RV Tour: Traveling in a Roadtrek Class B for Vanlife

[Music] [Music] the longer our channel has been around the more questions we get about the rig we drive in and travel in and so we thought we would give you a video tour of our rig which is a 2008 road trek 190 popular 4x4 it's a mouthful uh it is an 0-8 we bought it used in december of 2015 and our very first camping trip was to a very wintery place that may be a little bit of an understatement we picked up our rig on saturday december 20th we went camping on i want to say like january 10th so maybe maybe two and a half three weeks later to de cuomo falls in michigan's upper peninsula which had about three feet of snow and it was 20 degrees and this is our first rv yeah i mean we had a very small towable pop-up that we used before this and before that it was tent camping so our first rv experience was in very deep snow in the very cold upper peninsula but the advantage we had was we went with a group of fellow road truck owners that was actually really good thing because we knew if anything went wrong we'd have a whole group of road trek owners that could diagnose and hopefully help us it was a little bit different experience because we were winterized so we didn't have water but we did have electric and our propane so it was a very comfortable experience and we had so much fun and i think that very first experience just gave us the bug even more to get out there and has led us to today with all the adventures that we've had and you know and and the reason that we love this rig so much and i think part of it too is that the bar was set so high with that one of are we gonna go camping in january in michigan's upper peninsula when we've never used this rig before how many times afterward if we were wondering about a challenge and whether we should try to do something with the rig we're like well we survived tequaminon in january i'm sure we can get through this so that was kind of nice setting that bar really high to begin with so we're going to give you kind of a walk around tour of the outside just go over some of the basics and then we're going to go inside and show you what our home on wheels is like when we're out there traveling so as i said this is a 2008 model year roadtrek 190 popular it is built on a 2007 chevrolet express 3500 van chassis so basically the big one ton commercial van that you see that everybody's using for their work trucks is what roadtrek used to build this thing out which has been great it's got the the big 6 liter v8 engine we've never had any issues with it it's hauled all the weight that we need to we tend to run with our tanks full of water we carry everything that we can possibly fit into this thing and it's never had any problems uh keeping up with the load and where we want to travel and we've been out west with it in the mountains and done everything so that's been great the other thing i like about the chevy chassis is you can go to any chevy dealer for the most part the only thing is it does need to use the big truck lift so you have to make sure that the dealership has that but you know most of them are going to service it like any other chevy van so that's been really helpful the other advantage we had buying a used rig like this was the previous owner was a nature photographer who liked to go off the beaten path for his photos so this go rhino bull bar brush guard the kc lights the fog lights everything was installed and that was a huge bonus for us because we like to go out off the beaten path as well and take advantage of the four-wheel drive and it was all set up for us to do that already moving around the passenger side couple things i want to point out we do have an awning on this rig it is a fiama and it is manual this was 2008 so there were no little push buttons to have your awning come in and out there's no wind sensor that's going to retract it when it starts to get stormy but we were camping recently with jesse's parents and as i watched my father-in-law hit the button and wait for his awning to go in and out on his rig i actually said you know i can crank faster than this so i get the little hand crank out and it comes in and out pretty easily it's nice to have it for some shade periodically but you know you can't use it when it's windy you can't really use it when it's a heavy rain that kind of a thing one sort of design flaw on the road track too is when the awning is out it's really hard to open the doors these side doors that open so you have to keep the awning up pretty high but we've just learned to kind of deal with it and i get it so it's like within a millimeter of the door and it's still functional something else a little different on this chassis than you see in a lot of the more modern vans that are out now is we don't have a sliding door we have the double doors that open and we really like that uh it is easier to use just one door in and out quickly instead of having to wait for the slide if you're just jumping in and out we do have a screen package so you can put a screen here and let some air flow through and that's been really handy to have but i just like these i think it would take some getting used to a sliding door although that seems to be where everybody's going now with the vans on the back side we have the rear doors which are also really nice because they both open up and in fact they will both open up completely to the side so you can really get some airflow going through we also have a screen package for the back so the whole thing is a screen and we leave that in all the time it's nice being able to just get in and out of this door maybe i'm grabbing something from storage underneath the couch i don't have to worry about bugs trying to get in and especially since we camp