Tyty

Btw, 5 people on a 35 footer (I'm assuming 4 line handlers and the guide) is tons more crowded than 4 people on a 45 footer. It's still tiny living but much less cramped.

Not my specialty, but I have put solar on a boat before and I'm at your service.

The house has sold and closed. Glad to have that part behind us. We are driving down to Mexico next week to look at a boat.

Nice!! You going to Ensenada area or somewhere on sea of Cortez?

We are in San Carlos near Guaymas, right now

It was not the boat. We are considering one in Georgia now.

Love to see some of these fulfil you dreams plans! Matt & Steve, be delighted to see you guys again if you can make it to Peru. My house is no longer a half finished building project

Best to all

Peru, and particularly Arequipa, isn't really on any common sailing paths but I never say never!

I'm bored with being retired and likely 5 months from getting on a sailboat (wife probably needs knee surgery again) so I need to play poker. Anyone play still? Any advice on where I should try? I looked through all the internet site threads and they all still seem crappy and shady.

Yo. I forgot my password and lost access to the old email and missed a flurry of posts in the last few months!

Hope all is well.

Lacky, have you put solar up in Mexico or on your boat yet? If not, lmk and I'll come down and do it.

The boat in mexico wasn't the right one. We are going to see and do a survey on one in Georgia next week.

Ah, I read too fast and got the impression you had a house in Mexico, but I see you were just looking at a boat. Georgia is a little far. You may have to sail to California or closer anyway for hands on help, but internet help is available anywhere obv.

I've watched a lot of similar videos and I'd say the second paragraph is definitely the right approach. The van lifers with like 150k subs talk about it being "gas money". And the people with 1M+ subs are usually young and you get a lot of bikini shots for thumbnails.

I don't look that good in a thong.

Patreon, branding/merch, donations, etc. on top of Ad money. That’s how a lot of these YT channels seem to do it.

(Not that it amounts to significant $$)

I suspect most of those 1M #VANLIFE people use the money to stay in hotels. Those vans always look way too pristine to be lived in.

When I was on my trip you never saw them in the Pan-American Highway Facebook group unless they were pitching something. They contribute nothing to the community.

One of them showed up begging for money because they were supposedly robbed. Somehow the only thing the thieves stole, out of the whole van, was the camera equipment they use to make videos. Lol **** off with that. 99% they were running some kind of insurance scam and trying to get donations off of it to boot.

Instagram is fine for its intended purpose of sharing pics with friends. But for everything else it's the nut low.

I don't follow any of those people, but I do follow this guy:

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCL_...9Kqwy6YPWr30ow

I don't watch all his videos, but I've seen enough to be sure he's not faking it. He's up to 2M subscribers and at some point he got enough money that he was buying a house (in Minnesota) and a boat and weird vehicles and obviously had some money. He does merch and ads.

The people I follow like this guy with 150k subscribers pretty clearly aren't making a ton of money.

https://www.youtube.com/c/SlimPotatohead

These are the people I'm talking about.

Yeah, I've seen some of that, but I see more people like this - who are I think a lot more representative of people actually living in their vehicles:



October 10th-14th I'll be volunteering in Pahrump, NV at a van build sponsored by Homes on Wheels Alliance and we will be building out vans for people who are on the edge of living on the streets and probably most of them will be in their 70s or older.

This lady here, iirc, had something like a stroke and a broken back, but recovered pretty well.

Yeah I have no problem with those people at all. They're great.

We finally found the boat in Green Cove Springs, Florida. It's a Kelly Peterson 44, big old 30,000 pound monster. You would even be comfortable on it suzzer. And of course we get to ride out a hurricane and have all our flights canceled.

The boat has had some work done and looks a little better now but pretty much as it is in the video

https://youtu.be/sgiXWkwV0ng

Nice. You already have 3 little solar panels. Very exciting.

Yeah it has three 75w panels. I plan on putting much bigger solar panels on that solar arch and maybe putting the 75w panels on the rail if they are worth keeping. If I move the antennas I can probably fit 700w or so up there, more if I get really creative.

Just checking in. Good to see a lot of familiar names still around