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Why is there so much hate in this thread? Geez, dudes.
I lived in a van for about a year with my partner and dog. It was fun. I could see myself doing it for at least another one, but I had to go help my family back at home. It was cramped and annoying at times but, all-in-all, it was a wonderful experience that I look back on often with a lot of great memories.
We would camp out for two or three weeks in national forests and near wilderness areas on the west coast. Washington, Montana, Idaho and Wyoming is where we'd camp mostly. We'd use the van as a base camp, hiking out to different spots every other day, driving back into town once we were exhausted; resting up for one or two days, buying more food, using internet at starbucks and then heading right back out again. Contrary to popular belief, it isn't very expensive, you SHOULD invest in a diesel if you want the biggest bang for your buck, and 4wd is essential in most areas. The way to make it cheapest (and most enjoyable, in my opinion) is picking an area you really want to explore and just staying there and only moving every couple of weeks.
The biggest pain was finding showers, but we would just take swims in the rivers and lakes we found often, and there were showers at the state parks nearby (there's a whole website that shows where there are campsites where there are showers and they're on maps as well if thats a concern). Gyms are also an option, and I honestly would've preferred a gym membership at the time, there were so many times I really just wanted to lift instead of only hiking all the time, exercise-wise.
I wouldn't recommend it longer than 2 years, honestly, I got tired of moving around a lot even when we only did a couple of weeks at a time there were a lot of times I really just wanted to go to a home of sorts but I have a feeling if I had a off-grid cabin to return to somewhere I'd live in a vehicle for long periods of time more often because exploring like that is awesome.
