As some of you already know, I am currently traveling around the country while living in a converted camper van. This diary is part of a series on why and how to live fulltime in a van.
Part One: Why I Live in a Van:
http://www.dailykos.com/...
Part Two: Selecting a Van
http://www.dailykos.com/...
Part Three: Bureaucracy
http://www.dailykos.com/...
When you are living in a van in a Walmart parking lot, there are two basic situations that you will face: places where overnight parking in the lot is legal, or places where it is not. Each situation must be dealt with a bit differently.
As a matter of corporate policy, Walmart allows overnight parking in its lots, and welcomes campers, truckers, and RVers. (Obviously you need a Walmart that is open 24 hours a day—you won’t be able to park in a Walmart that isn’t open all night.) The company knows that we will be running into the store all the time to spend money on things like water, food, paper towels, or whatever.
Where overnight parking is legal, things are pretty straightforward. Some Walmarts have designated areas that they prefer overnighters to park in—they may even have their security people check on that area once in a while to make sure everybody is OK. If there are truckers or RVers already parked, that is where you want to be too. If there is no particular place the Walmart wants you to park, I overnight at the outer edge of the lot, close enough to the “pack” that I’m not all alone by myself, but far enough away that nobody will bother me and probably nobody will notice me. Even where it is entirely legal and okay for me to park overnight, I try to be as inconspicuous and un-noticed as possible. Partly this is for security reasons—I do not want thieves or ruffians to notice the van, and in particular I do not want them to notice that it is sitting unattended for long periods of time. Also, I try to remain un-noticed in order to keep Walmart happy—while the manager may not mind me overnight parking for a couple days, he may start to get a bit antsy if he notices that I have been living in his parking lot for the past month or so.
So my normal routine is to park at the outer edge of the lot (I always try to park near a fast-food or hardware store or some other place that I can get a wifi signal), usually about 8 or 8:30pm. Once I’m in the van for the night, I don’t get out again until morning, and I try to control the noise and light so nobody notices that I am in there.
When I wake up the next day, I put a pot of water on the alcohol stove and do my morning shave while it heats up, then do my morning washing up, then dump the wastewater from the sink outside. If I need to do laundry, I do that as well.
Once my morning routine is finished, I move the van to a different part of the parking lot. As a security precaution, I try to use a different section of the lot each day, and I park inside the “pack” so I look like just another shopper. Then I lock up, walk to the bus stop, and catch the local bus to wherever it is I am going for the day. At night, when I get back, I move the van once more to the outer edge of the lot (again I always try to use a different spot each night) for the evening.
In some other cities, moreover, despite Walmart policy, you will not be able to park overnight, due to city “no camping” or “no sleeping in vehicles” or “no overnight parking” ordinances that forbid it. This is usually an anti-homeless provision, which gives the cops an excuse to roust out homeless people. The “no camping” ordinance also usually applies to sleeping inside a vehicle parked on the street as well. The policy seems to be concentrated in places where there are lots of homeless people and a popular attitude against them, such as California, Arizona, Colorado, and Florida.
It is possible in some of these places that if you remain un-noticed and inconspicuous, you may be able to slide by if you park overnight anyway. But the store management or the local cops will view anyone living in a van with suspicion (especially if they notice that you’ve been there a few days, or if you have out-of-state license tags), and will probably roust you out too. If they really want to be pricks, they’ll impound your van and make you pay to get it back.
How do you know if a particular Walmart is in a city with a “no parking” ordinance? There are a couple websites that list all the Walmarts with known issues. But the best way to be sure is to simply ask. Call the Walmart directly, ask to speak to the manager, tell him you are on a cross-country camper trip, want to stay in the area a couple days to see the sights, and ask if overnight parking is permitted in the Walmart lot. If there is an ordinance against it, he’ll tell you. (Do not do this in person at the store—the store manager will certainly remember you, and you don’t want him to notice you if you are still living in his parking lot a month later.)
So, what do you do if you’ll be staying in a city with a “no camping” ordinance? First, understand fully that no matter what you do, you will be breaking the local ordinance, and are taking a legal risk. But the best option is called “stealth camping”. You will park in the Walmart lot each morning as usual (you’re just another ordinary shopper) and take the bus to wherever you are going. Make sure there are no time limits for daytime parking—some store lots that forbid overnight parking will also limit you to a certain number of hours during the day.
But at the end of the evening, instead of moving to the edge of the lot, you will have to park on the street for the night. That means you will have to drive a short distance away from the Walmart and find some legal place to park, on a side street, and spend the night there. To do this successfully, you must be as inconspicuous and un-noticed as possible. (That means you will not be able to do this with a Class B campervan or RV—in addition, some cities have ordinances against parking RVs on the street.)
You will want to park in front of a business that is closed for the night, rather than parking in front of a house (though apartment buildings are good to park at, since they always have visitors coming and going). You will want to simply park, sleep, and leave early in the morning—that means you will not be using a computer or cooking or anything else that makes light/noise and tells everyone outside that you are in there. As long as you are legally parked and you give no reason for anyone to suspect that you are inside, or that the van is anything other than an ordinary empty vehicle parked for the night, you will be OK. You will want to be up early in the morning before everyone else, and promptly move the van back to the Walmart lot, where you can then do all your morning routines.
And if the cops show up at two in the morning tapping on your window, you are at their mercy. Kiss their ass, offer to leave, and hope for the best.
To be completely safe and legal in areas where overnight parking at Walmart is not allowed, you will have to pay to spend the night in campgrounds, RV parks, or motels. (Or if you are lucky, there may be a state highway rest stop area within convenient distance where you can spend the night.)
Many van campers simply avoid the whole problem by not staying in cities where overnight parking is illegal.