Honda CRV - CAMPER CONVERSION | Favorite GEAR & GADGETS For SUV Van Life

so this video is going to be a collection of all the things that i find to be extremely valuable and fun while living and traveling in my honda crv as a camper conversion so there she is right there i'm going to get into the details with you we're going to kind of geek out on some gear and some gadgets and uh have some fun i am gonna be kind of jumping back and forth some of these clips were taken a little while ago and i'm just kind of putting them all together as little minaj for you guys so here we go cutaway for a quick review this is the red camp wood burning stove this is the large size you can buy it on amazon and it costs you about oh i want to say 30 bucks this thing is amazing you basically never have to process wood again uh anything that you can find on the ground is fair game for this bad boy now mind you i'm in like the mecca of all twigs and branches right now but usually you can find plenty uh without having to get your saw or your axe out so that's where this thing really shines and it keeps your fire contained and safe which is another thing i really love it comes with this amazing really durable the whole thing is very durable a little grill and it just pops on there and it just fits perfectly so i've cooked steak on this thing like nobody's business you could cook chicken fish i've cooked fish on this uh trout anything you want vegetables are great on it you just throw a pot or a pan on there and you're always gonna have free fuel as you can see right here it's got a great see that grate right there that i'm touching that folds up and away and then this whole unit just folds up to about an inch and a half thick it's really narrow you can pack it almost anywhere that grate sits above these venting holes so the grate is like right about here which is wonderful because then you have a lot of airflow under your fire and under the vents you have a tray which catches all the coals keeps your fire very well contained safe and allows for maximum efficiency there she is guys and i didn't use any artificial tinder or anything there's just a lot of the uh old man's beard the lycan the old dry moss hanging off these trees around here and i put some of that in the base put some twigs on top of that give it a light there you go so as you can see works really well close this up there's that quick little update on my awning here now what i did initially was i had these bolts which i showed you but if you haven't seen it i'll go through the whole thing again so this is just a peat length the pvc that i cut to length i then installed these bolts near the end and i made sure that the bolts measured the exact width from grommet to grommet over there on this tarp this is a six by eight foot tarp so i wanted the six foot end coming off my vehicle so again i just measured the exact width of these grommets on the six foot end drilled some holes through the pvc and i put these three inch bolts then through the pvc this is i believe one and a half or two inch pvc uh and then i just put some wing nuts on there for ease of access so the the bolts and the wing nuts they live there as does the pvc pipe the tarp itself and the poles keeping it up those are just trekking poles and the uh guy lines those all live inside my vehicle as i'm traveling obviously now the pvc like i said i got this at home depot uh and i connected it this is where the fix came in i had initially i had really thin tie outs on this and it just it worked but it was a bit flimsy and what was happening uh was the tension on the awning it would pull this it was twisting it inside the the tie outs and i didn't have the tension i couldn't achieve the tension that i needed for this thing and one feature that i really like about this now wasn't functioning and that is when i have the bolts facing this away the tarp itself bends over the pvc and as you can see there the whole tarp is coming over the vehicle and i have this guard rail here it's more like a a rain uh guard or a levee and now when it does rain the rain will come down and it will not come in on this side of the vehicle and that's really what i was going for uh so i'm really happy with that it works let me just give you another look around here to the front there you have it uh like i said these are just trekking poles uh i do a lot of hiking you probably know that these are my lekkis and they work like a charm i usually put a middle pole in there and i just that's just something i i find wherever i am right now i'm in oregon so cheers thanks so this stuff is my fishing gear this here is a tankara rod it's basically a fly fishing technique developed by the japanese way back when and uh it is so so so much fun this rod in particular is called wild water fishing and it is the 12 foot length nine sections uh i love this it's got a really nice cork handle it's very light i think it's uh 2.5 or 2.7 ounces for those interested in weight and here is my little spinning setup everything's as small as it can be you know as lightweight as it can be because i'm traveling and you want to save on space as well as weight if you're worried about mpg and things like that this is um some of my tinkara stuff like extra line furled lines for the tenkara and then of course some lures and whatnot for the spinning setup i think got some wormies in there yum yum yum uh and a little net you know again aluminum it's lighter than wood so there you have it okay let's get into this this is the jackery 240. this is my power station they make them in bigger versions as well i believe this is one of the smaller ones um 240 500 1000 and those are watt hours so this thing's pretty amazing people have asked me about it and i thought well i'll say a few words i use it every day it charges all of my devices and i've never had a problem with it i can easily charge it one of three different ways i can charge it in my vehicle while i'm driving it comes with a dc uh input and uh that just plugs into your cigarette lighter as you know and it also comes with an ac plug for when you're you know stopping somewhere where you have wall power