We recently learned that a Google employee has been living in the company's parking lot in a sparsely equipped truck while saving almost all of his income.
That was a cool story, but if you want to live in a vehicle, it doesn't have to be bare bones. In January, our former Visual Features Editor, Christian Storm, spent a week living in a luxury van.
Here's his story.
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It started out as a joke. “Hey, Airstream wants to lend us a fancy touring van for a week. What should we do with it?,” said Matt DeBord, Business Insider's transportation editor.
“I don’t know, man,” I said. “Maybe I’ll live in it. It’s probably nicer than my apartment.”
And with that it was done. I had spoken without thinking, my mother’s cardinal sin. As much as I tried to backpedal, I was going to live in a van down by the river — a joke I now never want to hear again — for a week.
I found myself on the following Monday morning sitting on a bench outside my tiny Greenpoint, Brooklyn, apartment, waiting for the van.
Monday
My first impression of the 2015 Airstream Interstate Grand Tour EXT Touring Coach was, Damn, this thing is huge. The Grand Tour, which is basically a tricked-out 24-foot-long Mercedes Sprinter Van, is also a huge challenge to park, as I learned watching the nice folks who dropped it off try to do in a small space in front of my building.
Then I climbed inside. This beast of a van had everything.
Two TVs! Two sinks! A normal-size bed! Granite countertops! No way — a microwave! These thoughts ran through my mind so fast that I almost missed the retractable awning, which can be extended from the van to provide shade for barbecues and the like.
At $153,000, the Interstate Grand Tour is the product of a 10-year partnership with Mercedes Benz and Airstream, in an effort to modernize and refine the Airstream brand. Airstream builds their luxury vans on MB chassis, and MB sells them at their dealerships.
The van has a gas-powered generator, propane, and water tank, all of which allow for pretty much self-sustained living, even when the van’s engine isn’t on. There was an onboard heater and air-conditioner, a refrigerator and a freezer, a two-burner stovetop, several tables, and as much storage as you could ever want.
While it's meant for traveling and road-tripping in luxury, the van felt like a tiny apartment on wheels.
This might be fun, I thought.
I drove around for 20 minutes trying to find a parking space that wasn’t in front of a fire hydrant, and then activated the bed and tested out my sleeping arrangements. The bed, which mechanically folded down from a bench seat, was roughly king-size, if a bit shorter. I’m a tall guy, so I had to position myself diagonally. Seatbelt clips poked me in my back. I looked up and saw my breath hang in the air of the cold van. Outside, the loud sounds of industrial Greenpoint buzzed away. I started having second thoughts.
I headed into the office and passed around my phone to show photos to all my coworkers, who were impressed by "Helen," my grandmother's name and the name I'd given the van. And I began to dread the evening ahead of me.
“Excited for your first big night in the van?” one person asked.
“Oh, yeah — can’t wait!” I said, lying.
After work, I got dinner with friends. We finished off a round of after-dinner drinks, and my companions looked like they were thinking about heading home. But I begged them to stay. Anything to put off the inevitable tossing and turning and poking from metal objects.
Several rounds later, I shuffled off to my new van-away-from-home. I turned on the heater, which was much louder than I'd expected, grabbed the thin blanket left for me, folded down my bed, and drifted off to a light, dreamless sleep.
Tuesday
Confession time: After tossing and turning for five hours, I snuck home to sleep an extra two hours in my warm, soft bed. So sue me.
After I arrived at work and once again faced myriad questions from coworkers, it becam