Solo Female - 4 Years of Vanlife

hello I'm Victoria this is my van I've been on the road four years come on inside [Music] welcome to my kitchen this is a new kitchen for me I actually found someone to help me build this kitchen about a year and a half ago three years and on the road and I was able to design everything and he built it which is exactly what I wanted so I made it a little bit more narrow and like just like exactly the dimensions that I wanted after being on the road for so long I knew exactly what my needs were so this is kind of my dream kitchen I've got overhead storage for all my food I kind of do like powders breakfast dinner cans I have some organization which is awesome all my spices are up here on little like twist stops they're just screwed with two screws like into the base of this extra spices there this is actually galvanized steel which has the benefits of like making a really clean space but I decided to paint it so you can see like this is just like oil and grease that is with me and I'm cool with it I like the aesthetic of like the blue as opposed to like just like harsh Metals but I love it because it's all magnetic so like it's pretty useful and cleaner than like wood it's not absorbing like junk so start it on the road with an induction cooktop can't believe I did that and without Lithium-ion batteries induction cooktops are just so dependent on your power source and so I switched this out even before I redid the kitchen I've had this stovetop for like a few years love cooking with flame I fill up my propane tank about once a month and it's just like a one gallon it's really little I can show you in here it's just back there little tank my sink has worked out awesome I actually spent like a little extra money for like each inch I remember budgeting like I wanted to be deep enough so that I could like stack dishes in it and I do that successfully so it's an awesome sink and the the water pumps 12 volt it runs um louder over the years but it started off pretty quiet I think I've run it dry a couple times but I literally have never had to replace it so that's been awesome overall this kitchen is I think like for Van kitchens as it goes the dream I have so much counter space like I even you can open this put a cutting board here more counter space the storage is massive like this is all kitchen space but it's still a van kitchen so I can't have like a food processor a Vitamix a oven and all the things that I want an oven that's what I would do differently I would literally sacrifice a little bit of my storage in here to put an oven so that might be the next kitchen upgrade yeah the other part of my kitchen is actually over here and Luca the one like con to it is that you have to move who it ever sitting on top or ask people to stand up but it acts as so much extra seating and a ton of space for my Foods this is my freezer my fridge it's like the Dometic 95 cfx and I can't believe I spent 1500 on the mini fridge I do not regret it it was literally the best decision I made because yeah again it's time on the road when you have like a freezer and a big fridge I can go off for like a month um pretty easily so I love decorating my van with rocks things I find feathers um sticky tack is my best friend all of these rocks are held up with sticky tack um I found them along the way on my Journeys so it's a cool kind of story and I can remember you know where I found each one I love that the van is just a canvas to put whatever you want your other people's art or things that you find max air fan I have two one over the kitchen one over the bedroom this one is the one with the rain shield so it opens all the way up and has like the best airflow I don't use the fans nearly as often as I thought I would I built the van out in Florida and it was so hot I used the fans like all the time while I was building and then when I left and came out west it's just yeah I use it for cooking sometimes or like in the Summers for flow but I more use the back the back fan to kind of grasp them with the door [Music] I've been nomadic for about 10 years I went to four different universities I lived in Italy for a year uh four different universities in different places like just from the time I left High School I recognized like I wanted a new experience a new experience a new experience but I had a lot of stuff and every time I would move it would just be like this huge thing to like move from one apartment to the next apartment and then like to make all the new friends I moved like I think it was 20 times before I lived in the van so when I moved back from Italy I realized I wanted to travel around America like my time outside of America made me realize like there was so much to see here so much to appreciate and I just like hadn't been able to access it in the right way um I was like I need I need to get on the road I read on the road when I was in Italy I wanted a hitchhike across the country I was like that's it I'm gonna backpack Across America and I told my friends that I was going to do it to my family I was going to do it my family was like freaking out they were like no like you can't do it I'm like yeah they said that about Italy I told yeah my friends felt the same way I was like all right I need a van so I started as like I'll just get a minivan no I got a class B camper and then I saw that people were like building out little tiny homes in vans that you could stand up inside and it just clicked I was like that's what I want so worked saved up built the van um you know that's a trade-off like to some people just do it just get on the road like you don't have to have everything figured out but I felt I needed quite a bit