A Irishman who has spent four years living in a van has said the way of lifestyle quickly became an "obession" and has brought him "peace and tranquility".

Shane Monks O’Byrne said was inspired to move into a van after watching  a film called Free Solo about an endurance athlete.

He left the cinema feeling “completely and utterly inspired” and decided he wanted to renovate a van and change his life.

“The nice thing about being an engineer is that there’s a remote working possibility,” Mr O’Byrne told The Hard Shoulder. 

“I was also pre-COVID doing this whole thing because - as you’re probably aware - there was this huge boom in the whole campervan scene - especially in Ireland.

“Everybody got into it.”

The van he bought cost €7,000 and he began by tearing everything out until it was just “a big white shell on wheels”.

“At that stage, the whole van life concept was kicking off and everybody was talking about it, people were starting to buy their vans,” he said.

After that Mr O’Byrne said the project “quickly became an obsession”.

“Every single waking minute I had was spent doing research, research, research,” he said.

“Eventually, I started building a van, slowly but surely.”

Mr O’Byrne filmed the entire process and ended up creating a van conversion course he said is now “the most popular van conversion course in the world.”

“It took about seven months or so to do the full thing,” he said.

He describes his home as “not a semi-D for sure” and admits there are a number of things - such as a shower - that he has to go without.

Still, overall he believes that the benefits outweigh the disadvantages.

“One is, of course, is the access to nature which is so wonderful,” he said.

“One is for the peace, the space and tranquillity.

“But it’s a cheap way to live to and at the end of the day I don’t work as an engineer any more and it definitely solves a problem and I can really see the boom in it back home in Ireland with the housing crisis.”

Main image: Shane Monks O’Byrne.