in michigan a lot you got to worry about mosquitoes so we've just left the screen in place another thing that was a nice feature of this van was we have the easy lift system for the spare tire these tires are heavy uh originally roadtrek had these stored under the couch which takes up a ton of storage space so it's nice that this was put on the external easy lift and it goes up and down super easy in fact i've also installed a wooden table top so when we put this down you got a little table top area to put some things on if you want to work on things we do have an air conditioner in this rig it's a 12 000 btu cool cat one of the nice things about the chevy version of the vans is you don't really have a rooftop air conditioner because it is enclosed it's not quite so obvious and there's a lot of places with homeowners associations and other things that have rules where having a rooftop air conditioner kind of defines a rig as an rv and they frown on that so it's been handy having that as well plus it's nice and protected up there so i kind of like that also in the back of the van underneath we have a 2 800 watt cummins onan generator and our propane tank is under there it's a 45 pound tank and it seems kind of small compared to what other rigs may carry but the way our appliances sit propane it lasts us a good long time on the driver's side of the van is where most of the rv life things happen so over here you have the electric hookup and the water hookup for city water as well as our outdoor showers under a compartment that's locked we have what we refer to as the basement and this is our main storage area for any outdoor dirty type stuff so cords hoses are ground mat the grill is in there you wouldn't think it when you see this compartment from the outside that it's going to hold very much stuff but i've been able to fit quite a bit in there and that's been really nice having outside storage and that's another feature of the chevy chassis that i really enjoy at the end of the main basement compartment and then in this other separate compartment is where we have our macerator hose because this does have a macerator for the gray and the black tanks and then our valve connections are there so that's where we get to those external vents for the propane furnace are also on this side we have a 16 000 btu furnace that will keep this van up in no time i will say though that we tend to use an electric heater if we're camping anywhere that we have electric available and that's simply for some peace and quiet when we're sleeping because it's a small unit inside in a very large furnace when that fan kicks on it can be kind of loud so we tend to stick with a small electric heater when we're traveling in the winter and if we do have electric but it sips propane it heats the thing up in no time and it's been a very efficient furnace so i really like that we also have the vents over here for the three-way dometic refrigerator three-way it'll run on battery it'll run on electric and it will run on propane we'll talk about that a little bit when we go inside it's not very large but it's very efficient also over here is the external access door for the water heater it is a six gallon propane only water heater i know some rigs now have propane and electric combined this one's propane only turn it on when we need it only leave it on for a little bit till the water gets hot turn it back off again very little propane use that's also a nice feature now let's jump inside where jesse can give you a quick tour of our little home on wheels welcome to the inside of our tiny home on wheels as in any tiny space storage is at a premium and so we have made the best use of what we have been given in this road track and we have to say we've been quite clever not only in what we've been able to pack in here but where we've been able to pack it and that's actually thanks to the really good design and storage options that roadtrek gave us as already mentioned we have the basic doors we don't have the siding door and one option that that gave us was the third seat it's been great when we have had extra passengers and we need to travel but most of the time when it's just the two of us we use it as extra storage there's normally a back rust here that goes that hooks in here but we have taken that off and now and put these uh drunk octopus hooks up here and so we use this as our coat closet it's really handy to just have our coats right here but it also keeps them out of the way as well the other part is that this third seat doubles as a storage unit and it is really deep and it allows us to store a lot of stuff so much in fact sometimes that we forget that we have put stuff in here and we're scrounging around looking in the rv for something only to remember oh wait it's probably in the third seat so we've got uh components for the kayak in here we've just got miscellaneous odds and ends our vacuum sometimes we put shoes in there pretty much any some larger objects that we need to store go in this third seat as for the rest of the inside of the rv i'm going to give you kind of a quick tour front to back uh seems the most logical so i can explain you what we have to work with here typical we've got the two front seats driver and passenger side both seats do flip around and it's almost a minute that we get parked the first thing that we do is flip the passenger seat around the driver's seat we rarely do partly because we end up using it as a separate storage area but also because of our four-wheel drive mechanism we'd have to unscrew the handle do some stuff and turn it around so we found it's a little bit more cumbersome but it's really nice being able to flip the passenger seat around so that we have just a little bit more storage and an open