The legal, plain-language method for keeping heat, keeping your papers straight, and keeping your shelter costs near zero — written by a man who slept in a parked van.
No gear catalogs. No sunset photos. Just what is legal and what actually keeps you warm.
Find, claim, and live in shelter legally
All three books, cases and legal templates
Stay legal when the flashlight comes
The cheap knowledge that carried people through the Depression was never lost. It was replaced by a receipt. This is that knowledge, written down slowly, in plain words, with the law spelled out beside it.
All 13 chapters of the complete system
Wendell Vanlife
I am Wendell. I spent two winters sleeping in a parked minivan in the Northwest, mostly because the rent math stopped working and no one would tell me what was legal. What I have written down here came out of that: city clerks' offices in eleven states, DMV bonded title counters, BLM ranger stations, and a lot of nights comparing notes with other men in the same parking lots. I wrote it because the knowledge that keeps you warm cheaply — the kind my grandfather used, cardboard lined with foil behind the radiator — was never written for people like us. It was replaced by a heater someone wanted to sell. I still keep that foil panel in the back of the van. It cost about four dollars and it still works.
I put these three books together because the information I needed most was scattered across county websites, ranger offices and second-hand advice from men who had guessed wrong and paid for it. Nobody hands it to you in one piece. Volume I is the ground floor: staying warm without fuel, reading a city before you park, claiming a vehicle legally. Volume II is for when things get more complicated — dwelling statutes, zoning, longer stays on public land. The Field System is the whole thing with the cases and the paperwork attached. I wrote it the way I would explain it sitting on a curb with a cup of coffee: slowly, in ordinary words, with nothing skipped because it was inconvenient. You are not being rescued here. You are being handed the map I had to draw by hand.
Read everything for seven days. If it does not give you something you can actually use tonight — a legal answer, a warmer night, a form to file — write us and you get every dollar back. No forms, no explanations owed, no hard feelings.
Three books, the statutes, the templates, and the cheap old methods that still work.
GET THE FULL SYSTEM $67 →If the full set is more than you can spend right now, take Volume I alone for $19. It covers the warm nights, the parking rules and the free legal ground.
Get the complete first chapter as PDF, right now. No spam.
