe not full-time van lifers, but if they slept in the van overnight, they're living the van life. Because there's a ton of people out there that aren't doing it full-time. You know what I mean? There's a lot of people out there that are living van life in all different kinds of crazy and unique ways. And to me, that is the most beautiful thing about this lifestyle, is it allows a bit of mobility and freedom to be home anywhere you want. If I don't want to be on this island this week, I just take my home and go wherever I want. If I want to sleep in a town that way tonight, I can. If I want to sleep outside of my shop, I can. If I want to just walk the shop up for the winter and go travel like we did last year for six full months, I can. Because we have that beauty. But seeing comments like that just makes me want to share with you guys that that's the greatest part about just living in general, and living the van life too, is you can live as crazy, unique, or as traditional as you want. If you want to live in a van on the side of a street and live that city van life every day traditionally, and everything you own is inside of your van, like I did for the first, what, multiple years of my life? I was a city van dweller, everything I owned was in my van. You can do that. Or if you want to be a van lifer that lives out into the backcountry all the time, on free public use land no matter where you are in this world, and just live completely off the grid, super minimal, if that's the van life you want to live, you can do that too. You can live any way you guys want. You don't have to be stuck into these little columns of things. And when I see comments like that, I'm like, well, what's wrong with me living in my van every day and renting a shop? To that person in my comments, I've been living in my van five years, and I still sleep in here every single night. So you can take advice from whoever you want when it comes to learning how to live in a van, but ideally, the only advice you need is somebody who eats, sleeps, and shits in their van every day. And you can do that anywhere. Even if I owned a piece of land, which I don't, even if I owned a piece of land somewhere in the backcountry and I just lived on my own land in my van, that is still van life, my friend. If you have a ginormous storage locker packed with your entire home that you moved out of before you moved into your van because you couldn't sell your couches, your tables, your appliances, you couldn't sell anything, if you still have that storage locker with all of your past in it, and you live in a van every day, eat, sleep, ---- in your van, well, welcome to van life, my friends. So if you see comments like that down below, don't fall into any of those pockets and categories because that's the great thing about van life is there's no column that says this is how you live. It's the freedom of this lifestyle that makes van life the most incredible thing on the planet because you can do whatever the heck you want. You can decorate the inside of your home however you want. You don't got a landlord around you saying you can't paint your wall that color. You know, if you want to screw balls all the way across the roof and have a weird funky roof, well, you can do that in your van because it's your van. Just do whatever you want. Live however you want. That's the fun part about life is you have one life to live. Live it however the heck you want to live it, okay? That's the thing about it. You just live the life that you want to live, and when you get bored of living that way, change it. That's what I did with my van life is that I felt like there was a need for a change in my van life somewhere and, you know, it's either do I quit van life because it was just needed some spark to it. So adding the shop to my life gave my van life the spark that I needed. I love going in there doing van life related stuff like Emily in the shop the other day building out some stuff inside of her van or me in there doing repairs on my van. Having a space for that stuff has been absolute heaven for me, and as a van lifer, to have a place to work on your own van is on another level. Yeah, anyway, I don't know why reading a comment like that sparked me to talk about this, but sometimes it does happen when I'm in the comments and I see something that kind of spins me a little bit sideways, but thank you for liking my personality. I appreciated that. But it also really just makes me think about the greater audience and seeing some of the comments I've seen in the past where people feel like, well, you know, I can't do what you do because I have a stationary job. You can still live in a van and have a stationary job. It's okay to live in a van in one town and go to one job every day. You don't have to quit your job to move into a van and and roam around and make money online. You don't have to. You can live the van life while having the same job you have right now. You know, I think this is what happens with