The 12 Best Van Life Blogs and Websites to Follow (Picked by a Full-Timer)

I’ve been living the alternative life since 2015, when I moved into a Prius to pay off debt. These days I split my time between a Sprinter van and a sailboat, and I’ve spent nearly a decade reading everything the van life internet has to offer.

At The Wayward Home, which I founded in 2017, I cover van life, sailboat living, RVing, and tiny homes — with a big focus on how to make money on the road. But no single site covers everything, and honestly, some of my favorite resources are run by people I’d call competitors.

Here are the van life blogs, websites, communities, and apps worth your time, and exactly what each one does best.

Best Van Life Blogs at a Glance

Resource	Focus	Best For	Key Strength
The Wayward Home	All four lifestyles + remote income	Choosing your lifestyle and funding it	Only site covering van, boat, RV, and tiny home living plus making money
Gnomad Home	DIY van builds	First-time DIY converters	Step-by-step build guides
Far Out Ride	Technical builds	Electrical and systems	Engineering-level detail
Bearfoot Theory	Outdoor adventure + van life	Hikers and part-timers	Adventure travel expertise
Cheap RV Living	Budget nomadic living	Nomads on a tight budget	Decades of frugal wisdom
r/vanlife	Community Q&A	Real-time answers	Unfiltered and current
iOverlander / The Dyrt	Campsite apps	Finding tonight’s spot	Crowdsourced spots worldwide

1. The Wayward Home

Yes, I’m starting with my own site, The Wayward Home, — because it fills a gap I couldn’t find anywhere else when I started: most van life sites assume van life is the destination. I never saw it that way. I’ve lived in a Chevy Astro, a Sprinter, and on a sailboat, and the real question was always the same: how do you fund a life this free? The Wayward Home covers van life, sailboat living, RVing, and tiny homes side by side, so you can compare lifestyles before committing to one. The deepest section is making money on the road: — I’ve earned six figures a year from this site since 2019, much of it written from a van or a boat, and I share what actually works.

Start with the van life essentials list: https://www.thewaywardhome.com/van-life-essentials/

Best for: figuring out which alternative lifestyle fits you, and how to pay for it.

1. Bearfoot Theory

If you want to lose yourself in a myriad of topics on camper van conversions, van lifestyle tips, and all the unexpected things that happen when you’re living in a van, Bearfoot Theory is an excellent place to start. Not only has the author lived in a converted Sprinter van for the last six years, but she’s also converted multiple Sprinter vans and learned an incredible amount about van life along the way.

The author’s blogs represent an incredibly valuable resource for those who have yet to hit the road in their own adventure mobile. The blogs on Bearfoot Theory aren’t a glossed-over representation of all things van life. She actually shares what worked well and what didn’t work so well. You’ll get tons of information about what to do – and what not to do – when you pursue your own van conversion.

For example, if you take a look at one of her latest conversion projects, you’ll learn that her first van needed more space to work and more storage space, so she set about correcting that in her later conversion projects. The “hard, expensive lessons” from her first conversion van experience can help you plan the best conversion and avoid layout or design mistakes.

2. The Vanabond Tales

One of the cool features of The Vanabond Tales blog is that the authors aren’t just living in a van. They’re also pursuing “sail life,” which is an adventure they started after traveling across three continents on their van journey. Once you’ve found everything there is to find on land, there’s an entire ocean out there waiting for you when you choose to live on a sailboat.

Of course, it’s vital to know a little about sailing before you head off into the sunset on a sailboat. The art of sailing requires a whole different language, and if you’ve never sailed before, you’ll marvel at the sheer number of words and phrases used to describe the act of sailing and all the parts of a sailboat.

Fortunately, you can read posts like “How to Prepare a Sailboat for Winter Storage in the Mediterranean,” and get all the info you need to figure out whether the sail life or van life is best for you. If you’re not ready to sail, that’s okay. The blog also offers a great perspective on how it feels to be on a permanent road trip.

3. Far Out Ride

Far Out Ride offers some excellent blogs on van life, but you’ll find a slew of pages dedicated to in-depth projects like building water systems, a 12V battery powered A/C, and van insulation. These guides are a gold mine when you’re planning your DIY camper van conversion and want to spend your money on the right projects.

Not only does this van life blog share details about various projects you might undertake as you build your van, but you’ll also find breakdowns of the cost and labor to build certain facets of your van, as well as breakdowns for weight, maintenance, and repair. The repair and maintenance side of van conversion projects is often overlooked, and forgetting about it may become a rather costly mistake.

The website also offers great information related to life on the road, with van life advice on how to find free campsites, destination guides for places like Mexico and the Yukon, and costs you may encounter on the road. Planning is a huge part of successful road trips, and Far Out Ride can help you plan for all contingencies.

4. Parked in Paradise

Parked in Paradise is a van life blog that offers in-depth explorations of different rigs built by van dwellers from every corner. Not only will you find super valuable topics like minivan camper conversions, but you’ll also find helpful tips on bed designs, portable refrigerators, and readymade vehicles like A-frame pop-up campers.

This website offers an excellent view of full-time van life, as well as the best rigs for weekend road trips to your local national parks. If you’re starting at the beginning of designing your van build, you’ll find some great articles about the full process of building your own campervan, from electricity to showers to the layout.

Not only will you find detailed guides but you’ll also see examples of the best vehicles for your particular goals. For example, should you try to find a high-top or standard height camper van? Is a Chevy van better than a Ford van? How much should you expect to pay while living van life full time?

