Meet Matt who Dropped Out of the Rat Race and Now Lives in a Chinook RV

hi everyone Bob wells here and this is the real star of the show my best buddy Cody welcome to our new channel we've been promising you videos from the old channel for a long time and we're just now finally getting them up that's what we have for you today I hope you enjoy them and let's join that video in progress hi folks now we're going to meet Matt who is in a really nice-looking chinook so Matt say hi tell us a little bit about yourself hello well I'm Matt I'm from Minnesota and I've been out here traveling since really the first of the year and my dive into this was at the RTR I met some great people there and learned a lot of valuable lessons that are caring through today and here with people from the RTR and were gathered in the Cottonwood Arizona area it's beautiful here it's in the mid-80s lots of great hiking and I am NOT regretting my decision to go full-time and you started in a van I did I bought a van and I turned that into a little camper and I did some some traveling last fall with it and I had already sold my house and most of my possessions I was living with my girlfriend and when I got back from that trip I decided that I wanted to go full-time so I put the van up for sale and I was lucky enough to find a really good deal on this Chinook and so I made the transition into this and this is my this is my home so the van really wasn't all the comfort you wanted no there was two things that I wanted if I was going to go full-time that was to be able to stand up and it was also to have a full bathroom to build a shower have your own bathroom it was that was a big deal to me so that's what prompted me to make the step into this classy and of course I got all those comforts and and we were talking earlier but you kind of debating now whether it was a good move because of its limitations on getting in the backcountry yeah that's the one thing that I've noticed in a couple of months that I've been in it is that you are kind of limited to how far off the road you can get and a lot of the beauty and and stuff is a little farther off the beaten path and it's hard to get to it when you have a bigger rig with low clearance and you take this thing back off the road a little ways and stuff is falling down and you never know what's going to break and it gets expensive it's the classic problem of comfort versus mobility yeah every Nomad faces it you want more comfort we all want more comfort but we want to be able to get up and go and go far and the to contradict yeah and I'm rethinking and looking at all the options now that I've been out here and I kind of got a better sense of what this life is and I probably will make some sort of change in the near future and you're young man you're not old enough to be retired or drawing pension right and so how are you supporting yourself well I was a construction manager for many years and I did fairly well with that and I I had a nice home that I had put some money into and I was able to sell it for a pretty good profit I sold most of my possessions which was all profit and I had a nice little nest egg in the bank so I I'm living off of savings and but going forward I'll need to find employment to support myself but right now I'm okay as long as I don't do anything crazy right when you live this cheap you can live for quite a while on savings yeah quite well yeah you know depending on a lot of pockets yeah eating out and gas if you can eliminate those two or cut those down as much as possible you can really save some money you can look really cheap when you live on wheels yep well tell us about your ostrich nook here let me get around and get a better shot of it so it looks like it's a really new one it's a 2002 it's a 20 forefoot which is the longest one they made and I'm glad that I found this one because that extra three feet most of them are 21 and this next to three feet in there makes a big difference in the bathroom and in the storage they've got they've out of everything in this Chinook oh yeah it is really a beautiful ring I've always loved its nuts big big storage oh my I've never seen one like that really nice here's where the water and power come in and out is the water heater nerds where the dump is you really have all the comforts comes with a nice grill yeah I noticed that too by the way it did come with a 50 watt panel and I have that taken off because it was delaminating and I Adam I put on 160 watt panel and I upgraded the charge controller to an MPPT be a little bit more efficient the batteries that came with it from the previous owner or in good shape and fairly new so those are fine so if you found 160 watts to be enough it is the fridge that's in there is a 3 Way fridge so I keep it on propane and that works fine and the lights and charging of any electronics I have no problems with with using my 160 watt and it looks like you're a really active young man really for you know you're young enough to be a young man and so you do a lot of biking and hiking and traveling around and seeing things yeah I love nature I grew up you know like I said Minnesota and we I spent a lot of time outside so this trip is about being outdoors it's living out of my Chinook not living in the Chinook right and I love the mouth but I love to hike this is a great area for Ramona is absolutely stunning if you've never been here you got to get here and also I've been doing some skiing this winter I've been to six different ski resorts and I've got my skis inside and then my friend Jerry and I are going to do some kayaking which is fairly new to me and I'm going to be taking some lessons in Albuquerque and I to do a little bit of serious kayaking as I become comfortable with it so I have to have room for a kayak back here - you're not bored sounds like no I'm not bored at all doing the things you love to do ya know what catches my eye is your air pressure shower tell us about that well that little gem is is nice because you can put the water not set it outside in the Sun and it gets very warm and then I can take it into my bathroom and I can use that at the shower it also works good to wash the windshield off with bugs to wash the bike after it gets muddy out and it works very easily you just pump this for pressure yep it's got a kitchen sprayer on it and it you know