figured out just to kind of like embark on this trip um with really the potential of like not ever turning back and now four years later like I don't see myself without a van um I I love what this life has offered me it's like more than I thought that it ever would I thought okay I can connect with nature more I can meet more like-minded people um but it's it's opened me up in so many more ways like it's just changed my perspective on life um and what's important and I work you know just a couple months each year to to afford living for the year so I'm getting to live a whole whole lot more than I ever used to and on my own terms with like my house with me wherever I go on all the adventures I have this nice blackout curtain that I kind of like tuck behind here tuck up here um between that and all of my window coverings I can get my van completely black so it's nice if I ever want to sleep in and just for privacy as well I normally throw that up when I'm in the city just so people can't like see in the house um this is my swivel seat that's not a swivel seat essentially like I just like hacksawed the the guide the there's little like backs so that your chair doesn't slide all the way back out they're tiny tiny tiny so hacks all that off and then I just like slide my chair all the way back turn it turn it but normally it just stays like this um I added the diesel heater a year ago actually friends put it in for me I brought it to a van Gathering and like cooked pizza and a bunch of people helped me install it um it was awesome and like a little bit frustrating um because I had been on the road for three years when I got that and I had I'm from Florida I had been so cold so many times and that that diesel heater I think was a hundred and seventy dollars on Amazon I go to bed at 75 to 80 degrees I have a little remote control if I get too hot or too cold and I just cannot believe that I didn't do it sooner my friend Leah gave me this cargo net I'm stuffing it too much again because it like really could just like be up here with the window guards but um it's awesome to have just that extra space because a lot of this stuff used to live like on top of the bench or on top of the chair so even though it does take a little bit of Headroom when I'm like bouncing especially um totally totally worth it um this is Lucas fed this is Lucas bed this is Lucas badly best spots but this is his his main show chill place I've got his like dog food right here and some extra storage back there welcome to my living space um again I decorate with crystals I found this is like a perfect ledge for me to display um some of my finds as well as pictures this serves as like my bookshelf slash uh control like in on the sailboat you call it the nav station so this is what that is what I call this like my nav station and fuse board um I did not do the electrical on this van build I am so grateful to my friend who did I have an inverter my inverter this is like a blackout with duct tape because it's like honestly I could take it off now it's new days I got Lithium-ion batteries a few months ago but for three years this thing would blink bright blue because it was always like below 12.0 and so I finally just decided like okay I have battery issues I don't want to know about it as I'm trying to fall asleep so I duct taped it but now I have lithium ion and I go to sleep and like my battery's normally at 13 so it was a big upgrade so I have um two 125 amp lithium ion batteries so I've got 250 total before I had 310 um of deep cycle AGM it's like light years difference um because I have the full 250 so when I had 310 I really only had 155 and it was just like the peace of mind switching to lithium-ion batteries to not have to follow like what am I at can I charge this can I use this because if I even if I am low and I use something it's okay I'm not hurting my battery by draining it I can like recharge it yeah bookshelf slash like stuff every you know everything in the van has a place and I I have an idea for that but then there's other things where you just add to it these are all books I I haven't read yet I like switched them I have other books other places so I switch them out but it's time to to start reading a little bit more again so when I designed this van I really wanted to host people that was just the vision I had is that I'd like head out on the road and make friends and have dinners and game nights and that has happened so many times in my van because of this long bench this space like has enough room for two people three or four in the bed like it's been a party in here um I have the this ugly table at this point but it's really really large so and I love that it's on sliders like if it's full even like I can slide to like get out and um the beveled Edge is so nice to my hips because I'm like clumsy like that and then when I push it in um it stays out a little bit just to like have like a as a cup holder or something this storage unit has lost me a little bit it's massive it's literally basically like just all the way down storage and there used to be some organization to it and I suppose there still is but this is something that I probably should attend to like every three months like take everything out and figure out what's what because this is the ultimate stuff place and even though I have all my rock collection storage in the back this is probably also like half rocks because it just happens that way it's amazing to have such a big space in such a small area I really like when I designed the van I wanted it to be as open as possible so I could figure out again what my needs are so maybe I could build this out a little bit but it's great that like if I