I've realized recently that I do have a very mobile life. I've been thinking about this as I work on remodeling my van to better suit my camping needs. More about this below. These various versions of shelters and lots of time spent living like this are probably why the switch to a tiny house was really not difficult for me space wise, even though I had been living in a much larger house before.
First, obviously if you've been following this blog, you know my house is small and on wheels. It has about 229 square feet of space. But as you can see in these first three photos. It's very comfy and holds all my large belongings.
But while mobile, my house doesn't actually move. And has no plans to anytime soon. A lot of dishes and other things would have to be packed if it did, otherwise they would all come crashing off their shelves.
So while traveling (which in the summer at least is just about every week, a little less often in the winter), we (my friend Seth and I most of the time) can go car camping with this lovely van I drive. It is my full time vehicle as well, but is really laid out for camping. And happens to have just over 60 square feet of floor space inside. The interior needs a lot of work to be more efficient for my needs and to look the way I prefer, but the photo below gives you a glimpse of the interior pretty much as it was when I bought the van. We've already used it lots of times, but I am hoping to redo a lot of the interior in some of my free time the next two weeks while I have off work for the off season here.
My van setup includes it's own set of beds, bedding, kitchen set up (plates, utensils, grill, burner, cooler, etc.), lighting, curtains, and so on. Since all of that, and most of my other outdoor gear, lives in my van, when I want to go somewhere, all I really have to do is fill a water jug, pack up some food, and take off. The roof tube I added holds a lot of fishing rods which is great, because now they don't have to live inside the vehicle, making the interior much easier to move around in.
I even have a large car camping tent that works as a guest room or overflow quarters while close to a vehicle. It's a 4 man instant tent with the poles permanently attached and can be set up in less than a minute. Below is the view looking out it's door. I don't seem to have a photo of the outside of this tent for some reason. It is very comfy and heavy though, so you certainly wouldn't want to carry it too far.
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Then we have my truly tiny and mobile shelter. My backpacking tent. While my house weighs a little over 10,000 lbs., this set up is down to 1 lb. 9 ozs. And now we're down to 34 square feet of space. Amazingly, this is still fairly comfortable for two people to live in, even for a week or more at a time. Below you can see Seth and I both able to sit totally upright in our camping chairs inside, with lots of room to spare.
Again, I have a third and totally separate setup for beds, bedding, cooking, etc. And the whole system actually comes in at about 18 pounds including luxury stuff like a journal and camera and all my clothing. All I need to add to that is food and water, and I can be very comfortable for a long time, anywhere in the wilderness. So as I said, being very comfortable living in all of these situations, the very smallest of which I've had longer than any of the others, makes living tiny truly easy for me.
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I suppose starting with the tiniest end of things make it work kind of like the "Cow In The Kitchen" story for me. Everyone is different, but if you really want to go tiny and never have at all, maybe this kind of approach will make it easier for you?