it's really nice it works really well yeah it's easier than starting the water heater and burning propane when you got the Sun to naturally heat it it just helps you live even farther off the grid and you found that he gets plenty hot oh yeah sometimes I it it gets to I yeah well why don't we step inside and get a view of your rig okay yeah the layout is nice it's it's big enough I mean it's it's the right size for one person this turns into the bed and that's where you sleep yeah so I just folds down like this into a bed muscles Electric yeah and I keep my bedding up here good spot there's other plenty of room up there for other stuff so that works good there's storage underneath here there's storage underneath both of these this also drops down and turns into a bed but it's only about five foot eight would be for a shorter person or to sleep in an angle good storage up top yep a lot of stuff it doesn't have an oven don't really need an oven which is normal most all most smaller especially Class B these are not going to come with it of it yeah and you have the full tanks freshwater grey and black yep and your fridge is so right over there good-sized fridge - and freezer so I put the freezers over hill plus yeah it's got I love have a nice in my water especially when it's higher like this yes it's nice to have ice and it's just going to get hotter yes wow these are gorgeous I just love these you know that the quality of them is is second to none really really it is you're right and I've been looking at newer travel trailers in my quest for maybe finding a different option and the quality of travel trailers is sad spare set it looks like it was you know done as cheaply as possible I know you get what you pay for so if you want to you know you want quality then you go up to the air streams or you go up to the expensive stuff and I'm not going to do that it's going to be a little bit of a challenge to go from the quality that this has into something a little little less now this is all real wood I mean it's just very nice Gurion props I love this it's got a that cutting board and they can pull it out even farther for the one I'm going to accidently increase the space in here smoke it's not around all the time and they've got to figure it out yeah they went out of business in 2006 alright that was one of that yeah a lot of companies did then you know and I bet the name got sold and they're going to start reproducing class beads with the Chinook name is what I've read online well so yeah it's got you know pullout shelves lots of storage and then this is the closet there's a lot of storage for clothes in the closet and you must have a bathroom you have bathrooms in here dumb dog once it land on the road that's a large bathroom yeah I had a tiny one no it works good it's big enough that the taking a shower is not an inconvenience would you mind stepping in there so people get a perspective sir can someone you know they look pretty good when you get in there's no room anywhere you can't move yeah this is probably it's almost like probably four four and a half feet this way it's probably the same this way yeah before and a half feet square that's really large you can stand up in it and lots overhead and you're reasonably tall guy 510 so then instead of using the system that's here for the shower I just let that outside thing the pump thing heat up I bring it in here and shut the door and pump it up and I just get wet and I use the bowl and I so bought them you know it's a very efficient way to to clean yourself and it's it's a wet what's called a wet bath yep so everything gets wet when you're in the shower yep I pull the piece of carpet out and there's a little cover for the toilet paper and take the towel out and you can clean the bathroom and clean yourself all in one in one night one bath if everything comes else and span yep well Matt thank you for sharing your home with us do you have uh do you have any regrets you're just starting out but you don't have any regrets none you're glad you're doing this should become a nomad I'm I'm excited for this lifestyle and the people that I'm meeting and experiences I'm getting and I'm glad I took the step it was scary and I'm embracing the fear of the unknown and it's changing me into a better person absolutely oh one more question and and this is something I get all the time Gary if you get Jerry all the time so in your own life you will don't have social security or building up a pension you're in one of these days you're going to be older you're going to be sixty seventy what are you gonna live on then have you given that thought well I I haven't given much thought to 20 years away I'm I've learned that I need to focus more on what's happening in the immediate future and not get too caught up in the distant future because things typically find a way of working out and I'm just living at one day at a time right now and hopefully things will take care of themselves down the road right a saying that I've kind of adopted because it's a complaint I get a lot that people tell me I'm shouldn't be promoting this life because they won't have any one year old saying that I'm falling in love with is you you can make more money you can't make more time the clocks a-tickin yeah and my dad lived till he worked well he was sixty retired and was dead at 62 and I just that's a life I will not leave with will so I've got another experience my mom died almost two years ago from breast cancer and she was getting she was at the point where she was done working and going to start to do a lot of travel and experiencing the retirement life and life was taken from her so she never got to right once you've seen that you're not willing to go that way no it changed me I mean that was really the spark that fueled me to get on the internet and start looking at different ways of living I found your website read about everything I could on that and other people's blogs and websites and that's what led me to take the big leap and sell the house and become romantic [Music]

Channel: CheapRVliving

Views: 590,250

Rating: 4.9128685 out of 5

Keywords: live, living, car, van, RV, Fill-time, nomad, gypsy, camper, camp, boondock, travel, adventure, Chinook, Class B, Class C, Class B+, mountain bike

Id: avEUAJN_iG8

Length: 14min 4sec (844 seconds)

Published: Fri Jul 28 2017