Living In An Ambulance

ambulance[1],
originally uploaded by Hareksson.

By Stefan A. Scheytt
Stefan's Blog

Just wanted to thank you for the bit of inspiration about van living and the free wheeling lifestyle. While I'm not new to this game (having been a traveller for the better part of the last 11 years), it certainly reminded me what I'm about and I was able to glean some great ideas for van-living.

At the moment, I'm negotiating a sale of an ex-NHS ambulance I'm going to kit out and use as a permanent residence. I was on the brink of renting a house in London to live at while I'm working here (for a while) and just before I had to hand over the deposit I thought, "Fuck throwing away all this money. Fuck throwing away more money every month, for rent, for furniture, for bills.

I have a good "docking station" with a shower and parking space at the office, so I really don't need that shit. I should get a liveable vehicle."

For most of this and last year, i've lived out of a hiking back pack, staying in hostels, going travelling and hiking extensively around working odd jobs here and there. This summer I spent a month on a remote Scottish island living in a tent and cooking my food on driftwood fires.

After that, I lived in a Norwegian forest -- always with my laptop and camera. I'll send you a few nice shots for inspiration if you are interested.

Now however, I've been forced to stay in shitty hostels in London while sorting out this job and the lack of privacy and quiet is killing me.

However, any time I've had a flat of my own in recent years it made me miserable -- the expense, and being tied into one place. So, finally, it's occured to me -- instead of living out of a backpack, live out of a vehicle. It's occured to me one day I took a nap in my car. I plugged "living in a car" into google and up you popped.

I shall keep you posted with my experiences with ambulance living.
For the next few months I shall keep working, to fully kit out the amb, replace my laptop & camera (the former which got stolen at the hostel and the latter which i had to sell to keep going), and then, once spring comes next year, i'll book out of this hovel and hit the road once again.

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Quick update on the ambulance situation: I won the e-bay auction last night and the baby is mine for UKP 1683.33 -- about 3 grand of your dollars. I'll take delivery of it next Monday and live in it from that point.
Initially, I'll crash on an air mattress with a 4 season sleeping bag, and focus on getting the thing through MOT (vehicle safety inspection). After that I'll add an inverter for 220V power and hook up my stereo :) I'm excited!