feel to the inside of the unit here one of our favorite features of this rv is the three what we call shuttle windows because it reminds us of the space shuttle and it's just awesome to be able to see out and see the stars and everything and it was road trucks signature design so you knew going down the road from the outside those three windows indicated roadtrek we have this little compartment up here that goes all the way across the front and opens up and it's actually decently deep and we keep some of our paperwork up there umbrellas tools that we might need to access at any given moment tire pressure gauge those kinds of things and so that's just a really nice extra easy storage place along each side in the front we also have these nice storage areas and you know they go down quite a ways we tend to use them for easy access things like our hats um buffs maps of the actual the covers to the shuttle windows and just some other miscellaneous things that we tend to grab for on a regular basis now let's go into the kitchen and here we are it's a very typical small rv kitchen but we actually really like it and i feel that given everything we have to work with and all the other rvs we've seen including some of the big fifth wheels and motorhomes we have a lot of counter space because we have the two burner stove here we have the sink under here and then this is all counter space and if you are in a lot of rigs you'll know that this is a premium like you don't get this but it's just the way ours was laid out and so i really appreciate having this much space one of the secret things that roadtrek did and it's awesome and actually many owners will say it took them years before they actually found this was that there's a secret little compartment under here that pulls out and it makes even more counter space which is fantastic and then you just kind of lift it up slide it in and call it good other things we have here in the kitchen is a small dometic microwave it is not a convection microwave because it is again 2008 so it was before most of those were even made or let alone installed an rv we also have these two really nice overhead compartments that store everything from macaroni and cheese to rice to canned goods spices sugar packets pretty much everything you need miscellaneous for the kitchen and beyond sometimes we just store stuff up there as well so these are really handy and and we really like having them the only downside to this one is as you can see it's a little bit over my head so a lot of times i have to ask ari to get me some things out of here because if i open it things are going to tend to fall out on me but but it is some really nice storage units and it even has this lovely mirror although i can't really see myself in it speaking of food storage this lovely cabinet here we refer to as the pantry what's actually funny about it is it's what road trek considers the closet where you should hang all your clothes it even has a little hook in the top where you hang things but we found it works better as a pantry and we can get a lot more stuff in here than we could if we put our clothes in here so we've got these lovely storage bins that we have stored everything from coffee and just other canned goods or boxes of cereal cookies the cat's food and treats and everything are in here as well and just anything miscellaneous and then even in the back of the cupboard we have a number of backpacks and other storage bags that we have because this this cupboard is huge actually so it's a really good use of space again roadtrek actually did some really good designs when it came to storage and this cupboard here what's cool about it is you open it is you have this built-in trash can that comes in really handy as well as three really deep storage cabinets now in most cases that might be kind of a pain because you're gonna have to you know put your pots and pans and things and dishes and reach in there um but thanks to our previous owners who were fantastic in the storage department they put in these really cool sliding drawers and so we didn't even have to do this this just this came because of the previous owners and it is fantastic to be able to get all of our stuff in and out and still leaving room on the side for things like ziploc bags so again lots of storage in here as already mentioned we have a three-way dometic fridge i don't exactly know how big it is like how many cubic feet but it's generally not enough in fact i'm pretty sure the dorm small dorm fridge that i had in college was bigger than this but that's okay because we like to eat fresh so we'll generally try to buy as much as we can for the duration of the time that we're going to be out and that allows us to eat what we need and buy local and buy fresh so that's helpful but we can actually cram a lot in here thanks to ari's tetris packing skills so i just pile everything up that i need stick it in the bag and hand it to him and say fit it in the fridge so he's gotten really good and creative about bottle storage size and what fits and what doesn't and where it goes now that i've shown you where we keep the food and how we cook the food now where do we eat the food one of the more ingenious things that roadtrek came up with because space is at a premium is in this little teeny drawer here is where our table is and it slides out hooks up and then it rests here and it's really cool because then one person can sit in the third seat somebody can sit in the passenger seat and and if the driver's seat were turned around you could sit there as well and then have the table in the middle the only design flaw that we've ever found with it is that once that table is up you cannot access this uh cupboard uh probably didn't matter if they designed it