Stealth Camper Van

There’s a lot of videos, blogs and articles about “stealth camper vans.” Seriously? Don’t even bother with stealth. It’s a waste of time. 

I could go into any Walmart parking lot and point to which vehicles were being lived it. My accuracy rate would be way up there. First of all, they are in the back of a Walmart parking lot. What the heck else would they be doing there if not for housing someone for the night? You see any van type vehicle in the regular overnight parking spots and odds are it’s someone’s home. 

If you see a van out on Federal land in a dispersed camping area -it’s occupied. You might as well put on some solar panels and other creature comforts. You aren’t fooling anybody but yourself. 

In my travels I’ve come across only two vehicles that had pretty good stealth. One was a big box truck. They could park in an industrial area near other work trucks and nobody would notice. I saw them in a county campground and they’d opened up hidden windows and a fold out staircase. The conversion was a work of art. When traveling there was no hint this was anything but your basic cube truck. 

Then there was a guy who had a “construction van.” It had a business name on the side and ladders on the roof. The guy made a habit of spending his nights parked near construction areas. His rig looked just like any of the other contractor vans out there. 

Of course, if I saw either of those vehicles parked on a Walmart back lot I’d be suspicious. 

Frankly, most “stealth van” builds aren’t worth it. Any security guard or cop with more than three months on the job gets a feel for who’s who. Stealth builds might fool a lot of people. What it won’t do is fool the very people who’ll knock on your door and tell you to move along.

-Sixbears