Do I Regret Buying a Pop Up Truck Camper to Live In Full Time? Fall Camping Van Life 4x4

[Music] hey it's your girl hannah and today i have a question for you what do you do when you reach a fork in the road be honest and let me know in the comments below [Music] [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Music] full transparency i'm not paid by four-wheel camper while i did receive a discount on some of the upgrades i bought this camper with my own money and these are my own thoughts and opinions welcome to my camp spot it is now almost the end of october and it is officially fall fall is one of my favorite months and times of the year the crowds start to thin out the leaves start to change the leaves that change that is in the sierras but it's a little bit crisper a little bit cooler i'm super excited to be out here enjoying this beautiful weather hopefully next year when things open back up more i can go east and spend a fall there because the falls here don't even compare to the fall months there there's so many evergreen trees here in the sierras they really don't change colors there are some aspens which you get to see in this video today and i love seeing the aspens in colorado and some of the sierras they are absolutely beautiful i'm standing amongst some of the aspens that have some of their leaves left it still doesn't compare to an east coast fall where all the trees change colors it's just magnificent so i've gotten a lot of questions i've now had my four-wheel camper for a couple months now and a lot of you have asked do i regret switching from a full-size hard-sided camper to my four-wall camper i have absolutely no regrets i'm so happy with it i've gone so many more places that i would have been hesitant to go to in my full size camper now i don't have any problems i really don't think twice i should probably think a little bit harder next time because i haven't gotten myself into any predicaments or pickles yet i've just been sending it and hoping i don't get stuck so far so good i also get a lot of questions and comments about if i regret giving up my shower and toilet and that's not true i have a shower and toilet i have a 5 gallon hot water heater i have everything i need it's a common misconception in a four-wall camper or in pop-up campers in general that they don't have showers or toilets but this model and several models and configurations you can actually get a shower and a toilet i have everything i need nothing more nothing less [Music] good morning welcome to another beautiful day in the sierras it is a crisp fall morning and it is definitely fall camping last night it was one of the colder nights i've spent in this new camper it got down into the 30s but no worries it stayed nice and toasty the heater in here works so well i typically use sleeping bags for comfort as it gets colder i'm going to switch out to my zero degrees sleeping bag it's comfortable nice and cozy like a little mummy and it also helps me save on for a pain you never know when you're going to need propane or if there's going to be anything around or any place nearby that sells it but this camper really sips on propane like it lasts forever so that's great but i always like to be safe than sorry it was a wonderful evening a good night of sleep but today i'm just enjoying my morning coffee you know me drinking my mushroom superfood coffee after i finish my coffee i'm gonna pack up and head down to the mammoth lakes area so i can try to show you some of mammoth lakes as i said the storm rolled in last night so it's pretty windy but i think it'll still be beautiful but while i'm inside before i take off i wanted to show you or talk to you a little bit about some of the downfalls or some of the things i don't love about this camper the list is really small it's not really a list of complaints because they're all things that i can change there's just a couple things i've noticed and number one being while most people value their sleep i do as well the mattress in this thing is far from desirable it's okay if you're only sleeping on it or camping here and there it's not that bad but if you're sleeping on this mattress consistently or a lot it's not very comfortable this is basically the pad that's on the bed it's it doesn't look bad but it's just not forgiving at all i kind of like a softer sleep on my last hard sided camper i also put a memory topper on top and that really helps so some people i've seen have put springs under this pad but i think i'm also going to try the same route as i did before and put a memory foam topper on top of this like maybe two inches or i'm going to take the whole thing out and put like six inches in it kind of depends on what i find and how easily i can maneuver it in the same space but that's the number one biggest concern that i don't love about it but honestly if you're only camping here and there every other weekend or once a month it's really not a big deal it's certainly a lot better than sleeping on the ground on top of a bunch of rocks but if you're sleeping in it consistently you should definitely expect to want to upgrade the mattress secondly is the storage now i did know this ahead of time before going into a pop-up camper that i was going to lose a lot of my storage so i was aware of this beforehand and that's why i kind of use the cab of my truck since it's a full-size cab to use the bins and put all my extra stuff that i don't need at that time back there and that really helps and they've done a great job with using the utilization of space that there is available they've really put like a lot of nooks and crannies and cabinets that are really accessible and easy to store random stuff away but i do slightly miss some of the