But hang on a minute. This isn't a lifestyle that's been forcibly thrust upon most of these folks. Believe it or not, it's actually a free choice that such “free souls” have consciously made.

Really! It is. I’ve looked carefully. I've even spent a bit of time amongst the transient population of the off-grid, hippy van-life commune in Sagres. I found that the people are either a bunch of middle class kids who’ve decided that work really isn't the kind of thing that they’re going to bother with or they're older hippy-dudes who've endured some kind of personal meltdown in later life and are now trying to “find-themselves” again.

OK. There are a fair few excessively parsimonious Yorkshire retirees in the mix as well. You know, the ones who sold up “lock stock and t’barrel”, bought a van and headed towards the channel tunnel thinking they can live some sort of permanent holiday for £3.50 a week. Byyyyy, it's reeeet bloody cheap ‘ere in t’Portugal, un’tit luv?”

Basically, all of the people outlined above carefully examined their personal situations and set out to deliberately make their life a whole lot less comfortable than it might otherwise have been. It's a sort of Bargain Brits in the sun situation!

Let's face it, middle class kids were never likely to have been inclined towards doing much by way of any useful work anyway. They probably have a degree in psychology, came out of university only to discover that 999,000 of their fellow graduates have the exact same qualifications as they do. They promptly thought “ooops, that piece of paper (certificate thingy) has just cost me £87,000”. In the cold light and sobriety of post university living, they realise that they spent most of it on take-away pizzas, American barista coffee and weekly deliveries from the wine club. Ah well, at least they learned how to order undrinkable coffee with stuff in it and developed the uncanny ability to imbibe cold coffee without actually gagging. So, let's be fair, congratulations are probably in order.

But panic must have set in. All that student debt to attain a degree that's often about as impressive as bald tyres on a Bentley? That must be the catalyst for these kids to go out and buy a wetsuit, a surfboard and just head off as far away as possible from the grim world of daily realities. They wave goodbye to central heating, a working shower and creature comforts to live in a khaki-green LDV van amongst a lot of other people who might partake of the odd joint.

YouTube

It's quite a thing on YouTube. Whole channels are dedicated to show how people can buy a van, a GoPro, stick a mattress in the back along with a gas stove and find themselves waking up each day overlooking a glorious Iberian beach just as the sun is rising. It all looks ridiculously cool when it's shown in 4K CinemaScope and the entire piece is set to some of that squeaky, whoop-whoop YouTube music. It clearly provokes the inner nomad in other people too. Including me!

Over the years, I’ve slept in plenty of vans or cars on numerous occasions. The last time I did it, we temporarily modified our MK5 Mondeo estate car to travel across France, Spain and Portugal. We had no idea where we were going or if we’d make it to various random destinations in time to check-in to hotels or Airbnbs. So we played it safe and turned the car into what was effectively emergency accommodation by means of an air mattress, some curtains and a few LED lights. Let me tell you, it was remarkably cosy. I've slept in far less well appointed hotels.

Downsides

The main downside was the infernal condensation and the inability to safely regulate the car’s interior temperature overnight. It was pretty much always chilly or too hot. But I had a 15-tog duvet, so I was snug as a bug in a rug most of the time and I simply slept on top of it if I was feeling too warm. It even snowed in France (in April) but I woke up that morning, warm as toast. That was one beautiful morning, it was absolutely surreal. A thin layer of snow covered the land and a fine wisp of mist just clung above the gently meandering River Vienne (just south of Tours). I couldn't possibly have been any happier and content if I tried. There was even a hot shower in the morning, so we left that beautiful spot feeling wonderfully refreshed. It was such enormous fun.

I might have regularly injured myself on the car bodywork or interior trim from time to time but that's only because I'm a clumsy clot. The other minor inconvenience is that we had no means of keeping food fresh. Unless we used a proper campsite, going to the toilet at half past two in the morning could be an issue. But car-life mornings were still far more memorable than negotiating hotel breakfast buffets and the scenery beat the pants out of waking up in any hotel.

Rewards

And here’s the point. It seems we live in a world where strength of character is measured by our ability to create for ourselves a bit of discomfort and inconvenience. Van-lifers are brilliant at it. They’ve observed the grind of daily living and flatly rejected it. By so-doing, they found a way to make their lives much more challenging but the rewards are incredible. Most seem to be vegetarian or even vegans but, thinking about it, I guess it makes sense. It’s much easier to keep a potato from turning into a biological weapon of mass diarrhea than a six pack of chicken boobs crawling with campylobacter.

Van-lifers are always keen to show us boring house-dwellers that they are perfectly capable of making food containing no meat taste just as shocking as it looks. Especially green smoothies made with kale. But when they sit and eat it under a canvas of a billion stars with a crackling campfire lit on a stunning vantage point that overlooks the twinkling lights of distant coastal conurbations, it's going to feel way more satisfying than eating a gourmet meal in some Algarvian roof bar with the sound of Niel Diamond singing Sweet Caroline blaring away in the background.

I guess I could easily be sold on this van-life idea but forget the pilates, the yoga, the mindfulness, the weed and the kale smoothies. And I'd need a refrigerator for my long-standing meat-eating fetish. Sure, my evening barbecues at the van-life commune in Sagres mightn't be all that well attended but at least I would be able to chomp on my succulent Iberian pork filets or my hand-made hamburgers unhindered by dangerous microbes. The only problem I might face is the harsh judgment of militant vegetable eaters.

If I can find a way of mitigating the wrath of vegans, perhaps an off-grid life is actually more tenable than I first thought?

Author

Douglas Hughes is a UK-based writer producing general interest articles ranging from travel pieces to classic motoring. 

Douglas Hughes