Adventure Van Tour | Simple, Spacious, DIY Sprinter Van Layout for the Wilderness

I'm excited you tuned in today because we're going to share with you all the in features of our band that we absolutely love after spending the last six months in the wilderness we found that there are only certain essential items that we absolutely need welcome back to our Channel hi my name is Erin Owens Mayhew I'm a registered dietitian ultralight backpacker and cookbook author my husband Chris and I now live in RV in full time and run our business back country foodie so in this low-budget production here filmed near Lake Chelan we're sharing a lapel mic so we'll start on the outside of the van on either side of the van we've got the one of the unique features on our sliding door we've got a screen screen door that Erin designed and my mother-in-law helped build on the roof of the van we've got five 100 watt solar panels we've got two max air fans and our we post antenna is in the back so now let's go on to look at the interior of the band one of the many features we really like about our van are the window coverings that my mom and I make they're just simply reflectix covered by an inexpensive deck cloth held up by a couple magnets and we have these for all the windows throughout our van two of the absolute essential items allowing us to live in the wilderness are our weathertech floor mats and our seat covers and without the seat covers Ella would have trashed our seats a long time ago and we also tend to be really dirty coming in and out of the van after hiking and the floor mats trap a lot of the dirt and the water we bring in with our shoes and it also serves as a place that we can store issues that we aren't wearing in the van to help keep the rest of the band cleaner so now onto the living space of our van we've got these curtains hung here to separate the cab of the van from the interior Erin and her mother actually sewed these so that they fit really nicely here the curtains also we've got them velcro to the sheet metal on the side so they make a it's a really easy way to cover up the sheet metal and kind of give it a clean look here we've got this shelf that we installed mostly for sleeping bags and other miscellaneous items on the back of the passenger seat the seat covers that we have include a pouch in them so we use that for storing our dog Ella's leash and jacket and things like that and then this seat also makes a good place for storing or our jackets and other items as you can see the van itself has plenty of room for me to stand up in my shoes I'm six foot one the ceiling itself is made of PVC beadboard which was pretty easy to install and as lightweight because our business is primarily based on me developing recipes for backpackers I needed to really think about how we're going to design our kitchen and so far we've really found it to be pretty functional the countertop is a little bit deeper than most vans so it does provide me with a lot of space and we also made a lot of effort to make sure that I would have a huge sink so this is a 15 by 20 sink and as ten inches deep so I'm actually able to get my dehydrator trays in it this also serves in an extra cutting board and we also really like the slider cabinets that we have because this way while I'm cooking I'm not having to open it up into my face I'm able to slide it back and forth without any problems and they also stay closed while we're driving we haven't had any problems with that and when I do cook I have an induction stovetop that I really like and we're a little worried about it using a lot of power initially but I really go over setting two or three and I believe it goes up to a nine or ten so it really doesn't use as much power as I thought it would and when it is running what we do is we open up the windows here in our team int windows so then that way it ventilates really well as well as having our fan going and what we did find because we did have to build the kitchen a little bit taller to fit everything we need in it and then it's also on top of the cutting board because I need the kitchen space is that I now need a step stool so this now allows me to be up high enough because I actually sustained a overuse injury because I was cooking so high that now I can cook in a natural position so that's been working really well and then we also really love our isotherm refrigerator it can hold well over a week's worth of food and we're vegetarians so we eat a lot of fresh produce and then because I am a cook I have 35 spices and I really love having all these with me so it really opens up all the things that I'm able to make and our drawers are soft clothes it's really nice and we have the push button latches that have been working really well and then we also had a problem with mice recently so we've moved all of our products that were in construction or excuse me cardboard containers up top to now the plastic down below and these are actually old food ingredient boxes that have recycled so they're working really well and then we have all our canned goods down here and again because our business is primarily based on me developing recipes we use our microwave all the time at least 3 or 4 times a day so this is an essential item for us so at the end of the kitchen we've got our water pump switch here which is in a convenient location we've got a USB outlet which is handy for charging our phones and things like that next to our bench we've got a 12-volt outlet that we use to charge our vacuum cleaner and then our 120 volt outlet this is the only 120 volt outlet that we have next to our benches but it's actually worked pretty well for charging your laptops we also have these handy hooks here which are command strip hooks which are pretty handy for organizing our cords within the bench itself we've got a lot of storage space in there which is handy for storing our files and computers and things like that the bench cushion itself is just a cheap patio cushion and it's weatherproof and it's held up pretty well so this is our dining table slash desk and it swivels on a lagoon table mount and we ended up we end up swiveling this quite a bit to kind of get in and out of each bench here between the two benches we have a curtain that gives us access to some of our storage bins in the back mainly for we have one bin that holds a lot of our extra food right here so next to the passenger side bench we've got switches for our inverters so we've got it one inverter that's dedicated for the induction cooktop and then the other inverter does the microwave and the outlet next to our driver side bench we also have a switch here for the alternator relay that allows us to charge the batteries off of the alternator and then we have our Vic Tron battery monitor here as well we mainly monitor this via a smartphone app Victor on has an app that within one app you can monitor the battery as well as the solar charge controller that's pretty handy and then we also have a USB outlet here and then another little hook for cord management and then within the passenger bench itself we've got a drawer here that comes out which we use to store all of our shoes and then this bench also the the lid lifts up so that we can get in there there's