storage in the full-size hard side camper once again though that might just be a hannah problem because i'm a girl and i try to pack way too much stuff into this camper they've done a really good job with storage it's honestly helped me downsize and get rid of a lot of stuff that i don't need i wouldn't call myself a minimalist but being a minimalist definitely helps living in a van because you just don't have the space no i think that's the wind blowing around today corner pine cone up top it definitely helps to be a minimalist but it's not required to live in a van it just helps because the lack of space and remember the less things that you have the less things you have to worry about the less things you have to pay for the less things you have to pay off and then the more freely you can live so i have storage under both of the seats that i was sitting on just a second ago when the camera was flipped the other direction but there's also a lot of cabinets right here for storage of food pots and pans miscellaneous items and they are really convenient but for anything that doesn't fit inside the cabinets or under the seats i often just stick in these nice pretty bags up here and i throw them around when i'm inside the camper and then when i pop down or put the camper down i throw them on the ground so they're not in the way so that way if i want to keep the camper down and i need to get in here and grab something it's just on the ground and i can pull it out of the back door it's also convenient because i can access these cabinets with the camper down which brings up one of my other small issues is there's this awesome cabinet right here it has a lot of space in it but for some reason this might be user error anytime that the camper is down and i want to access it i can't get into this compartment so it would be awesome if there was like a door on the front so that even when the camper's down or i want to be like stealth and i don't want to pop it up i can still access anything in here without popping the camper up i can't tell you how many times i've put everything away and put the camper down and then remember that i needed something inside that compartment like a toothbrush and i couldn't get to it without unclipping everything and popping it back up so so don't be surprised if i cut my own little door through the board right here that says um hannah's door just for hannah so lastly it's also pretty small but my propane stove whenever you cook with propane or gas stove you have to turn on a vent to vent the smoke or whatnot but the smoke detector is right in front of the vent so whenever i turn the vent on and i'm cooking it pulls all the smoke and fumes from the stove right past the smoke detector and i tend to set the smoke detector off all the time and that might just be user error but i never set it off in my last camper so i think that ideally the smoke detector just needs to be put on the opposite side which i might move we'll see how that goes so as i said the list is really small they're all minor details there really are no deal breakers everything in this camper works perfectly it's everything that i need to get where i want to go i'm still really happy with my decision i have no regrets and i really don't think i need anything bigger right now in the future if i wanted to do something bigger i've thought about potentially getting a piece of land that's out in the middle of nowhere it would be nice to be by a source of water like a lake a stream or a river but it's a little bit harder than you think to find that isn't owned by the forestry service or by the state but it would be awesome to get a piece of land and actually build like a small cabin and then stay there full time and then keep a camper like this so i can take it off grid and go traveling when i want to but for now this camper is perfect for what i want to do i'll keep my eyes open for any pieces of land that would strike my fancy and then i have to figure out how to build a cabin yeah that could be interesting that's definitely a project probably need to do some research on that but let's head off to the mammoth lakes area and hopefully we will see some beautiful sights i'm gonna pop this down and make sure i get anything out of this cabinet that i need before i go [Music] wouldn't this be an amazing cabin view a girl can dream it's been the same story all summer another beautiful lake ruined by the smoke show this should be a crystal clear blue lake with the sun shining down and this amazing column in the background but unfortunately it's ruined by the smoke but the fall is here hopefully it will pass and we'll get some beautiful shots now this is what i'm talking about what an amazing view there's still some snow case but it's the best i'm gonna get apparently this is an area with naturally high co2 emissions which kind of makes it look like an alien planet it just emits from the ground so you probably wouldn't want to stop and take a nap here because you may not wake up after a series of earthquakes in the late 80s higher amounts of co2 seep through the ground why the dead trees well even though trees take up co2 the roots actually need oxygen to live so these trees end up dying high co2 levels can also harm humans which is why i had to hightail it out of there thanks for watching and don't forget to subscribe

Channel: Dr. Hannah Straight

Views: 592,807

Rating: 4.8958559 out of 5

Keywords: van life, truck camper, four wheel camper, fall camping, off road, camping, dr hannah straight, mammoth lakes, sierra nevada, female, solo, solo female, diy, living in a van, pop up camper, living in a camper, 4x4, full time

Id: Cp59koLTnvs

Length: 12min 55sec (775 seconds)

Published: Sat Oct 31 2020