5. Gnomad Home

If you’re looking for inspiration to build your own van and make the jump into van life, you’ll find Gnomad Home is an incredible resource for conversion ideas and how to let go of a conventional lifestyle and enjoy life on the road. The authors of the website are John and Jayme, and they sold everything they owned to build a campervan and escape life on a three-year road trip.

The authors of this van life blog employ an easily accessible writing style that will help you accomplish everything you want with your van project, from selecting your rig and conversion ideas to living in a small space and van life tips like finding public showers on the road. Before you can fully enjoy your travel adventures, you’ll need to learn about the basics of living vanlife, and John and Jayne, as well as the other authors on the site, have a lot of information to share.

Want to find the best campsites? Need to choose solar panels? Want to know more about daily life in a van? This extensive website will have a topic that interests you, as well as several more that will send you down the reading rabbit hole.

6. Outdoorsy Nomad

Building a campervan is a project that may take thousands of dollars or it might take just a few hundred, depending on your needs and goals. If you’re looking for ways to travel on the cheap, The Outdoorsy Nomad is an great place to start. This van life blog is designed to help you through the entire process, from choosing your van, building it, and traveling on a budget.

Unfortunately, some van life travelers make costly mistakes that make it tough to live a comfortable life on the road, and the free resources from Van Life Go can help you avoid spending too much money with your conversion or on the road once your van is complete. One of the neat features of the website is the starter guide designed to make living life in a van both affordable and enjoyable.

Check out “Van Life Costs: How Much Does it Cost to Live in a Van?” to help you plan, as well as the “41 Lessons Learned from Women Living in Vans” if you plan on traveling alone as a female. Adopting solo van life is quite a change for most people, and this van life blog has some helpful resources for learning more about van life before actually setting out on the adventure.

7. Two Wandering Soles

Two Wandering Soles is a fun van life blog written by Katie and Ben, a pair of adventure seekers and nature lovers. They also apparently love eating almost everything and boast that they can’t seem to get rid of their “funny” Minnesota accents. The couple met on a snowboarding trip several years ago and eventually started traveling the world.

Since then, they’ve had adventures all over the world and have published quite a collection of stories about living in a campervan and converting their van. They have a convenient buying guide that will help you shop for all the materials you might need for your campervan conversion project.

You’ll also find lots of content on related subjects that you might find interesting down the road. The couple of travel addicts has traveled around the entire world and their van life blog features a treasure trove of topics about traveling to virtually every continent on the planet. If you want to travel internationally on your van life adventure, Two Wandering Soles can help you accomplish it.

8. Drink Tea & Travel

If you want to watch videos about van conversions rather than just read about campervans, you’ll want to explore Drink Tea & Travel. This is one of the best van life blogs for learning about van life from a YouTube channel. The videos are quite in-depth and helpful for learning about different aspects of converting a van.

You won’t just read about someone’s experience converting a van. You’ll see helpful details in the videos that will help you plan your own conversion. You’ll also find some helpful listicle style articles that offer a wealth of information and choices for different items you’ll find very helpful and necessary in your van. What type of pots and pans will you use? This van life blog will help you figure that out.

After you crawl through posts like “10 Best Campervan Fridges for your Van Life” and “10 Beautiful Sprinter Van Conversions to Inspire Your Build,” check out a few of the many videos on the website. You’ll learn about all sorts of adventures from camping in Banff to going on a grizzly safari in British Columbia.

9. Engineers Who Van

Many who adopt the van life do so as a way to get away from it all and live completely remotely and away from life. The engineers of Engineers Who Van Life do things a little differently and live full-time in their van while also working full-time as engineers. Their perspective on van life is truly unique, and their take on converting a van offers valuable information for anyone who is new to conversions.

Engineers Who Van are Eric, an applications engineer, and Colby, a senior software engineer. Not only does the pair maintain an entertaining blog but they also offer one-on-one van building consultations. Colby’s favorite part of the conversion process is conquering building challenges and Eric’s forte is building the electrical system.

You don’t have to be a software engineer to enjoy this blog or find value from it. You’ll find helpful, in-depth articles about van life that will help you build your van right the first time, whether you want to live off-grid in a wholly self-contained campervan or you’re thinking about converting a van for weekend trips to the mountains.

10. Cheap RV Living

Bob Wells has been teaching budget nomadic living longer than most van life sites have existed, and Cheap RV Living (the site and the YouTube channel) reflects that. The focus is real: living nomadically on very little money, including in ordinary cars and older rigs, not just $100K Sprinter builds. If the van life internet sometimes feels like a catalog of gear you can’t afford, this is the antidote.

Best for: nomadic living on a genuine budget.

11. r/vanlife

Blogs give you considered answers; Reddit gives you current ones. The r/vanlife community answers questions in real time — where to park tonight, whether that Craigslist van is a lemon, what people actually think of a product. Expect unfiltered opinions, which is exactly the point.

Best for: real-time questions answered by people living it now.

12. iOverlander and The Dyrt

Not blogs — apps, and the ones most full-timers open every single evening. iOverlander is a crowdsourced map of camping spots from free BLM land to paid campgrounds; The Dyrt is the bigger, more polished campground app with reviews and a strong free-camping layer. Many vanlifers run both and cross-check.

Best for: finding tonight’s spot and planning the week’s stays.