wanted I could take all of this out and and have something really large there um and this goes all the way back so like this will reach the end of the van I can fit something that's like 10 feet long this is um more storage in here again just like really open storage the whole thing I start store like Luca's extra dog food wine bottles um extra spices like kind of a stuffed space again this is my porta potty and I've had this since I left on the road to this day I've never pooped in it I just use it to pee I watched some YouTube videos when I was like shopping toilets and I saw a couple take this toilet into a house to like dump it in in a toilet and it was just like their reaction alone made me realize like okay I'm never gonna I'm never gonna like just in this toilet so um it's great to have just to be able to like when I'm in the cities or at Big Van Gatherings like to have if it's raining um I love it but for the most part I go to the bathroom outside is there also something that I had the person that built this kitchen helped me build so I changed it to three drawers which is a lot more manageable for my clothes but it's all clothes and um they now have latches so they don't pop out but that goes even like a couple more inches back so massive massive closet for me this this is just like again it used to be more organized but this is my like Electronics Journal weeaboo stickers drawer um but it's so big so I just love being able to like access all of this um without having to like dig into something another drawer here with a lock on it um just for as I cross like different states and different places it's nice to be able to walk away [Music] foreign [Music] months of my travels were very very lonely I started in Florida and I knew I wanted to come out west but I figured like once I got out west I may not go back East so I needed to like take my time to see the the country and seeing the country alone is different than seeing the country with other Travelers and um it wasn't until I came kind of to the western states home of BLM and National Forest lands that I met the community um through van Gatherings and then eventually just you meet friends of friends of friends of friends and your community grows um more and more each year more people are joining this lifestyle um I mean in the four years I've been on the road it's just kind of exploded so I think that's what makes this like sustainable if this was me alone I maybe could do it for a year as a cool um adventure trip but to have Community while being nomadic is one of the most beautiful things ever because I used to live in a city make a group of friends and then leave that City and essentially like that group of friends I kind of would leave behind but now all of my friends are moving everywhere and at any given time I can probably find someone within like an hour or two from me but I can go hiking with or have dinner with or camp out with for a couple days um and that is yeah the most valuable thing everyone's always like solo female traveler aren't you scared aren't you scared all my friends ask me if I'm scared but like I am so so rarely alone like it's hard at this point for me to just like go off and be away from my friends because there's always activities there's always things going on um you have to be intentional about taking alone time so yeah it's uh it's amazing though and it just keeps getting better because like the van fam keeps growing and with that comes like so much Beauty I have laser tag but last night like there was karaoke night because someone had karaoke and when you have a whole community of people it's really what like makes the life's so full so rich like I feel like I have everything because between everyone we do have everything welcome to my bedroom this room has not changed too much over the years but the biggest Improvement I made was adding the Skylight which I did so I could like lay and look at the stars at night but actually in the daytime it has added so much light to the space it makes it feel so much bigger um it does like open up all the way so for flow like on a hot day to lay in bed it's um it's been so great especially with the door open that is like more than the max air fan so Skylight I highly recommend I do not play guitar I want to play guitar I play guitar sometimes I know like a couple little exercises I know one song that I learned 10 years ago and I can like play that and nothing else so this is like just a great reminder to play it being on the wall it used to just ride in my bed and then from the bed to the bench to the bench to the bed like it was crazy so this is like a really Nifty um holder than I made of just like copper wire just like and some shrink wrap um this little idea was quite a bit of extra work for me on the woodworking side because I didn't know how to build things um so I'm really really grateful that I did it it allowed me to have an extra like three inches on either side of the bed and I'm 5'7 so my toes are you know touching with the pillow it's like I needed that extra little space I normally sleep diagonally um and if I were to do it again I would have bought the flares to make the the van actually wider I could have a queen size bed this way um I didn't want to put my bed long ways and lose the living room space so I'm really glad I put it side to side but it's it's a little tight it's so nice to be able to have a a bedroom out in nature where I can open these back doors or even just my side door if I want a little bit more privacy but just to be home wherever you are and my bedroom is again just a canvas for me to put all of my memories all of my I have like again so many photos art from friends