like whether it be a friend's house your family or a hotel or whatever if you're doing that and then of course for an additional cost you can buy an accompanying uh solar panel that's what i did i use this thing a lot when it's sunny not very sunny today but when i do need to and i got the sun this thing is incredible it's a 60 watt i can charge this unit fully in full sun in like five five and a half hours it's kind of amazing and again this will go for days and days and days charging your phone and other small devices i'm going to unfold this for you so you can get a look at the size of it and the look of it okay here we go so that's the 60 watt solar saga jackery panel that accompanies my jackery 240. now i'll just put this on the ground typically and point it at the sun it's okay if it gets dirty you know it's very durable you just kind of open this up right there and there's all your wiring it's just one simple wire plugs right into this guy right here that's the input and it also has you can see in there see that orange thing you've got a usb input and a um uh micro usb as well so you can charge devices directly from this panel you don't have to use this panel only to charge this you could charge your phone straight from this panel or your you know laptop or whatever it is that charges usb right a little tablet anything anything that charges usb you can charge directly from the 60 watt panel um as well as of course charge your jackery and then charge off of that uh the jackery i should mention has uh four ports output ports you got two uh 2.4 amp that's a pretty pretty good speed uh usb you've got the one ac it's got the 200 watt pure sine wave so things are going to max out at 200 watts draw so if you have something that draws more than 200 watts like a hair dryer for example that's not going to work on this and that's typical though because most lithium solar generators won't handle that kind of power but that's okay and you've got the 12 volt cigarette lighter for all of your cigarette lighter needs guys and that's it really it's a nice small unit it's lightweight it's like six pounds or something like that and um no no complaints it's been really durable i love it i use it all the time what else can i say uh you know if you're charging this thing in the sun you know they've got to be relatively close i think you've got like a nine foot cord there but i just kind of tuck this jackery behind it there you know i'll just put it on the ground so that it's blocking it from the sun because you don't want this to overheat in the sun while you're charging right just keep your battery uh out of direct sunlight if you can you don't want it to overheat and uh you know the cold the real cold i am in canada right now and it's about to be winter so like subzero temperatures will kind of zap lithium it's not gonna damage it permanently but like you will you'll lose power uh efficiency with lithium in the really cold weather um again that's it for the jackery you guys i i hope you get a got a good sense of what that thing does and how good it is they make them in different sizes so if you're looking for a power station for your vehicle or your home or whatever tent life whatever you're doing uh really good option hey guys i'm just in my family's cabin here in northern ontario canada i want to show you another little gadget that i'm impressed with it is just a little uh accompanying piece that goes with my jackery and here it is here plugs into the usb port any usb port it's got a little on off switch probably getting it close to what it is goes up there and it is a led light bulb and unlike led string lights this thing puts out a lot of light so uh very handy in situations like this if you're working on your car and need to hang it from the inside of your hood again very handy uh just it works in a lot of situations so it's one of my favorite little gadgets that goes with my jackery and there it is i'll link it below this here is my king camp table uh you can see kind of the size of it here it's about oh i want to say two feet in length and it takes up probably about five inches width-wise i just tuck this underneath my glove compartment in my passenger front seat area along with the little chair as well i've got right here all my stuff's out right now because i'm kind of cleaning my vehicle it's sitting over there my my my dad's messing around with his tractor and uh those two buddies the two two rigs are hanging out with each other today i'm at my family's cabin like i mentioned uh so anyway i'm gonna unfold this and show you how it goes it comes out like this there's your table your tabletop here with it are the legs and that's it chuck the bag these things just accordion style fold out like that this folds up tucker in there snug it in there and this just comes apart with some bungee cords that are just attached to it permanently makes it handy unfolds just like that see the back this line here goes in line with your little notches here and this bar holds these up so we'll just and that's it takes all of like a minute and you've got a nice little table it's aluminum it's really sturdy you can cook on it it's not gonna break down on you it's not gonna corrode uh it's really really strong it's another one of my favorites right here just keep it in these little side compartments and these are my window screens which you may have seen in one of my previous videos but i'm gonna take this heat shield off and put it on for you so first things first you know if you are using these things for ventilation you'll want to take your window covering off or you know bend it down a little bit so that you can have a bit of a crack for air to get in i don't particularly use these all the time i'll use these if i'm dispersed camping in the wilderness and i'm pretty much alone if i'm stealth camping or if i'm in an urban environment or just around other people in general what i'll tend to do instead of using these for ventilation and cracking my window i'll just crack my sunroof my moon roof so instead of sliding it all the way back the moon room for the sunroof i'll just crack it you know that kind of thing