Minivan Camper In-Depth Tour | Side Room, Diesel Heater, Solar, Luxury Bed, and More!

[Music] foreign [Music] hey everyone it's jay with journeyvision and today i'm going to take you on a tour of my fully converted 2003 honda odyssey minivan camper some of the modifications that i made to this van to get it ready for the road and full-time van living that would include some michelin defenders they're excellent tires they've been fantastic both off-road and on-road i installed a transmission cooler and up front i had all new linkage as well as new struts installed in the rear i had custom coil springs made from coilsprings.com to help support the extra load from the build and also give me a little bit of lift in the rear here is my stump jumper that i enjoy mountain biking with my cue at bike rack and an assortment of tools to include a shovel rake and axe up on top you can see my thule roof box renegy 100 watt solar panel and my vent line 6 inch roof vent so here is my arb 2500 by 2500 awning and deluxe room combo the deluxe room is absolutely fantastic and totally worth the extra bulk to tote along i really enjoy the awning it's and what's really great is this room can be set up in so many different ways so the screen room can be fully enclosed with a full floor the room can be converted to screen mode for maximum bug protection so this is one of my favorite configurations this room can be set up in so many different ways and just really enhance my full time travel and living that i do outdoors i also went on a search for the ultimate camping chair and came across the nemo deluxe stargazer highly recommend this chair let me take you on a tour of my kitchen i really put a lot of thought into this and i'll also be sure to include links in the bottom so you can check out these products on amazon here is my coleman stow and go grill love this thing it's held up for years and i can also use it as a burner here is my coleman power pack single burner grill and this works great for this large cast iron skillet that i pretty much cook just about everything in these two grills are powered by this wellington one gallon propane tank so i really like these things it's small it packs up nicely inside my van and then i have the splitter so i can run both grilles at the same time works fantastic this kitchen stand is great it's gci outdoors i'll also put a link to it that's been working great and packs up inside my roof box and then my gsi outdoors cook set which has been modified and my pinnacle camper cook set everything stacks up really nicely in here and that packs inside my van as well spices various items some water and vinegar for cleaning up and then my cutting board this is my rock pals 300 power bank it's fueled by my 50 watt renegy panel that sits outside with its own folding kickstand and this thing i use to charge electronics run my laptop and of course power the lights outside in this room i have set up here these usb italian style lights that i also got on amazon and they really light up this room nicely so here's a peek at my main solar system i use this to fuel the refrigerator run my heater run my roof vent and of course any cabin items that need to be taken care of i also have a 600 watt sine wave inverter this is a sealed lead acid battery truthfully i do not know how many amp hours it is it has been working for my needs here is my c-tec solar controller it's also a battery isolator i really like this because it does both a fuse box and a cut off switch and then here's my two kilowatt diesel heater and then for the diesel heater i have a five liter tank that's mounted to the bumper all right let me take you inside and show you some of my favorite features so here we have the control panel and we'll start off with these two 12 volt cigarette port adapters i really like these because i can pick and choose my sockets and this one just happens to be a voltage meter as well as a two usb port i also have one for my usbc here i have these rocker switches so i actually tapped into my windows so you can see here i can open or close the windows and then also here's the control for my vent line fan if you look up here you can see it's making a bunch of noise and if i need to i can close it or open it here's the controller for my two kilowatt diesel heater it's been great to have some dry heat and then my 600 watt pure sine wave inverter down here i have a duct for the diesel heater and then back there you can see in the far back one more duct for warm air to come out from the diesel heater another one of my favorite features are these switches these control the lights so if you look back here i have in the roof these lights and if you look they can be adjusted and directed like blinds one of my favorite features this used to be an exhaust vent for the heater core in the rear which i took out i didn't need them anymore and then on the other side those lights are from where the seat belts used to be so here is my dometic cf-18 12-volt refrigerator this thing is absolutely critical i don't have to buy ice i don't deal with any type of cooler i keep all my critical items that need to be refrigerated in here it's 18 liters and that's just enough for me to store what i need for a single person i recently added this cover this insulative cover and this thing is great you can zip it up and it really increases the insulation and runs much less so that saves me a little bit of power one of my more simple setups is this water dispenser just a water cooler style jug with this pump on the top works great