Are tiny houses/vanlife a good idea or is it all just cope?

It's neither. Nobody without expendable income used to purchase a real house first actually lives in those things.
 
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It depends on your life, land situation, etc...

If you have lots of land but don't need a huge house then a small house is fine. A tiny house is pushing it, but it's also fine if it's just you and you have lots of outdoor space in which to live. Cleaning, maintaining, heating and cooling a large house is a fucking pain. Do you want to spend an entire day dusting, vacuuming, or cleaning rain gutters? Clearing brush and weeds or maintaining a lawn? More volume means more places for things like mold, insects, varmints, etc to take root. A smaller house is easier to live in in the long run.

On the subject of vans and RVs... I'm suspicious of anyone younger than 65 who wants or needs to live in a permanently mobile residence.
 
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It really depends on the person, as lots of users here have said. There are some really entertaining television programs about "tiny house hunting" and you can kind of a get a feel for what kind of person goes into it. For example, a single man or woman, just out of college with student loans, who wants a place to his or herself, to live cheaply, used to living in a dorm or apartment, I get it. But then there are couples with children who, for example, might force kids to share rooms or even beds when they could afford a normal house with space. I especially hate when parents force teens to do this. When you're a teenager, you absolutely need privacy. I could definitely see myself in a tiny house because I do not need a lot of space and I wouldn't be dragging anyone along at this point, nor do I use social media so it wouldn't be for clout.
 
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Van life is good for about 4 months if you keep moving. But after that long (in North America, anyway) you've basically done a circle and are back where you started. Keep a roofing hammer under your seat - it's equally useful for self-defense and digging quick holes when you need to take a shit.
 
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Uncle Sid said:
Van life is good for about 4 months if you keep moving. But after that long (in North America, anyway) you've basically done a circle and are back where you started. Keep a roofing hammer under your seat - it's equally useful for self-defense and digging quick holes when you need to take a shit.
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america has 50 states, some are massive and take a decent amount of time to drive through. if you went to each state and tried drive around and enjoy it. it would take years.
 
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Living in a tiny house isn’t that bad - if you’re by yourself.

It can easily become the 10th circle of hell if you bring in another person. For example: sharing 100 square feet with a cheating S/O. There is no escape from each other. No sleeping on the couch. No locking yourself in the bedroom. Itd be like a cage fight.

Im honestly surprised there’s not a string of murder-suicides occurring in shared tiny homes.
 
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Solid Snek said:
This. I remember seeing globohomo propaganda on TV a decade ago - Daily Show or Colbert or something like that - about how cool it would be to live in a box and have the Democrats own all your property. I thought it was bizarre at the time, but then I started reading Malthus, and the usual suspects' attempts to normalize low standards of living suddenly didn't seem so mysterious.

A tiny house on a large parcel of productive land would be fine, but living in a pod and eating bugs is definitely a cope.
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"Higher living standards have diminishing returns on increasing happiness, so to achieve the greatest good for the greatest number of people we should have an enormous population living on a minimal living standard."-Utilitarians, probably.
 
The last 3 christmas gatherings were nothing but talk about going on long RV roadtrips after retirement. my parents want to see all of europe and stay in the south for the winters after retirement. Horrible....


I myself have been thinling about a tiny home for some time. but all the good spots for a tiny summerhome are not for sale.
 
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Are there people living in "tiny houses," RVs, and vans that are legitimately happy? Yes.

But in general I think most of it is cope and just another example of pseudo-hippie woke behavior from childless millennials. I see some of these tiny houses and just can't understand how someone could be OK with living in that for long periods of time. Sometimes I get stir crazy just in my own room.

I'd rather have a smaller home with more (and private) land than a mansion BUT I would rather live in an apartment than a tiny house or van.
 
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So awhile after making this thread I actually did rent a van for a few days, hotels in the area I wanted to go to were expensive and my partner suggested trying out a van since we didn't have a particular destination anyway.

My thoughts are that it's great for travel, but not for long term. The van didn't have a bathroom or a real shower, so that was a big negative. You can get them with these features, of course. It was a little more stressful than I expected trying to find places to park it, though we erred on the side of parking legally. If we just didn't care, I'm sure there are more easy places to stay overnight.

As a travel option, I thought it was pretty great. You can travel as far as you want to and not have to worry about a hotel reservation. If you want to change clothes or something, just go to the van. The guy we rented the van from mentioned that he bought his first van for traveling and just started renting it out when he wasn't using it, but he made enough money from doing that to buy a second van and he's renting out both now. I think that's probably the best way to do it, use it for travelling and rent it out to make money when you're not.
 
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normal house > small house > McMansions
Anyone living in a mansion is a waste of space
 
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Save Goober said:
Yes, I think a normal house is best.
Everybody with mcmansions fills them up with consoomer crap
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A mcmanison is a nighmare for everybody who are perfectionist at decorating. Because it gets expensive fast, and the cheapest stuff isn't the nicest to look at.
 
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I just want a small house with a fucking huge machine shop. Don't have or particularly desire lots of materialist consoomer possessions, but goddamn I want a big-ass metal lathe and like twenty CNC machines to turn billet aluminum into useful shit
 
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Vingle said:
Do you like doing yard work? Because grass must be clipped and stuff.
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Or he could just not stupidly plant everything in a plant that grows tall but which he insists on keeping short and plant something else instead of bizarrely trying to ape the yard styles of 18th century European aristocrats who had servants to do all the work for them.
 
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It sounds great at first, until you find that you’ve become an old and childless gypsy diaperfur living in a Winnebago permanently parked in an industrial district with a stiff ganja waft coming off it.
 
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I can't remember the name of the movie but there was a scene with a guy presenting a new apartment design, which consists of hundreds of small coffins stacked on top of each-other. Whenever I see one of these tiny houses or converted shipping containers it instantly makes me think of that scene

It's a pretty popular old arthouse movie, somebody please help me remember
 
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