Beautiful Soul VAN TOUR - DIY Build to Perfection for Woman to Travel

what's going on guys i look cold that's because i am it's a beautiful day outside it's what like 30. it's cold but it is a beautiful day i'm doing a tour with jerry she has a phenomenal 170 extended van and we're gonna check it all out right now right yeah here she is right here before we go any further so she has a lot of uh things that she's gonna teach us and show us her nephew and you kind of built this together yeah yes so we're gonna get into all that right now here we go i'm freezing hi jerry hi how are you it's a little warmer inside now it's so pretty though today so your nephew and you built this in a very short amount of time 81 days the beginning of this year we didn't know what we were doing you know what i mean like well he did kind of never built a van before so it was a lot of um youtube video looking at pictures a few things i'm like oh i would do that differently now that i know having lived in an rv for three almost three years before helped me know what i needed and what worked you went from rv life to now van life so you go from a house right raise kids and then you're an empty nester and a house seems too big right you're gonna go wander 31 foot rv seems small right when you go from a house so it was i got a big rv with three queen beds in it you cruise around and yet i can't take that turn off because i don't know if i can turn around because i had the 31 foot rv and i was towing a car behind it class a or class c it was a class a so you're familiar with campsites you're familiar with that kind of living you're not so i would say you're not familiar but you know of boondocking but you don't do it often no so i when i when i started traveling i didn't know where in the country i would ever land if i wanted to buy a house again i actually bought into the thousand trails um system of campgrounds i started seeing how expensive the nightly campground rates were but i wasn't comfortable as a woman by myself in this huge thing going just boondocking thousand trails campground membership i bought the whole country because i didn't know i could end up in connecticut in van life now that allows me to stay at this network of campgrounds for basically 50 bucks a month so what are we in right now what what's the year make model it's a 2016 um 2500 extended and it was a passenger van had four rows of seats it had like the factory ac unit and the heater system and all of that in the front you put two swivels and you have a shelf overhead yeah this was the um rb components um shelf that we put in so easy to install i did it myself so easy it's just really unscrewing things and screaming them back in i had the lower one in mind you went with the higher version now you told me a reason yes yeah i wanted to keep these shelves right so with the higher version you get those because this is where you know it's easy to store your purse and all of my glasses which is really a problem your christmas tree just fell like it has so much extra space up there which is so so nice i keep you know my window coverings and scarves and stuff like that i'm gonna switch spots or i'm gonna at least go to the doorway over here you know your couch setup yeah so the reason i liked it is i still want to be able to camp with people right and have them come on trips with me and i do have tall suns with the seat turning all the way around i can take the lagoon table mount off and my six foot five son has slept here comfortably so you just like put another cushion here or something where his legs can go well so here's the thing one of the things i'm proud of about my build i repurposed a lot of things so like this was the end of this mattress when i or this oh my god when i bought it so i just cut it off and had them cover it this was the end of my bed mattress cut that off and had them cover it but i also use this on the back of my bed so that my dog who's not here because he would be barking the whole time okay well thanks he did actually fall out the back one time when i had the doors open really yeah this when the doors are closed you can still fall back into the garage underneath goes there beautifully and keeps him from falling i use this i'm going backwards to the toilet area so i can store stuff here if needed and it just looks a little nicer but it's also a great backrest when we get into the bed so this thing is used for multiple things and i see you have a nature's head yes i love it so this is funny because it's like everybody asked me toilet toys obviously you just said you love it it's life i was nervous perfectly honest okay i've never used one before i bought it and put it in and hit the road but it's easy it's so easy nice and it doesn't smell it's like such a weird thing and i didn't having been in an rv and you're dumping your black tank yeah that was way grosser than this no way wow i am really loving this shower bar yes so this is mostly you know if you've got somebody in the van you need to pee really quick you just you know you've got something so that's not a shower it's not a shower but this is a shower curtain right i pop this off and i have