“Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things you didn’t do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover.”
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| Honda Element + Tent |
I've dreamed of "someday" having a van, my entire adult life. A boyfriend in college had an old painters truck and we tooled around in that a little bit but we never had any money for an adventure. The dream was short lived. Fast forward more years than I want to admit and I was making road trip memories with my husband in a Honda Element, very methodically packed and sleeping in a tent. In our second year of adventures in the Element, we woke up early one morning in the brush country of Texas with a bunch of javalina in our camp. It's true you smell them before you see them and they are amazingly quiet. It was somewhat disturbing but we lived to tell the tale. That was when we both said, "We should get a van."
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| Ford Transit Connect |
So in 2017 we purchased a slightly used Ford 6 seat passenger mini-van. It felt big to me. We took out all the seats, added a plywood floor, built a storage bench which also doubled as one of the 25" wide and 6' long sleeping places and installed a cargo box to hold all our stuff. Great we were out of the tent, our adventures got longer and longer, we got awesome mileage but if it was cold, windy or rainy there was no where to sit accept in the front two seats. It limited where we could travel to comfortably and when we could travel. After two years of this, we said "We needed a bigger van"!
We wasted no time after returning from winter travels this year (2019) and by the end of May, we had purchased a brand new 2019 Dodge Ram ProMaster 1500 136 wheel base. It was a huge white blank canvas project, an empty shell with no windows. It sat in front of our house. I drove it around back almost everyday and started working on it. The beginning of the build was daunting in some ways but having spent a lot of time obsessively researching what others had done, I knew it was to be treated as a project. I could manage all the tasks, budget and focus on each phase. I could elicit help as needed.
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| Blank Canvas - No Windows |
I kept things in perspective, using what we had and keeping it simple. In the end I ended up doing most of the work myself. It was my dream and my responsibility to make it happen. I scheduled the installation of the windows and roof vent/fan and started in on the sound proofing and insulation. I began by covering about 25% of the metal inside walls, ceiling, behind the door panels and completely covered the wheel wells with a butyl and aluminum sound proofing material. Then I began the insulation. For the walls, I used two layers of 1" XPS rigid foam secured to the metal with spay adhesive and foam safe construction adhesive. I used 1/4 inch XPS where needed to make the insulation flush with the ribs of the van. Wheel box covers were made from 2x2's and plywood. For the ceiling I used insulation pin fasteners and 1" xps rigid foam insulation. I filled gaps and small openings sparingly with faced fiberglass batt insulation.
By the time we got the van back from the window installer, it was starting to look like the dream. I wired the vent/fan with a 12 v plug so that we can run it off our battery pack. I dreamed about not having to look at pink XPS board. The van filled with light.
Window screens were refashioned and resewn from the ones I had made for our old van. I hand made window panels with reflectix, using spray glue to adhere fabric to both sides and hand sewing seam binding around the edges. The window covers use magnet tabs and will provide privacy when needed. The passenger door window covers are cut a little smaller so that we can vent the windows just a bit under the rain guards. This is a safety precaution for when we use our propane stove in the evenings. I also have made curtains for the two side windows. The curtains are simple and slide along a rod. It allows us to close them easily when in a parking lot, assures some privacy but I also cut to fit reflectix inserts for when we need to keep the heat out or the heat in depending on the weather.
My partner in crime helped with upgrade for installing seat swivels. We did this because the swivel plates would have made the seats even higher than they already were. We removed the old seat bases, installed the new lower seat bases, and added seat plates and reinstalled the seats. This will allow us to turn the seats when in camp. We now have somewhere to sit when the weather is cool or unpleasant.
Then we got to the bed build. Go with what you know. We thought about using metal super strut to build our cross-wise bed but we ended up with wood. It's cheaper and we know how to work with that, cut the wood and build with it. We were able to use our existing memory foam mattresses and the covers from the old van. A bit of savings there and continuity so there will be something familiar in our new tiny home on wheels.
We didn't want it to be super dark in the van so we ended up using this thin mdf whiteboard and hope it holds up. It wasn't expensive so if we end up having to pull it our and rebuild the walls, I'm OK with that. It is 1/4 in thick and is flexible to install.
When we first started to investigate all the choices of vans, mobile homes and campers, we found they came with a lot of extras with their hefty price tags and included things that we know we do not need. They also felt cramped and dark to me. I most certainly do not want or need a closet, shower, microwave or TV. I'm ready for adventure. I didn't want cookie cutter. I wanted what works for us.
We do not have a:
- bathroom - There are bathrooms every where. In general we stay in designated campgrounds like those managed by the forest service, state parks, regional and national parks. We are not stealth camping in cities or boon-docking for periods of time on Bureau of Land Management lands. We can always add one later.
- stationary kitchen - We travel with two stoves, a propane and an electric depending on where we are. We prefer to cook outdoors and be outdoors when ever possible. We can cook inside if we need to but do not intend to.
- refrigerator - They take a lot of power. We shop a lot. The cooler works just fine especially when we can find block ice.
- solar on the roof - What the heck would we need all that power for? We have a power bank that will run our vent fan, recharge our electronics and lights.
- hardwired lighting - We are using led lights that recharge via usb and we also have 4 solar luce lights that work just fine.
- fresh water tank - No tank but we generally carry about 5 gallons of drinking water, 2 one gallon jugs and a 3 gallon bottle with a usb rechargable punp and another 3 gallon jug for use when needing to stock up or staying put in one place for a period of time.
- grey water tank - No sink = no need for a tank
It's down to the details. Party lights, magnetic board, Forevetron flag, juju amulet, VW memorabilia, step block/bookcase. rug and my good luck monkey.
Ready to Roll. We are excited to start our journey for extended travel and the quest for searching for eternal spring. No spoilers here. Stay tuned to see where our next epic road trip takes us. Less is more. They say it's never really done but we have what we need to hit the road. Stay tuned for our adventures. Happy Trails.
