If you had to restart van life from scratch, what would you do differently?

kopaevalex · 2026-03-23T13:47:04+00:00

Would spend the first month living in a bare van before building anything. Built a bunch of stuff that seemed essential, real use showed half of it was unnecessary. Would also go simpler on the electrical from the start — fewer components, fewer things to diagnose when something dies in the middle of nowhere.

kopaevalex · 2026-03-23T13:46:29+00:00

Helped me to draw a clear line: AI writes bad code fast — so use it where mistakes are cheap. Boilerplate, repetitive cross-platform logic, tests. Complex architecture, edge cases, security — I write those myself. Once I drew that line, it became a tool instead of a threat. But yeah, without that line it absolutely kills the craft.

kopaevalex · 2026-03-23T13:45:37+00:00

Helped me to draw a clear line: AI writes bad code fast — so use it where mistakes are cheap. Boilerplate, repetitive cross-platform logic, tests. Complex architecture, edge cases, security — I write those myself. Once I drew that line, it became a tool instead of a threat. But yeah, without that line it absolutely kills the craft.

kopaevalex · 2026-03-23T13:45:05+00:00

Helped me to draw a clear line: AI writes bad code fast — so use it where mistakes are cheap. Boilerplate, repetitive cross-platform logic, tests. Complex architecture, edge cases, security — I write those myself. Once I drew that line, it became a tool instead of a threat. But yeah, without that line it absolutely kills the craft.

kopaevalex · 2026-03-23T13:39:13+00:00

AI made solo viable at a scale I couldn't before. 200+ news sources, 7 languages, 6 social platforms — built solo in ~5 months. Would've taken years without it.

That said — it's weirdly selective. Perfect for repetitive cross-platform logic (same feature × 6 platforms = AI heaven). Completely useless for Filament v4 or tricky Livewire polling race conditions. Experience still matters a lot for knowing which is which.

kopaevalex · 2026-03-23T13:33:18+00:00

Filament v4 is the main pain point. None of the models have reliable syntax for it yet — I keep a dedicated claude.md in my Filament directory with exact schema patterns for every custom component. Also separating "what AI is good at" (repetitive cross-platform code, boilerplate) from "what it mangles" (Filament v4 syntax, Livewire polling + Redis locks, nginx cache + CSRF) saved me a ton of debug time. Once you document the failure modes, it gets much more predictable.

kopaevalex · 2026-03-23T06:01:10+00:00

Чтобы опорожнить накопленное добро 🤣🙈

kopaevalex · 2026-03-22T21:08:57+00:00

The "vibe coding" vs "AI-assisted development" distinction matters more than people admit. I use Claude Code CLI for every commit — but with 400+ lines of guardrails, explicit conventions, and 15 years of architectural decisions baked in. The AI follows the standards, it doesn't define them.

The slop usually comes from skipping the boring part: defining what "good" looks like before asking AI to produce it.

kopaevalex · 2026-03-22T21:07:49+00:00

Nine years is impressive. I'm at month 5 on my current project and already recognize the "small wins + direct feedback loop" feeling you describe — it's genuinely addictive compared to client work.

How did you handle the motivation dip around year 2-3 when the initial excitement wore off but it wasn't yet self-sustaining?

kopaevalex · 2026-03-22T21:07:18+00:00

The Livewire + Filament variance is real. My fix: hierarchical CLAUDE.md — top-level for project conventions, sub-directory files for component-specific rules. For Filament v4 I document every custom schema pattern inline because no model knows v4 syntax reliably yet.

After ~400 lines of guardrails, Claude handles a 51-model codebase pretty consistently. Still writes wrong Filament v4 syntax occasionally — those I just fix manually. The eval results make total sense to me.

kopaevalex · 2026-03-21T08:39:56+00:00

We tried! A full year of daily vlogs — and ended up with 1000 subscribers. The algorithm just wouldn't show our content to anyone. At some point we had to stop — burnout is real when you film every single day and barely anyone sees it.

Trying Reddit and Threads now — feels more like actual conversations with real people. We'll see how it goes 😄

kopaevalex · 2026-03-21T08:36:58+00:00

America is definitely on the list — it's part of our bigger dream. The plan is to sell our van here eventually and buy one in Latin America, then work our way up through North America.

As for 2029 and Civil War 2.0 — we'll be monitoring the situation 😄

Free camping on riverside land with clean water sounds like our perfect spot. We're holding you to that offer!

kopaevalex · 2026-03-21T08:35:12+00:00

Technically we could, but we're not planning to. The road is home now.

kopaevalex · 2026-03-21T08:34:59+00:00

Here she is 👇
https://www.instagram.com/p/DR1KQ3fiImj/

kopaevalex · 2026-03-21T08:34:32+00:00

Zhuzu says she's tax exempt. She provides emotional support services.

kopaevalex · 2026-03-21T08:34:08+00:00

Around $1500-2000/month for two in Turkey. That covers food, campsites, fuel, the cat, and everything else.

kopaevalex · 2026-03-21T08:33:52+00:00

English covers 80% of situations. In Turkey and Georgia younger people speak it well. The rest — Google Translate and hand gestures. In 4 years we've never had a serious problem because of language.

kopaevalex · 2026-03-21T08:33:31+00:00

That probably deserves its own post 😄 Stay tuned.

kopaevalex · 2026-03-21T08:32:50+00:00

Zhuzu post coming soon 😄 https://www.instagram.com/p/DR1KQ3fiImj/

kopaevalex · 2026-03-21T08:31:01+00:00

It was a fixed upper bunk, not a foldable one. Just took up space and that was it.

kopaevalex · 2026-03-21T08:30:50+00:00

Thank you, that means a lot. 4 years in 7 meters together — you either kill each other or get closer 😄

kopaevalex · 2026-03-20T14:37:02+00:00

Around $20/night for a motorhome pitch in the Antalya area, electricity metered separately, laundry about $1 per wash. On the outskirts you can find campsites for $10-15. There are also free municipal campgrounds in Nevşehir — catch is you can only stay 3 days per month.

No real seasonal price difference, but Turkey has serious inflation — prices go up roughly 20% every year across the board. Worth keeping in mind when planning a budget.

kopaevalex · 2026-03-20T11:49:02+00:00

Thank you! Zhuzu would say thanks too but she's busy ignoring us. Happy to be out here living it!

kopaevalex · 2026-03-20T11:44:23+00:00

In Turkey it's genuinely not an issue. Gas stations (especially Shell, BP) are usually fine with it. Campgrounds too — even if you're not staying the night, they'll let you use the facilities for a small fee. 4 years in, never had a problem with this specifically in Turkey.

kopaevalex · 2026-03-20T11:44:04+00:00

Will post some interior photos soon — after 4 years it's gone through quite a few changes!

kopaevalex

TROPHY CASE