an outdoor shower in the back that we'll get to when we go there so i just take the curtain [Applause] in the back and we have an outdoor shower and then here i know i'm skipping around a little no you're not you're fine all your toiletries all your bathroom stuff is right there easy you have a bunch of storage you have storage on here i got a question for you because a lot of people may think that your electrical system is under here no a girl has to have her shoes oh my oh my goodness oh my goodness you may be the first van lifer that has that many shoes that i've seen yeah i love it well and i had to put in better uh latches because we had started with the plastic ones and they would not hold so yeah hard turn stuff's flying wait a minute if your electrical's not under here what do you have for electrical i have goal zero yeti three i started with the goal zero yeti 3000 and now i have the 3000 x the 3000 couldn't handle this fridge mainly and the fridge died and so i worked with goal zero and they told me that they've upgraded their model and they swapped it out for free for me and that's not even the biggest model you have there's also a 000 x i bought this in march we're currently in december when i went to research this problem they now have a 6 000 and it's an all-in-one so you don't have a separate alternator so far so good you know gold's air is a good one there's but my point to that is there's instead of buying you know all these components you just went out and bought an all in one unit yes and then you just wired it to that yes which i think is going to be the next like iteration of what's going to be happening in vans it was very simple i started looking at the videos for all of the different components that you would need and not really understanding the electrical i did hire an electrician to run the initial lines nice and my nephew and i he's got some electrical experience so he wired all the lights and all that stuff and we're gonna just go back there and we'll check it out again if you're comfortable talking about price i get this question a lot is not only the price of a goal zero but the price of maybe your entire build yeah this van it was a 2016 and it had almost 100 000 miles on it i bought it for 27 000. my nephew and i probably spent i think the grand total is about another 25 000 on the bill that's good he did because he did a lot of the work we subbed out a couple of tiny things the pulling of the electrical he had a buddy do this just because we were running short on time we had a guy come in and spray the cabinets a couple things i want to touch on are the countertop which looks phenomenal and i know where it's from but and then also the fridge what kind of fridge is this this is the isotherm elegance 130 so funny story is i bought a different fridge for this van and i accident this was at the very beginning because we wanted to buy all of the stuff so we weren't waiting for anything yeah it's a great idea yeah it wasn't a 12-volt fridge oh before the isotherm right okay it was a blonde moment it was a blonde moment and then we're literally at the end was it one of those like vintage ones yes i knew exactly what you're talking about and i do love those fridges but i was like wait this is a 12 volt and it was first wired for a 12 volt because that was our plan yeah but i just bought the wrong fridge and so we have the cabinets already built and in i mean like ready to pop it in the funny thing is this drawer wasn't here well now it is well it's a really important drawer oh my goodness it has everything the essential drawer right and so things are always working out for me pretty much your most expensive things in here is that fridge and your toilet my toilet and then the goal zero yeah and the first yeah because the fridge was also not a cheap fridge but it's a good fridge and then this beautiful thing is walnut butcher block that we got from lumber liquidators i always tell people do not skim on certain things and the countertop's one of those things that like go and purchase a really nice butcher block if you want punch block from a place like lumber liquidated it's a six footer or eight footer it's an eight footer because um you'll notice that oh yeah part of the leftovers on my lagoon table mount he also cut this out which i love because i'm all about counter space and this is my cute little camp chef oven so you're a propane yes okay so it's just got a little i'm using the small tank we were debating on whether or not to mount a propane tank inside and there were issues with that and so i said you know let me see how much i go through i didn't know how much i would use for cooking not that much no right right so i just have the little one pound screw in tank in the back and then this whole thing this is the other thing i like about this this whole thing can come out so if i want to cook outside on a picnic table it's hot or i'm doing something that's going to be messy i just take the whole thing outside okay well uh camp chef propane style yeah got it i love it it's an easy bake oven for adults that's what i got if you use propane for cooking what do you have do you have propane