some extra space under there for Ella's dog food and things like that one of the essentials we found that we need especially having el on the van with us and living in the wilderness is we needed a spare cover for our comforter to keep it protected from her dirty feet and we also used the bed to store our window covers when we're driving and we also have storage all the way down the side of the bed where we actually this is where we fill our water jugs and this is the parts that we need to use to fill the water jugs and then here we store a lot of extra towels which we found this is an absolute essential as we picked up some wash cloths at Walmart and it was an 18 pack that I thought we would never use and we run out of these before we run out of clothes because we're always picking up some kind of mess or dirty paws or water from her water bowl and then also these are our closets so this is Chris's he has two and then I have my own two back here in the back as you can see Elle is a big fan of our memory foam mattress it's queen-size and we didn't have to trim it down at all which was really nice and we also like to watch movies back here so we'll set up a pillow have our iPad that we'll put in the groove here and we also have a wireless Bluetooth speaker that we'll put here so we can easily watch movies at night together and then we also really like our bedside lights because there's a single button is a blue light so in the middle the night is actually just enough light to be able to get up to go the bathroom and then it has the second light that's actually dimmable it goes brighter and softer and then one more time and it's completely off and then we also have a USB port to be able to charge our phones at the iPad at night another feature we really like is that I tend to get up earlier before Kristen Ella so the lights are really bright so we actually didn't put lights here in the back over the bed because this way we have a wireless remote that I can turn the lights off and then the morning we use the dimmer so they're a little bit lighter and I can get out of bed without waking them up and then something else that I forgot is our laundry chute the totally here in the back that it's attached to a laundry bag so we can drop our clothes down into the garage and another feature of our van that we really like our rear curtains that we use like we do in the front of the van they do a really good job of covering up the ugly sheet metal and we also have them velcro it along the side and so they're nice and snug and my mom also made us tie backs which are really handy for keeping the curtains back and we also use them as a an insulator between the doors and our bed at night and which really seems to help and it's also just a pretty awesome view I know I've told you a lot of things that I really love about our van but our outdoor shower is one that I absolutely love it's gravity-fed and solar heated and there's not quite enough Sun to heat up the water then we use our tea kettle from inside to heat it up we also lengthen the tubing so that we can shower either inside the shower here or we can actually rinse off our gear our feet or give Ella bath on the outside of the van so that way we're not getting this area all muddy when we're getting our things in and out and we also have this artificial grass mat that we stand on so it keeps our feet clean while we're showering and then the curtain encloses the area completely so we have these command hooks that we use from this side all the way around Iowa and then they enclose it this way so you take it one more step here and that completely enclosed and we also use magnets on either side to keep it so it doesn't blow in on you and if you followed I need my social media channels you know how much I love to be organized so everything in our back here has its place all of our day packs are shower bags and those things that we need immediate access to are hanging by a bungee cords and then all of our gear are in labeled bins these about 30 gallons each Chris has a gear bin I have one you also have multiple bins for our business items and ingredients for my recipe development and then Chris has a road bike which we're actually planning on transitioning to a gravel bike so it's a little more useful because we spend our time in the wilderness and then here is our laundry bag that I was mentioning that comes from the laundry chute down into our bag so this is the garage of our van for the flooring we have marmoleum which is an all-natural linoleum and it runs the full length of the passenger compartment of the van it's really easy to clean but we have had some issues with it expanding and contracting and it's kind of bubbled up at times the entire frame of our van it's all framed out of 30 millimeter extruded aluminum and I actually really enjoyed working with it it cuts really easily on a miter saw and then it all goes together with these little corner brackets you can see our bed frame above this is actually slats that we got from Ikea and we just strung two sets together and it worked out perfectly without having to cut them and then as you can see we've got our water system on the over the driver's side wheel well here and then behind this enclosure here is our power system that will go into further the water system of our van consists of three 5-gallon jugs and they're all connected back to a manifold here via the silicon tubing and it comes through these quick disconnects so that we can take them off and pull them out easily if we need to but then so all the tubing comes into this manifold here and we've got three valves see we can select which jug that we're drawing water from and then this tube down here runs up to our water pump that's located under the sink the system works has been working pretty well for us one issue we've countered is we do tend to get air trapped in the lines and it's really hard to get rid of and then we also have a fourth five gallon jug that we use for refilling the system so on the passenger side of the vehicle this enclosure covers up our power system the cover is not that easy to remove we've got all these screws holding it in place I've got three holes that are drilled in here just to make it easier to access certain pieces of equipment so in this large opening here I've got access for the the main switch for the batteries as well as our 12 fuse circuit breaker down here on the bottom left is the relay for our alternator for charging via the alternator and then down here at the bottom is our circuit breaker for our Shore power connection if you have any questions about the products we talked about today we have detailed description about all of our experiences and our kit comm page the link will be listed below but before you go make sure you check out our backpacking nutrition videos and recipe meal prep for your next backpacking adventure we'll see you next time

Channel: Backcountry Foodie

Views: 13,337

Rating: 4.9346051 out of 5

Keywords: van tour, van build, sprinter conversion, backpacking, ultralight backpacking, sprinter van, van life, van life tour, van conversion, DIY, tiny house, tiny home, van shower

Id: V0xqC8ctT3E

Length: 14min 36sec (876 seconds)

Published: Thu Oct 17 2019