Cargo Trailer Conversion TOUR- Ditch the RV parks | AC and Heat with No Hookups

[Music] our build was centered around two very important things number one is our passion for cycling and the second is we didn't want to feel like we're camping all the time and instead we're here to live hi everyone welcome back to our Channel I'm Daniel I'm Elie where two stem phds travel full-time on the road for the past year we've been traveling in our 18t callado trailers cargo trailer that we did a quick six week build about a year ago and since then we've learned a lot of what works for us and what sure as heck doesn't work for us and so even though we have a tour video on our channel from about a year ago a lot has changed since then and so we're really excited to take you guys through the trailer today and show you what we've learned and what's working for us and what we've changed make sure you stick all the way through the end because we have sprinkled three helpful tips that is going to be useful for your own build make sure you don't miss it our trailer measures 18 ft long Inside by 7 ft wide with an interior height of 7 ft this off-road trailer comes with 19 in of ground clearance and independent suspension thanks to the Torsion axles which let us go over some pretty rough terrain without damaging anything in the trailer it has an extended tongue making it easy to maneuver in some pretty tight spaces and allowed us to install a Minit AC unit at the heart of our build is our power system with our goal to be self-sufficient and avoid paid campgrounds that mean needing to have a large solar setup to achieve that goal we originally had 1,400 watts of solar up top and we thought that was a crazy amount of solar panels and maybe for some it is but the winter months came and we ran into a lot of issues getting power when it was raining all the time and cloudy and so we ended up doing a rebuild we actually stripped the whole roof took everything off and we had a custom uh rack system put and we now have 2730 watts of solar up there which feeds into a 4800w battery system for me personally what got me interested in tiny living was growing up in a fairly large house when I was young and seeing how much of our time as a family was consumed just maintaining and upkeeping that large of a house and then when we bought our condo I started realizing we were starting to do the same sorts of things and that scared me uh I did not want to keep going down that road it was unintentional it's like you just kind of fell into it and I didn't want to just fall into my life I wanted my life to be with purpose and intention this lifestyle gives us a different back here to look at every time we wanted to and sure uh of course there are challenges along the road but being able to adapt to all sorts of different situations as well as grow into a better self is more than rewarding yeah and having done a camper van build previously out of a small for Transit Connect we knew that in order to live this lifestyle fulltime we needed something bigger than that uh we needed something where we could actually feel like we were uh living and not camping so we nearly bought a small RV and we were talking about oh we need to rip this couch out and put a desk in over here and put the bikes over there and it just was a lot of changes we were going to have to make to make it work for what we wanted to do and then we came across this off-road cargo trailer from Colorado trailers and we knew instantly that this was this is what we needed this was going to work we can mold it to whatever we wanted and we canceled that RV order and and called callado trailers up right away our philosophy is to keep things as simple as possible while be self-sufficient as much as we could while living in it [Music] comfortably our build was centered around two very important things number one is our passion for cycling and to us having our bikes safely and securely stored is more important than anything else and the second consideration is we didn't want to feel like we're camping all the time and instead we're here to live and that means to us we want need to keep our design as as close to residential as possible for things like how we sleep how we shower how we cook and as such our bedroom area is the most cozy and comfortable part of the entire trailer and that was by Design we really want a good sleep so this is a fullsize residential uh queen-size bed by purple and we also use this as a couch so we often times will sit up here and we'll read I'll sit at the very ledge and have coffee in the morning um and also having the bed up super high like this allowed us storage area for both of our bikes and our 100gal water tank it also gave us room for a pullout uh storage area that used to be our old Pantry which now houses some of my camera gear and some of the tools that we use to do the whole build one of the highlights of our trailer is this um custommade adjustable uh work desk that we can adjust it for either standing or sitting position and this is how we get our work done while we travel full-time on the road and speaking of work we're able to use starlink internet to keep us connected and use a Wi-Fi security camera system to keep us secure it notifies us when someone approaches the trailer before we even hear them when we first got on the road the trailer really was not set up for us to be living in fulltime go back and watch our first tour you'll understand what I mean this time around in our rebuild it was really important for us to make the trailer feel like home so we added a lot of our Decor from our previous life out in Boston together and it helps us remember the good memories and the good moments on some of those more challenging days but what really wasn't a challenge for us was deciding to purchase this trailer through Colorado trailers who is also the sponsor of today's video I don't know about you but when I think of an outdoor adventure it never involves a PVE road so get a trailer that is designed to go where your adventure is located Colorado trailers your One-Stop destination for off-road cargo trailers built for finding Solitude in the most capable manner possible with top-notch build quality Torsion axles and 19 in of ground clearance these trailers are built to handle the roughest terrain so you can focus on the fun you'll love the convenience and peace of mind of knowing that this family run business has your back click the link to check out our recent interview with them where they share their family run business story and showcase the various off-road trailer sizes they can offer you no matter what size vehicle you have Adventure awaits and with Colorado trailers you'll get there no matter where your there is located get ready to hit the trails with confidence thank you Colorado trailers for sponsoring today's video now let me