Planned Internet Choice

Friday, April 25th, 2025

Planned Internet Choice
Internet will be an important component of the van build. There are 3 viable options. Weboost, Cellular Hotspot, and Starlink. Each option has its own set of pros and cons.

• Weboost is essentially a roof mounted antenna that boosts the cell signal inside the van. This has a larger up front cost, with no monthly cost (it’s only a signal booster, not its own service).
• Cell Hotspots are self explanatory, these are great for when you’re any decent sized town, but terrible for when you’re out in the country or national parks. The average cost for hardware is around $300, plus the monthly service fee around $30/mo.
• Starlink is the last option, this is great for open environments with a clear line of sight to the sky.

So, what am I going with?
A majority of my time will be spent at national parks for the first year until I’m able to go “full time” VanLife. I’ll need a reliable internet source for these short trips, without being tied down to an expensive monthly subscription. Until I go full time on the road, I’ll be using a Starlink Mini with the Roam package. This is around $50/month, but you can pause your subscription when you’re not using it. There’s a low data limit, however with even a small amount of planning you can avoid overages (such as downloading movies prior to the trip, avoiding TikTok/YouTube, etc). The internet choice will have to be re-evaluated when I’m able to go full time on the road.

Purchase goal moved from April 28th to May 9th. Build goal moved from July 2025 to August 2025.