also one of the more simple items in my build is this table and this thing can be moved around you can store things underneath here and my bose soundlink speaker love my bluetooth speaker and then recently i got this samsung tab s7 to do video editing and surf the internet up here we have a dual smoke alarm and co2 sensor and then my indoor outdoor thermometer so my blackout curtains that separate the cab from the living space are really simple and all it is is a bungee cord you can see it attaches inside the trim and then runs up through the curtain and get these blackout curtains on amazon and then i just have this one single anchor into the headliner and it continues on and then the bungee cord attaches here now to get this flat space up here i put an old tent pole in there you can see and that keeps it snugged up against the roof and really makes an effective blackout curtain so by far the most difficult part of the build was building out a nice flat floor and of course the cubbies i went with the cubbies because i wanted to keep it simple underneath this floor i have a nice stain and then tons of storage actually underneath this floor to include some secret storage for security here you can see this cubby typically houses all of my cooking stuff so my coleman burner my pinnacle cook set and my utensils so usually those store nicely in here with packing cubes right now i have my coffee set up because all that stuff is outside and then down below we have storage for things like alcohol hydrogen peroxide medications coffee mugs whatever it may be so on this side we have more cubbies and for my clothes what i do is i use these fishnet style bags they work great and i just go with different colors so i know what clothes are in what bags and i can just pull them out push them back in and then same idea here but this is items like camera gear toothbrush toothpaste my shower kit so once again i can pull these out and put them back in depending on what i need so that's been working out great so this is what i call my multi-purpose bucket i use it to sit on frequently i use it for storage i store things like wet wipes and rags and trash bags in here and what i like about it is if i need to i can use it for a emergency toilet i have a toilet seat that i can throw on the top here line the whole thing with the trash bag and take care of your business if you're wondering how that's done so this is the key to my entire build when i was thinking about my minivan build the thought of a bed frame and a fixed bed or any type of cot i just didn't like that idea because it's going to dominate your van build so when i came across these trifold mattresses i thought that'd be a good idea unfortunately i learned after a couple months of sleeping and sitting on these trifold mattresses they're not very durable and the memory foam wears out and you end up not with a very comfortable sleep so what i did is i went with this exped memory foam air mattress you can see it's stored behind there i just fold it in half so when it comes time to set up my bed i'll throw that on top and it just makes for a very very comfortable night's sleep and is sustainable so here's the tri-fold mattress pulled out for lounge mode and i forgot to mention in here is where i store my pillows my quilts and all my bedding so here's a look at my exped twin xl mattress i absolutely love this thing and it's been working out great for sleeping inside my mini van so this is made out of memory foam and you can inflate it to your preferred firmness with air it's self-inflating it's very easy to fill up and what i do is i just fold it in half and put it behind the trifold mattress when i'm not using it i do have to make my bed every day but it seriously takes me under two minutes to either set it up or take it down so plenty of room for me i'm six foot two and this twin xl gives me all the room i need for a good night's sleep so this bed would actually work great for a no build option it's incredibly comfortable i get a better night's sleep than i did back when i lived in a house i like to use these down quilts i can layer them up so i actually have two and depending on how cold it gets at night i can layer them up and stay nice and toasty i like to use sheets and when it comes time to put everything away i just stuff it in this large cubby and all my bedding fits nicely in there well i hope you enjoyed the tour of my minivan and hopefully this gives you a better idea of how somebody can actually live full time in a converted minivan camper i'll tell you it's been a lot of fun and i've really been enjoying it i'm going to put links below in the description for a lot of the products i'm using for off-grid living it's been a very functional system everything works great and everything i'm using right now i just really stand behind so take a look at those product links also be sure to like subscribe and share my channel i think this build special and hopefully if you have either a no build or build this will give you some great ideas for what you're doing so thanks for following along and let the journey continue

Channel: journeyvision

Views: 71,366

Rating: 4.9506478 out of 5

Keywords: minivan, minivan camper, van conversion, vanlife, minivan conversion, off grid, boondocking, ARB Awning, ARB Deluxe Room, Honda Odyssey, Odyssey, solar, diesel heater, dometic cf18, van tour, minivan tour, coleman stove, coleman grill, propane tank, camp kitchen, gsi, pinnacle cookset

Id: 876ysqjSl4o

Length: 14min 12sec (852 seconds)

Published: Thu Mar 04 2021