and you just as such pull it over and you can kind of get your corner pull that down pull that down and there it is now what this allows you because it is a big hood essentially is to be able to lower your window with this on you don't have to move this or anything and i just kind of hold this edge down as i'm closing my door that'll lock it all in place if you're in a smaller rig like this check these out as an option for your screening they are fantastic and i will link them below here's something else that i really love and i have mentioned this in a couple of my other videos but it's so cool that this being a gadget video i can't really leave it out because that would be crazy these are my lights my interior lights because you know when you're doing this kind of thing you don't want to be running your car when you stopped right you don't want to be drawing energy off of your car battery because you need your car to start reliably every time you go to move and you just can't take that risk so you need to get autonomous lights okay and this is my go-to this is the lucy light uh right there oops right there guys lucy solar string lights and it's made by a company called empowered they're all over uh the interwebs this company this on one charge on one full charge i can run my interior lights for at least 10 days and i'm not exaggerating at all um it's sometimes gone to 12 or 13 days on the low setting which is plenty bright there's a low a medium and a high and then there is a tiny little flashlight just right here installed so i'll quickly show you that that's the low and you just kind of want to string them around uh the perimeter of the interior of your vehicle or down the middle like i did with those fairy lights and so that's the low there's medium you can imagine now it's it's full sun outside and uh they're still looking pretty bright in here and this is high and boy i never even use high i i rarely use medium i'm going to turn those off and this is solar paneled as well or solar charged chargeable and up here look at that on the end of the cord they put a little usb charging uh plug so you can charge this thing two ways solar just put it in your dash while you're driving or if you just need a bit more juice and or whatever you know you like you're it's not a sunny day plug it into your jackery plug it into your cigarette lighter as you drive and that thing will charge right up via usb so that that's kind of amazing anyway that's enough about that little guy i get so excited whenever i talk about him because um i don't know i just really like it uh moving on by the way you guys some people have asked me if there's any trick to uh installing lighting like this in your vehicle there really isn't just get creative and have fun use what you've got right i've got the uh the hand holds there and i've literally just wrapped my lighting around i've took taken the plugs out i'll put the lighting in the plug put the plug back in so it's nice and taut uh right there that's just basically a thumbtack holding that on that line you know um i've got a little hook right here from ikea i think that i used to kind of get the light up by my head when i'm lying down in the bed here and you can see again there they're all kind of wrapped around the uh excuse my hand there uh they're all kind of wrapped around the handhold so just have fun go crazy here's another one of my favorite little pieces of gear here this is my usb fan uh excuse my shelf i'm just kind of cleaning up my stuff so uh it's a little bear there but yeah this this baby is kind of amazing you can clip it on kind of anywhere usually i'm not on the outside of the vehicle now but uh just to show you the fan but usually i'll clip it onto the inside of the shelf and kind of blow it towards the bed uh if i do crack that sunroof at night for ventilation i can have it kind of pointing right up that way just to get air circulating within the vehicle that's always a good idea uh you know when you're sleeping in a car to have good ventilation good air circulation so this really helps with that uh it has two settings right there you can see low and high this one's really great because uh and again i'll link this below but i kind of looked far and wide for the right one and what i mean by that is that this draws uh the least amount of energy from my jackery uh and what i that is uh exactly one watt on the low setting and i think it's three watts on the high setting i usually just use the low when i'm sleeping because again you just want a nice gentle kind of circulation and it tends to be enough and on that low one watt draw uh you're not barely even touching your jackery i think it shaves off maybe like three percent a night uh which is kind of amazing and that's for like say an eight hour sleep um so these things are great they clip on anywhere and they've got just so you can see properly there's the cord for it and you know it's just a regular usb just another quick tip for you guys if you do have a jackery or a power source in your vehicle uh which you should which well i recommend anyway most people do um that's great you know it's it should have enough juice to get you through wherever you're going whatever you need to do but a little tip for you is get yourself a smaller one too like something like this this is just a rav power i think it's a 15 000 milliamp hour and that'll charge my phone about five times and these are great for hikes these are great for just something a little more mobile a little more easy to carry a little more compact uh take it with you on your hike so that when you are on your hike uh you don't get lost because your phone died and you don't know how to get back okay just be safe all right let's talk food storage and scent control so this is what i use for food stuff that has been opened okay anything factory sealed i'll kind of just leave in the drawers uh in the back i've got two dedicated uh food drawers right there now but anything that's been opened you definitely want to have a container that keeps the scent at bay this has a little rubber seal right there okay and that just kind of compresses down it does