Six weeks into part time van living and I'm awake at 2am for everything — a car door, someone walking past, wind moving the van. I'm parking legally in quiet places and nothing has ever actually happened. The days are great and the nights are exhausting. Does this settle down with time or do people find something specific that helps?
Six weeks is early. My first two months I sat up at every noise, and by month five I slept through a street cleaner going past twice. The adjustment is real and it's slower than you want it to be.
Wind moving the van is worth solving separately because it never stops bothering people. Park nose into the wind where you can, and if your van has a pop top or a high roof, avoid exposed ridges and car park corners where it funnels. I'll drive an extra fifteen minutes to sleep in the lee of a hedge.
I've been picking spots entirely for privacy and never once thought about wind direction.
A cheap white noise source helped me more than anything else. A small fan on low, or an app, and it masks the footsteps and door slams that are actually waking you. Bonus in a van because moving air is good for condensation anyway.
Second this. The ceiling fan on its lowest setting does both jobs and costs almost nothing overnight.
Park somewhere with other vans. Being the only vehicle in a car park is what makes you feel watched, and three vans together is just a car park.
@carbon_steel_kit · yesterday · 3 replies
It settles, and for most people it's somewhere between two and four months rather than six weeks. What changes isn't the noise, it's that your brain reclassifies the van as home rather than as somewhere temporary and exposed.
Things that sped it up for me:
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@quietmargin · yesterday
The keys-within-reach thing sounds small and I think it's the exact reassurance my brain has been missing.
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@two_stroke_tess · 2d ago
Practise the exit once in daylight. Knowing you can be moving in under a minute with the bed still made is worth a lot of sleep.
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