and um it's like my space it's so cozy I pull up to a friend's house in a city they're always like I've got a guest room I've got a shower I'm like yes shower No guest room like this is my home it's been more of my home than any place I've ever lived [Music] so like best part of Van Life For Me has been having the time to do my passions and also like figure out exactly what my passions are like just having the space to like to really like do whatever you know whatever I want um has been beautiful I have been picking up rocks since I was like five years old maybe even younger just like always fascinated by different minerals others things on the ground and when I started van life I wanted to like go find crystals and go find rocks in different states and for the last four years I have made that a real like Central focal point of my travels like I'm going to meet up with friends I'm going to like go to Hot Springs but if I'm not doing those things I'm trying to find rocks and um that has like that has just been the most beautiful thing I can go alone for weeks and be near like a crystal dig spot and feel like I'm just in a Meditation Retreat um because everything is in alignment welcome to the outside of my van I painted it I started painting it a few years ago and I've kind of just kept painting it uh I started this journey wanting to be a stealth camper van and after being on the road about a year I realized like I didn't want to be that stealthy I was like spending all my time in National Forest BLM land and I wanted like my space to be personalized in my own place ever since I've painted it I've had like four or five interactions where I would have never seen a person that I hadn't seen in like years that calls me and I was like I just saw you you know we get to meet up and if I was just another big t1n on the road that wouldn't happen so the trade-off for me of like losing my stealth has been totally worth it my van is like forever dirty I've actually never washed it like not one time have I been to the car wash and I think it's just a matter of priorities like maybe I'm like losing a little value in the paint or or something but it's really freeing to not ever worry about getting my van dirty because it's just like it's dirty and then it rains and it's clean and then I go in the mud and it gets dirty and it's just kind of the cycle of life but um yeah I can have like kind of a canvas tube or I love um putting stickers you probably notice them throughout my van but also on the back of the van about um veganism and animal rights I love spreading the message that um yeah like we should love all animals and treat everyone fairly uh I think that's a really cool thing about being able to paint my van and decorate it is like you can spread a message as you drive across the country and have people kind of think twice about things it's cool um Welcome to My Garage this is a new upgrade I just hit a tree so that's great um okay back here is my like kind of electrical system some car parts because I was having problems with my fuel injector so I just decided to leave the thing off um I have a 6 000 watt inverter which it I mean it's 3000 Watts 6000 watt surge but um I'm able to use a blender laptops it looks it's more than enough for all of my electrical needs and then like I said um 250 amp hours of lithium ion batteries I have um 300 watts of solar panels up top having a little extra solar to fill the 250 is working awesome and I don't have much more room for solar unless I was going to switch out the panels like for more space efficient ones like my roof is pretty spoken for and this is laser tag this is outdoor laser tag with like vests and um 100 foot range I play a laser tag every once in a while almost all of this down here is Rock hounding gear it's chisels and Hammers and strains and gold pans and gloves and pads like knee pads um and rocks like so many crystals uh throughout my van I've got like up here kind of an adventure box yeah uh this whole back there goes again almost like eight feet that way so I have two camping backpacks a tent roller blades um shovel like a big pickaxe lots of Like Home Improvement stuff that I always forget that I have and I buy another one of because it's like so deep in there um like extra paint or glues or things like that I left this again kind of open so that I could put whatever and I thought oh I'll build it out later if I need to but fitting like these just tote boxes that is like all the organization I need I love that I can kind of change uh what what I put in here and it has changed over the years like I didn't used to have laser tag [Music] foreign [Music] my favorite thing is really just being able to have the time to be really present with like your surrounding area and and like be in nature and so for me like it's just made everything so accessible all the things I love the van brings me to thank you so much for watching my tour and I go by nomadic Fantasy on Instagram I post sometimes twice a month sometimes not for a couple months but um yeah check it out if you want to see my journey [Music]

Channel: Tiny Home Tours

Views: 133,984

Keywords: tiny house, tiny house on wheels, living big in a tiny house, tiny house england, tiny house uk, tiny house movement, tiny home, small house, small spaces, small house design, alternative living, architecture, affordable home, off the grid, small space living, tiny house life, tiny home uk, diy tiny house, diy home, van life, living in a van, solo female travel, van build, rv living, van conversions, digital nomad, solo female van life, van life tiktok, van life girl

Id: 0re6ymcjcm4

Length: 28min 23sec (1703 seconds)

Published: Mon Jan 16 2023