to be used as your coat closet but when it is your pantry there's been a number of times where i have gotten halfway through cooking the tables up and go oh crud the tortillas were in there and we kind of have to jiggle it around a little bit but that is such an ingenious design to have that table just like slide in and out of the wall there now let's transition from the kitchen to the bathroom voila we're here small space you know but behind this big door is our bathroom and it's got a toilet and a shower and some cupboard space in it now it is fairly small but as we say for the limited amount of time that you're actually spending in the bathroom we'd rather have extra space elsewhere so we just have the toilet in here and then if you want to take a shower the shower curtain pulls out and it follows this track around the ceiling and then you stand here and there is a drain in the floor so we just have to pull up the carpet mats that we have down in here and pull up the drain and so the water just goes right in there so it actually is a pretty decent shower i've actually had worse showers elsewhere than in the middle of our aisle here so we really like it especially when you're out boondocking it's just a great way to freshen up it's cleaner than some campground restrooms that we have had to take showers in so i really like it um and then we added just for some extra storage a shoe rack on the back of the door where we have our towels and washcloths and just some miscellaneous you know household goods that we need to store somewhere speaking of ingenious designs one thing that many road trek owners don't even know exist because i still see it in the forums today people going oh my gosh did you know that was there is this hidden little cubby under the toilet and it's great for storing all of the things that go with the toilet such as the toilet paper or the gloves to dump the black tank chemicals of that kind so we really like that little storage compartment under there now i'm standing in the hallway and in the hallway we have these two really nice cabinets and they store a lot at least we're able to pack a lot in them this is sort of what we consider our linen slash medicine cabinet it's got blankets and towels and linens and first aid kit fire extinguisher bug spray that kind of stuff so the things that you typically kind of keep in or near your bathroom at home go in this cabinet on this side this is considered what we consider the entertainment closet it has the dvd player in it all of the electronics that go with the tv and the stereo system for the van and as such we kind of turned it into our fun cabinet so we keep games in here we keep some of our electronic equipment for our cameras or um our hammocks and just kind of miscellaneous things just because there's a lot there's a lot of room in this closet and so we're really glad that we have it speaking of dvd player we do have this tv that sort of swings out i have no idea when the last time we used it was um yeah not even gonna take a guess because i have no idea i know we've used it a couple times on like super rainy nights where we've watched a movie but anymore our laptop screen is just about as big so we tend to just watch stuff on that before we leave the hallway i want to point out one more thing and that is our fantastic fan that's great because for a couple reasons it's just it allows a lot of airflow in through the van especially on hot days it can go both directions pull air in or send air out and especially when you're taking a shower as you can see it's right in the middle of that shower track so while you don't want it on while you're taking a shower because it would suck the shower curtain in on you it's super handy when you're done taking a shower to get the moisture out so we really like having that fantastic fan and especially the one with the rain sensor on it so if we leave it open it starts to rain it will close on itself oh hi welcome to the living room this is it we have this really nice electric couch and it's also the bedroom so if you put the couch down it becomes a bed this is probably one of the spaces that is used for everything um because it's it's a big chunk of the van you do have the bed but as you can kind of see around me we have it kind of stuff to the gills with all the things that we travel with our our bedding our pillows our outside chairs our solo stove some of the cat stuff the camera equipment leveling blocks this kind of becomes the catch-all because at some point even though roadtrek has given us a lot of cabinets some some of the stuff is just too big to fit in a cabinet and it has to go somewhere but we really enjoy the flexibility of the space back here because i mean even though it's a little bit of work to have to put the bed up and down um we really like not having a solid bed all the time because it just gives us this extra space to if we want to sit back here and work or you know maybe watch a movie or just hang out read whatever this is really great space when it is time to get ready for bed at night we do have to make the bed and that works by pulling out this table and it slides in here and then these two cushions fill in the gap so it becomes pretty much a queen queen-size bed which is really nice when it's in living room mode we also have a pole and there's a hole in the ground down here where we can take the same table top and actually put a table back here whether that's for when you're working or you're eating or you want to you know do a game it's a really nice good-sized table to have back here that you can you know just kind of do what you want with as i mentioned when we were in the kitchen we have turned the hanging closet into a pantry so the next question becomes where do we store