a self made wooden dream
Ben and Kai rent land in British Columbia, Canada, where they park and live full time in their totally self converted 1992 International 3800 5 ton truck.
My name is Kai, my boyfriend’s name is Ben. We live in British Columbia, Canada, and we both work in the film industry.
We don’t really travel in it, but we choose to rent land to park on instead. This allows us to have a “home base” and to set up some gardens and a workshop. Renting land is much cheaper than renting an apartment, and our area is extremely expensive.
It’s a 1992 International 5 ton truck, I chose to build a house truck rather than a van or skoolie, because I wanted the design of the living space to be flexible, not constrained by a metal shell.
Hahaha, I’ve owned the truck since 2013, and have been seriously working on it since 2015. We’ve been living in it since 2018. And it’s not finished yet. Maybe it will be “done” in 2021. Who knows? I like adding and changing things though, so I think it will never really be finished.
Aeropress, axe, and a lighter.
Like I said, we don’t travel in the truck. But I have earned money while travelling by doing watercolor portraits of people’s vanlife rigs in the past.
We’ve been living in the house truck since 2018, even though it was just a box with no insulation or plumbing.
We stay in one spot for a year or two.
Nope!
It’s cheap, allows creative expression, and gives us the flexibility to live anywhere.
Winter. We are outside all the time in spring/summer/fall. We normally fly away for winters, but covid has us trapped in Canada. So the winter has been very hard in only 200sqft.
Don’t spend a bunch of money on all the fancy gadgets that you see in videos. Start simple, but start now. Don’t go into it with too many expectations, or you might be disappointed. It’s not like the youtube videos and Instagram photos.
All the time. Our town is a vanlife destination, and we’ve invited people that are on-the-road to stay at our spot for a night or two.
Once Covid is over, we have a friend in California who has invited us to stay at her farm. We’d like to split our time between British Columbia and California. We also want to build a sailboat next.
If you like to follow the two of them and their really extraordinary vehicle, check out Instagram @the_ugly_truckling.