a really good job it's airtight of keeping sense in there and not out in my vehicle you don't want any sense in your vehicle guys when you are camping in the wild you don't want to attract bears bears have uh i think their sense of smell is a hundred times greater than human beings that's insane so they can smell a chocolate bar in your car while the windows are up and it's all locked and you're on a hike so be very careful with that um they don't want to like stoke fear or anything but it's just smart uh camping you know and living in your in your car in your rv always uh be responsible with food storage so on that note i'll show you what i use additionally these are just some mylar bags this is a scent proof bag it's got a heavy duty ziplock on the top uh i can't tell you where to buy this because i don't know where to buy this my uncle gave me a whole bunch of those and i still have them and i use that for things that are open in my car like i'm snacking on a bag of chips before i go to bed or chocolate bars it's great for candy great for chips anything you've got in your vehicle that you don't want you know scent coming from just put it in a scent proof bag or container if you got it um and if you don't got it get it okay uh so that's for food and stuff guys this is just a dry bag this is uh from nrs this is a few years old this one 10 liter and it's called a tuff sack and it's a rubber it's it's real nice thick rubber they use these on kayaking and canoe trips and stuff what i use this for is my garbage so what i'll do you guys is i'll just uh buy some ziplocks so i'll get some like big uh gallon size ziplock bags or two gallon which are really great i didn't even know they made those until recently but get some ziplocks and i'll use a zip lock for my garbage until it fills up and every time i open that ziploc put more garbage in it um you know i'll open this thing too and i'll shove this ziploc in this and then i'll close that up so you just got double layer protection and that's my garbage it doesn't really make sense to have a little bin in your car because the bin just doesn't seal properly it's open you don't want flies you don't want to be attracting mice or anything trust me mice can be a nightmare so do everything you can to keep your garbage wrapped up good and your food wrapped up real nice and tight there you go okay get ready this one's really high tech this is a water bottle now i'm not using it as a water bottle and the reason it's in this video is because it's kind of gross to talk about for some people but this is real life right so i use this as a pea bottle uh it is absolutely essential i'm putting it in this video because it's so valuable to not have to get out of your vehicle if you need to relieve yourself during the night um that's why i have it that's why it's in this video get yourself something where you can do the same you will thank yourself later you do not want to be getting out fumbling out of your car in a walmart parking lot at 2am because you gotta go okay so find yourself something that works for you uh this tends to work for me but i'm sure there's plenty of alternatives all right and of course my favorite gadget is my baby i just love this honda crv i love the way that it handles off-roading whenever i need it uh not that this is the craziest road or anything but you know what this thing actually does have uh kind of deceptively good clearance for for what it is and i love the real-time four-wheel drive not all the cr-vs have that option this is the uh 2004 honda crv ex so i've got you know the power stuff like cruise control power windows all that uh jazz and the sunroof which is really handy but it's also got the uh real-time four-wheel drive so that's a computer activated four-wheel drive and what that means is there's no turning it on there's nothing you got to do you know slow down under you know 20 miles an hour to like activate your four-wheel drive like a jeep or whatever what it will do is if the tires slip and if it senses traction slipping or you get a little spin in those front tires because otherwise you know this like most of the vehicles is going to be a front wheel drive vehicle if those tires slip it will activate the computer will recognize it and it will throw power to the rear axle and those back wheels will start digging in and uh boy i felt it a few times and it's helped me get up some pretty steep uh climbs and out of some holes and it just works wonderfully so again i really this is my favorite of all this this the vehicle itself i just couldn't be more more grateful for what it what it does for me and what it allows me you know it gets me into some really cool places and i'm able to see so many cool things because of this baby so i don't really give her enough credit regularly for just being bad ass and uh come on i love you baby all right here we go we're going into town to get some supplies well that about wraps it up you guys uh again a big big thank you to caravan caroline who recommended me on her channel recently i really just i can't say thank you enough carolyn thank you i don't know you you don't know me but i feel like we're on the same path or a similar one at least and it really goes a long way uh recommending and being such a a good sport like you like you were to do that it's it's it's a big thing you know i mean we're all part of this community together and um we need to stand by each other and help each other when we can so thank you sincerely uh welcome to all you who were pushed over here from her channel and i hope you enjoy this video and check out my other videos because there's a lot uh my dad's on the four-wheeler there but there's lots about the honda crv and living out of it a lot of details shared information lessons learned all that good stuff and there's more to come obviously so again thank you i thank you the honda thanks you and we'll see you out there all right cheers

Channel: InTheOpenAir

Views: 97,338

Keywords: crv camper, suv vanlife, van life, suv camper conversion, honda crv, cr-v camper, SUV camping

Id: f42HgKQJI_4

Length: 28min 19sec (1699 seconds)

Published: Thu Oct 29 2020