get back to showing you how much we love our 7 by8 ft Colorado trailer previously our pantry was on the pull out system which now houses all our tools um but the problem was it's actually really hard to pull it out multiple times a day so we rebuilt what used to be all of our Electronics here and move them to the back corner and underneath and put three big shells for a pantry that are very deep now these shells are removable so I can still access all of the electronics but what it allows us to do is actually hold more food so we can stay out longer and to not make compromises so we even have a bread machine in here to make our own Breads and cakes and when we're cooking is really handy to have this pop and if we really need more space we can even lower the our our desk to make it flush with the rest of the counter and make a full u-shaped cooking area since we already have a large power system we decided not to use any propane for our cooking and instead we use an IR cook top and pressure cooker which really comes in handy in the altitudes we started off with a pretty expensive chest style type refrigerator which was great for power consumption but we noticed really quickly that we hated digging for finding that one little thing that you're looking for in the fridge or the freezer and so in our rebuild we designed it to be able to accommodate a 10 cuic foot standard residential fridge freezer and this gives us so much more room um to carry more food and no more digging because we only Camp Off Grid and we never go to a paid Campground we don't have water hookups so we need to make that 100 gallons of water last as long as possible we manag to only use 35 gallons per week and we do that using a foot pump for our sink using a non- flesh toilet and being conservative with water during our showers now we've only been able to fill up three times out of a city tap water and trust it for drinking and we know what good quality drinking water is because we have a water purifier that tells us now that water purifier has reverse osmosis it has a UV filter and a carbon filter and it tells us what the total dissolve solids are so you really can't be trusting your city water so here is the first hot tip don't trust City water just because it comes out of the tap does not mean it's clean to drink get yourself a water purifier or make sure you're drinking pre purified water the hardest part in this build and the rebuild was trying to figure out how to put a shower in here I'm actually standing in the shower we decided to use a metal stock tank and some Flex Seal to make the shower pan and then we have it pull out from underneath the fridge and then we have a drainage Port that we can open up that used to be for a starlink cable and we can drop down the drain for the shower next we have curtains that come all the way around and can be put into the shower pan and then we use a instant hot water heater in order to get hot water for our shower we use a Nature's head composting toilet which uh separates liquids from solids um but one thing that we've learned uh not to use is not to use the Coca core one it's super expensive and two I don't think it really does a very good job um for composting we actually end up using uh horse bed pellets it's much paper and it works a lot better the final design affecting the inside of the trailer was to build insulated wall between the interior of the trailer and the rear ramp door that lift us with 12 in of extra space back here for our outdoor gear storage and also gave us a workshop area for our bike maintenance additionally we ended up installing a diesel heater and this is great because it gets it out of the living space but also easily accessible so we can fill tank living in this trailer has been an incredible experience for us over the past year it's not just about the places that we get to go it's about the Simplicity that we've achieved and the memories that we've been able to have during that period of time it also allows us to meet so many interesting people on the road that we would otherwise never have met okay so let's talk about build budgets now this is a very controversial topic you're going to find all sorts of different opinions out there um but basically the build budget is all relative if you have a million dollar to spend and you purchase a $200,000 rig that might seem cheap to you and to other people very expensive on the flip side if you only have $1,000 to spend and you spend 10 years accumulating the materials in order to stay within that budget you might think you got away really cheap but the time cost 10 years at time is really expensive and so it's all relative your build budget is relative to what your time constraints are and what your financial constraints are the good thing is you only need to have it work for you this brings to the number two hot tips that we have mentioned before use Costco auto program if you need to buy a new vehicle that gives you 10% off of either a custom build or an existing vehicle out a lot with participating dealers and maybe kind of a sub hot tip here is uh either utilize stuff that you have already at your home you're just going to have to get creative with it so you don't need to purchase all new things if you need to purchase stuff for your build go to Menard's cuz we use so much of their EDG glue Pine board instead of plywood and it saved us a ton of money and for our third hot tip reach out and ask other people for advice as well as looking at some YouTube videos of builds but be careful don't go down the rabbit hole where where all you do is watch build videos at some point you just need to go start your own build it can be really daunting at first to start something from scratch but I promise you once you put the first hole into your rig you're ready to put the second hole so just get started that wraps up our version 2.0 tour of our trailer build thank you so much for being with us here today and if you enjoyed this type of content and want to see more of our adventures don't forget to subscribe and consider giving us a tip thanks I can't wait to take you on our next adventure we're actually going International next week until then stay curious and keep exploring see you next time bye [Music] bye

Channel: Tiny House Ventures

Views: 144,154

Keywords: cargo trailer camper conversion, cargo trailer conversion, cargo trailer, cargo trailer camper, nomads, rv, rv living, full time rv, full time cargo trailer, colorado trailers, colorado trailers conversion, off grid living, off grid trailer, off grid camper, off road trailer, off road cargo trailer, realities of van life, tour video, Overlanding, Overlanding camping, RV parks, tiny house, tiny living, wealth, DIY, DIY build, Overland, pull behind, 4k video, camping, solar

Id: x5kNq9CP_bg

Length: 14min 56sec (896 seconds)

Published: Thu Nov 02 2023