for heat and i just got an s bar heater installed i was not planning on being anywhere cold for winter when i built this even though it's well insulated which i want to talk about a little bit because we did something unique on the insulation i'm wintering here in oregon and um this morning what it was i think it was reading 25. because i just got the new goal zero yep i upgraded we haven't yet connected it to it which it takes it takes a minute it's just one last step to have that hooked up yeah we're good to go and shout out to dave yeah peabody at pacific crest yeah pacificrest fans yeah thank you for shouting him out yeah he's really he's got a busy schedule and he just worked me in and yeah he's he's you know it's not like a big thing like he's building three vans at once no it's okay yeah and he's a one-man show yes but i would i will talk a little bit about the insulation that we did and this is a shout out to suha designs nick sadolnik um yeah down in california he's a friend of my nephews he recommended this um insulation called lizard skin which is a ceramic spray-on insulation that you do did he do it no okay my nephew and i did it okay did you wear masks yes okay yeah that stuff is potent and it's thick yes so it's sort of like spraying um cement and so if you're gonna do it being that this is a black van it was really important because the metal heats up so much it's an amazing thermal break which i talk a lot about on my channel uh creating a thermal break with insulation yeah uh whether it's using a lizard skin which is expensive uh and it's a it's a it's a process to do well and we didn't spray where the headliner is right and so i could tell the difference after we put the lizard skin on like 20 30 degree difference between crazy where it was and where it wasn't if you're gonna do the lizard skin get their sprayer and then of course we did the um havelock wool in the i'm so glad you did a layered situation where you had a lizard skin plus another one yeah because you got to do that right we did have luck wool in the um walls and above the headliner we did the um rigid foam board on this we did it right yeah and then we just did reflectix and then the subfloor which i think if i had to do it over again i would put a little bit more you're a big old sink i love this your this thing is it's huge it is huge having been in an rv with same size but it was a split sink was so annoying to me because you just didn't have room for anything i saw this guy and i was just like yeah we need this how often do you uh throw stuff in there while you're driving every time okay this is it's never been this clean let's be honest well it's real it's true yeah no i mean we all do it and then it's a great holding place for things and then you got your berkey the precious i love my berkey i had a different water filtration system in the rv and you had to plug it in you obviously have it strapped in pretty well there it's got a little seat belt you know because it is the precious and you don't want anything to happen to it um what's really nice about your build right i'm going to step back um what's really nice about your build is like you have things kind of sectioned off you have a living quarter here yeah you have your kitchen here you have your bathroom there and then you have your bedroom which doesn't really seem like it's part of the van because it's so blocked off right well it's funny because i was worried about it closing in you know and yet i also wanted all the things that i wanted i i'm happy with this when i traveled with somebody else my son was here and we were um on a road trip he goes you know mom this feels separate i don't feel like i'm right on top of you which would be weird it helps if you're in an extended 170. yeah it really does that you have all the space oh wow this is just like i couldn't get rid of it there are some things that's actually really cool yeah a staples office supply kind of thing here's the other thing this is a i love the concept but not the execution yeah well did like maybe another shelf there okay it's a lot of wasted space and then you have a lot of stuff flying around you got a list tyler shout out to tyler shout out to tyler he's a magic man we've called him macgyver since he was five okay and before we go to the bat oh two things before we go to the back size of your bed it's like a full and then we did some cutting off right it's a full plus it's a full minus it's a full minus okay uh what do you know the distance across do you want to measure it i mean you have a tape measure i did see that it's like 51. i think it's this end that's a little 66 67 but you have the window cut out right and and i have a thing about my feet if i'm sleeping on my stomach for a little bit they have to be off the edge of the bed okay hey whatever so that was a that's more of a custom meeting and the last thing before we go back outside is this guy right here you have the dometic penguin yes there was a huge gross ugly factory ac unit on the top i used to travel a lot to texas houston specifically which is really humid i used my ac a lot in the rv i don't know that i would do it again because