comments like that. I think there's too many comments like that that go out there and people start reading things and forums and stuff and automatically think van life has to be one thing. Van life can be whatever the heck you want. Remember, the fundamentals of being able to say I live in a van full time is eat, sleep and ---- in a van. There's new merch. Eat, sleep and ---- in a van. Welcome to van life. All right, let's see what my view is. It's still dark outside. I'm pretty sure the sun would be up by now. Apparently not. Okay. Who slept at my shop? Oh, so I didn't film anything yesterday. I do have some clips because Emily grabbed my camera and I'm going to see if I can get some. Well, the camera's catching me here. That might have cameras inside the shop. Notification my phone that says there's a person in your shop. You watch. Wait, hold on a second here. Notification. There's a person in your shop. You're not kidding. That's me. Anyway, I slept outside the shop last night because this man had a few too many beverages. I had one of my DJ friends from Vancouver come out yesterday, him and his girlfriend. It was her birthday. So we spent the afternoon jamming in the shop. They left here probably around 8 p.m., which is perfect timing for me because I'm an early guy to go to bed. A couple too many beverages and driving was not an option. So I slept outside of the shop. And I think only slept outside the shop twice. So, yeah, and then I think the most I've slept inside of here was when my ankle was sore because I was kind of like I couldn't drive. I was stuck here for like a week. So anyway, I had a bunch of my DJ and my DJ buddy. Oh, we got to make a mix. It was really awesome. Inside here is probably packed full of like beer. Anyway, guys, I got to make myself a coffee today. I actually have Lauren coming into the shop this morning. I'll turn the camera back on and film all that stuff because hopefully today's the day we get to take that anvil out for a rip. Super excited. Yeah, the aftermath is a nice fancy cup. And we had a really good time last night. It was really, really, really fun. I'm excited about this thing. Think how good that looks right there. And this is the only spot that we've paid attention to. We did the engine and I'm starting the cab of the floor. That looks absolutely incredible. It's nice to take this build nice and slow and have a space like this that we don't have to rush things. By the way, I'm probably keeping both my homes, by the way. Those that have been asking, what do you do with your van chrome? I'm probably going to keep it. I am so attached to my current van home. That very van is the one I sleep in every single day. And that very van, I owe all of this to. That and you guys that show up here every day. And so that's why I'm not selling my other van because I owe everything I have today to the story in my life that that van allowed me to have. Oh my gosh, that van is incredible out there. I love that thing. Anyway, I want my coffee. I blame the espresso machine on the crew at Ray Outfitted. As soon as I came back from my summer trip, I'm like, I'm buying myself an espresso machine. So maybe, maybe, maybe I'm not a real van lifer anymore because I have a shop. I don't know. Maybe that's this. Maybe that's the new. Maybe that's the thing. Maybe, maybe I'm not a van lifer anymore. I mean, I have an espresso machine. Does that make me not a van lifer too? I got, I got friends that have espresso machines inside of their Sprinter vans. They're still van lifers. They still, they still poop in a toilet like in a pail like me. Well, mind you, they're also pooping in a, in a $2,000 plastic pail. Same thing. Even my shop doesn't have a bathroom. Here's, here's my shop bathroom. My shop bathroom is a luggable loo pail. Put a garbage bag in it. My business. And when I need to pee in the shop, those are my, those are my pee jugs. Because that's what we do. Anyway guys, I'm going back home. I got a video to edit. That might be Lauren. I might not have time to edit. I slept good. My neck hurt this morning still, but yeah, I slept good last night. So Emily went and stayed in town last night and looks like Lauren, my mechanic, is sleeping right beside where she's at. So he's coming to the shop here this morning. Anyway, guys, I'm going to go see if I can squeeze out some time for an edit. If not, well, we're going to have to skip another video because today is a very important day. I'm really excited about starting that ambo. Anyway, guys, go live the life that you want to live. Don't feel like you need to put yourself into a little box and live one way and one way only. Go have some fun, man. You got one life to live. Live it however the heck you want. I'm living the van life shop life and I would not have it any other way. What do you think of our van life shop life? You dig it? I dig it too, bro. I think it's pretty cool. Look at this meat head. He's a big dog. He is not a small puppy. Hey, Mario. Have a good day today.