I am close to fulfilling my dream of driving across country truly gunkholing by car since I’m such a bad sailor. Any ideas of a good, NOT expensive, used? car that would be good for such an adventure? I was kinda hoping for a Vanagon or very small rv but don’t see either…but if someone knows of any let me know! Of course gas mileage is pretty critical as well…maybe I should stay home 
I think that you should find a used conversion van. If you are going to live in it, you might as well be comfortable. I’m not sure if any minivans were done up as RV conversions, but certainly there are full size vans that were. This will give you a safe place to sleep, a place to store food, and plenty of room for your gear. You will more than make up the gas money by avoiding motels. If you want something smaller, you might get a small coupe and a tent.
I had to look up “gunkholing” because I can’t even sail a sunfish without getting in trouble.
How about a motorcycle and a tent?
Thanks for your advice. I had been leaning that way but thought they were all just gas guzzlers…but you make a great point that I save money on motels. Plus I’m not going to do this for years, just a bit of adventure. As for tenting I’ve done so much of that in my life that frankly I’m burned out on tents.
Well I’m adventurous but not enough for a motorcycle and as for tenting as I mention above I’m so over tents…I’ve done it so much and the last camping adventure in the tropics (I thought it was past the rainy season) was horrendous…torrential downpours every night all night and the tent got moldy after the 2nd day. I see we are kindred spirits re sailing. As far as anyone knows I’m the first person to ever truly flunk sailing at the Boston Sailing Center.
The only reason I could keep from tipping over those little boats in boston was that I was afraid of the water in the charles… scary.
If you buy a used RV conversion van and keep it for a few months, you should be able to sell it for close to what you paid for it. If it already has over 100,000 miles on it, another 10,000 to 15,000 miles won’t affect the value much.