even going to texas well my texas son moved to oregon okay not going to texas as much anymore you could get by with the two max air fans because it's a cross ventilation fan in the back not even a 12 volt ac on there well okay if it was in the budget right okay i can only use this when i'm plugged in to short power okay i get a campground or you do have something on the back that you could use or with my generator yeah that's true uh let's go to the back so this is the coveted uh trunk space garage space whatever you want to call it all of your electrical here apparently yep well you walk me through this okay so can i take this off yeah let's take off the backpack but also we have um these oh yeah one of those three there's those and there's one in the front so that i can hang a hammock here to a tree yeah no matter kind of where i'm parked yeah so that's the new yeti 3000 x and all of the ports are regulated and the input ports charge i'm saying like three times faster wow on the old model right then there's a regular non-x yeah my breaker box so now everything's set to the goal zero if i'm in shore power all these are flipped up i've got the um we boost cell phone booster which i really like and we talked about this this was just your your generator for you i haven't used it yet no yeah so yes you're generated for the oh crap moment yeah yeah or i really do want to get more comfortable with boondocking and and finding places where i can go this isn't four-wheel drive obviously so i have to be careful and sort of learn how to do that and i love your orange cone which i just found out what it does so okay here's the difference between rv rote occupied i'm a visual person when you're in a van in a campground you leave especially in winter i don't leave like chairs out but i've had rugs out and my picnic table covered you know because i have a cover i leave to go live my life and i come back at night and there's an rv in my camping spot right even though there's a tag on the pedestal or whatever and so that happened two times and you paid for that spot i paid for it right you paid for that i'm literally kicking like hey this is what that's my picnic table cover that's my rug you know they're like oh i'm sorry we didn't see it so now when i leave did they not give spot numbers when you go to these campsites thousand trails you pick your own spot you put a tag on the electrical pedestal and they just don't see it or whatever so it's happened a few times it's happened a few times so i was like okay i need a new solution so i went to ace hardware got a little cone put occupied on it and has it obviously has worked it has worked and then i thought this would be good if i'm ever on the side of the road or whatever we've got chains we've got the coconut fibers for the toilet but you've got your showers yeah so you're about to show me that that's what it was okay so this is a cute little um this is your shower pad yeah oh my goodness oh my rock's in there right so you don't want to stand in the mud when you're taking a shower and then these um these are blackout curtains when you aren't using like your window coverings yeah those clothes but the other value of these they keep this from getting wet oh nice taking a shower so you close those i don't want to get my electric stuff wet and then over here is oh wow the shower so you've got your handle here so all my water is in here this is my water fill right how much how much water do you have i have a 16 gallon fresh water tank and a 10 gallon gray water tank got the bosch um hot water heater which is lovely jerry you walked us through everything in your van they're fantastic by the way thank oh my goodness there's more wait there is more okay to give props to a luminesce oh i am i apologize because illumines and i are friends having lived in an rv for three years i would never go on the roof yeah because that back ladder was janky dangerous and this thing is a beast and then of course i had to get the surf poles because i don't surf but i paddle board right so i have an inflatable paddle board that sits here all season they have really great locking straps i saw today someone put their like their skis on these yeah yeah you can do whatever yeah you can put a bunch of stuff on that yeah now am i good [Laughter] uh thank you so much for uh showing us your rig telling us about your life um shout out to your nephew tyler tyler yeah and hopefully you'll enjoy your time here in oregon until next time it's so great to meet you oh thank you jerry i appreciate you [Music]

Channel: Jarrod Tocci

Views: 84,757

Rating: 4.9540772 out of 5

Keywords: van conversion, camper van, van life, van tour, van build, living in a van, van life tour, solo female, tiny home, tiny house, solo female traveler, solo travel, diy camper, diy van build, sprinter van, van life build, rv life, how to build a van home, diy sprinter van conversion, diy sprinter van, jarrod tocci, ghost van tours, diy van conversion tour, perfect diy van build, diy van build cost, van life hacks

Id: dpAh4F4YJzo

Length: 19min 45sec (1185 seconds)

Published: Thu Jan 07 2021

Reddit Comments

[u/RJfreelove]

Is it a sprinter?