our clothes and we have decided that we each have a his and her closet so i have this cupboard and ari has that covered and you get to bring whatever you can fit in your cupboard um i try to cram as much as possible into mine because i tend to bring more stuff than he does but that includes depending on where we're going i mean all of our clothes shoes my running gear and you know sometimes just some other miscellaneous products and these are pretty deep it goes all the way back kind of to the back of the rig so you can store quite a bit of stuff in it we tend to pack in e-bags which helps consolidate the clothes and keep them all in there kind of compactly i always laugh because sometimes it's sort of like an airplane you know where they say overhead things may shift because i've opened this cupboard before and everything has come flying out at me but you just have to learn kind of to hold your hand up there when you do it but but these are really nice cupboards as we mentioned on the outside we have the in roof air conditioner and so this is where it is at in the inside it just makes our ceiling a little bit lower back here so we have to watch that we don't bump our heads but it's also a heat pump as well so super handy the only downside is that the cord for it runs through my closet so i do have to be careful when i'm shoving all my clothes in there and my shoes just to be careful of that cord and for the most part we usually leave it unplugged because we rarely use it so that i don't have to worry about it quite as much especially because we also tend to use this to store our bike helmets in the very back and so i do lose a little bit of space but i guess that bike helmet is technically mine anyway so i have to put it somewhere so that's a quick tour of our rig which i don't know any other kind of tour to do because it's really small so it's always going to be a quick tour although having a small rig does make it nice for quick cleaning as well if you still have questions about our rig or how we live or what we spring or store um put those in the comments we always like hearing from you and it's something that we could be able to answer in a future video before we sign off i thought it'd be a good idea for us to kind of dig deep and say what is one thing we really like about this rig and one thing we don't like about this rig it's easy for me because it's one thing is both the like and the dislike do you want me to go first sure why not okay my like is the electric couch that becomes the bed i like it because you have the option of reclining so if you're in bed at night and you're reading you're watching tv not that we do it very often uh you can recline the bed and it's pretty comfortable and i like that ability to do that what i don't like about having the electric couch slash bed is one of our main storage areas is in the back of the van underneath the couch and because that moves up and down and because all of the electronics and the mechanism and everything is under there i have to be really careful with what we're storing under there how i've stacked it and to make sure that things don't get caught up in the mechanism because that could be a nightmare but it's just one of those you know a love-hate relationship with the movable bed so that's mine my leg and dislike are two separate things and i'm gonna start with my dislike first and that's not having any type of separate room at all as you saw we went from the front to the kitchen to the bathroom to the living room to the hallway and it's literally all in space you know we do have a couple doors and curtains that you can kind of space off things but there's no dedicated bedroom if somebody wants to sleep in late or go to bed early and the other person is up and making noise there's no dedicated bathroom so there's no privacy there's no dedicated office space and we have made that work but that's probably the biggest downside to like the class b life is that not really having those separate compartment areas we're back inside because i really want to talk about the thing that i do love about this rv and that is the kitchen space we have been in so many rigs where the manufacturers consider everything counter space and that includes when the sink is closed and when the stove is closed but when you're cooking and you have the water going and you've got the stove on you now no longer have any counter space but in the road truck because of the way this is designed at least in our model year we have this huge space here and that is so handy for you know i can store all my you know vegetables and things here in these strainers i've got a lot of prep space you know i mentioned the drawer that pulls out and so for such a tiny home it has a huge kitchen and i absolutely love that so there you have it that's our 2008 roadtrek 190 popular 4x4 if you liked this video please consider hitting that like button smash it hard hit it twice no then it becomes unlike no just just like it please just hit it once it becomes a like also don't forget to comment if you have any questions subscribe for future videos and as always keep on tracking and we'll see you out there

Channel: Trekers

Views: 102,614

Keywords: rv tour, rvtour, class b tour, rig tour, van tour van life, van tour, camper van, camper van life, camper van tour, campervan lifestyle, camping, class b rv, class b rv 4x4, class b rv camping, class b rv living, hikecampgo, michigan, recreational vehicle living, roadtrek, roadtrek 190, roadtrek 190 popular, roadtrek 190 popular 4x4, rv, rv adventure, rv camping, rv lifestyle, rvlife, trekers, van life, chevy van, chevy express 3500, chevrolet van conversion, Rv tour class b

Id: vGRBls1vPkU

Length: 28min 58sec (1738 seconds)

Published: Sun Aug 02 2020