Nomadic Freedom: Van Tour of a Solo Woman Living in a Roadtrek Class B Van!

tell us your story how did you end up living in a road trip uh my husband passed away and about nine years ago and i you know your whole life changes when that happens and i wanted to decide what i was gonna do when i grew up and so for about a year i kind of did some research on different types of rving because it's something that we wanted to do and something i've always wanted to do because i love traveling so i did some research and the first thing i started off with was a huge 40-foot class a rv motorhome which i loved i did that for four years but then i was sitting in it one day and i said i don't need all this space and so i was looking around and so i started to get on these websites of just rv living to see the smaller types of rvs and then i um there was this one uh video called um living the van life with i guess his name was chad and so i looked at i thought he's in a van that's like the uh it was like an awesome eyewake eye-opening thing for me so i then i started looking into van living and van life and van dwelling and i saw all these people doing this and i thought it was just really interesting so i started looking for something that i thought would suit me because if i sold the r the big rv then i wanted to go right into something so i just kept on looking and i found this class b that i really fell in love with and i had them do a little bit of modification inside to make it a little bit more open and i've been doing that for three and a half years now i i love it i just love it i don't i don't ever want to own another sticks and brooks hayes i just encourage anybody especially a female a woman i'll be 65 this year and um who's afraid to do i wasn't afraid to do it but anybody who thinks that they you know they're afraid to do this it's just it's wonderful i'm a little surprised you weren't afraid because most most women are they just think oh you know it's going to be horrible things out there no no i well i'm kind of a little bit of an adventurous i will do things i'll say i want to do that and then i'll just go do it but um and i've traveled i mean i have traveled a lot but um i was not afraid i think everybody around me was afraid everybody even when i got the big 40-foot rv everybody thought i had lost my mind and you know my children were concerned and you know my my friends thought i was a little nut they thought i'd gone a little bit bit off the deep end after my husband had passed away that what are you doing but i loved it and i love i love being out in the middle of nowhere and no i i just wasn't afraid so do you mostly stay in campgrounds or i well i have been because of family situations and i have a granddaughter that i babysit i didn't want to be in phoenix but and i still wanted a full-time so i do i do annual lease at a an rv park preserve and um so i do do that but i'm gone a lot but that's just my home base it's very inexpensive for me it's some place i know that i can come home and kind of get away from everything and but i still adventure out i love i just love you know traveling so you got them itchy feet yes i do yes i do well and because you run into a lot of problems that's not a problem it's one of the joys that many women are your age do that they have grandchildren and children and they they're torn between their bond between the children the grandchildren right and their own wanderlust right so you found a really good balance i have i really have and my kids my kids are awesome i have three daughters and they're just they're awesome about not you know i just do what i want to do and they're very supportive so i do i don't have any kind of negative you know response they were concerned and they still check up on me it's like i went someplace that for a whole week that there was no no cell phone coverage and they didn't know that was going to happen and when i finally checked in it was like that is just not acceptable so i mean they do want me to check in and want to kind of know where i am and what road i'm off of and stuff like that so they i mean they want to know what's happening so but they're very very supportive in fact my one of my daughters really kind of wants to eventually do that she thinks it's not it's really cool she's seeing the light yeah she you know she really really kind of wants to do it so and she sees how happy it makes you oh i'm happy i'm really really happy it's it's a wonderful thing you know people should just we all have a little bit of wonderlust in this we all have a little bit of adventure in there and i just think people should if even if they don't want to do it forever just test it out i think they'll it and then coming to the things like the rtrs what a that was a wonderful blessing i mean there's just so many everybody's open they're kind they're respectful i think that has a lot to do with you you know because it's who's organizing things that kind of trickles down and so you never plan to live and or you hope never to live in uh stick and brick house again never ever ever well some people are going to say oh it's so tiny though how could you possibly live in there it i it's 78 square feet but it has everything i knew i need it has a shower it has it has a toilet it has enough space for me it has it has a my i sit in the front i have my seat turned around as a as a lounger and during the day and that's usually kind of where my activity is or outside and then i have my bed in the back it can turn into a sofa but it's not a comfortable sofa so i just made it into a bed and it's it's very comfortable and i even have a have a routine a 30 minute routine of exercise that i can do in there without any problem at all if i say if it's raining because there are times when it rains a couple days in a row and you can't get out and do anything so i yeah i have a whole whole routine with that and and uh you started like a lot of people you thought i have to have a big place you started with a 40-foot right i did rv and that was too big apparently not because you're down the road track right it's too it was too because number one you couldn't get into some of the parks like even some of the you know the state parks and stuff you can't get into you know to even park the thing so it's 37 feet from most of them so you can't even get in with a 40 foot and um i got it that i kind of stepped down that because again kids and being able because it slept 10. so i you know they could come up on the weekends they or we could go you know do things and so that you know and then we really weren't doing that much in that so and then i'd like i said i just sat there and i thought i don't need all this space and even in this once i've got it organized to where i want it i still have space so i don't even need that much space in here so it's it's amazing and freeing what you don't need right it's just totally freeing and i feel safe that's the thing uh we you know we were talking and uh uh in our little in our little group the other day and and uh i feel safe in this vehicle i feel safer in this than i do a haze because if i need to i can pick up and leave and go somewhere if someone would be trying to get into my house i don't have anywhere to go yeah so this is i feel very comfortable very safe you're in the house you call the police and wait yeah and hope they make it in time exactly here you can get in the front seat turn the key and drive away off i go off you go or if you don't like something or if you're bored or which i never get bored uh there's just i i don't know you have to tell me to shut up i just love it so i do i really love it so much and people should not be afraid no one i don't care male female don't don't let anybody intimidate you talk you out of it in in and if they're afraid because that that's what they're trying to do they're afraid so they're making you afraid so don't let them do that to you if you have to just start even like a little bit and go a little bit here and a little bit there until you feel like you can handle it or you know just go cold turkey just do it right there a lot of people watch these videos are thinking about doing it and so your advice would be maybe just take trips in your car whatever you have now just take a trip and you don't need this that's the whole thing if i had i hadn't i didn't run into your website until i had this for two years so if i had that i would have maybe even done it differently because now i have all these ideas and i was like i could help somebody do this or that or there's just so many ideas you get once you have it and very inexpensively it doesn't have to be expensive at all at all so no it's i love it well great well we take a look inside your road track and you can show us just how wonderful it can be all right here we go well i would think one of the things you loved about um the road track as opposed to your 40-footer was how drivable it is oh this is so drivable it has plenty of power i get great gas mileage just easily handled park it in a parking space anywhere it's yeah and so what kind of gas mileage are you getting i'm getting around 18 mostly but i've gotten 22. depends on the wind 8 between 18 and 22. that is phenomenal i get really good gas mileage well it's a chevy based on the chevy express it's a 2500 express and they just have turned into an exceptional van it's a workhorse i mean it's just you know it does well going up and down mountains it's it's great yeah yeah whereas with a 40-footer drive just to drive it around town through the freeways up and down mountain hills nah nightmare yeah so for single person uh you would recommend a class b i would especially if you're a little bit concerned at first about starting out you know and if you can do it and there's a lot of look on these craigslists and different you know different ads and stuff you can find these the older ones at a really good price there's people that buy them and then use them i don't know a dozen times they may have ten thousand i bought this one used it had eighteen thousand miles on it oh man eighteen thousand it's not even broken in really no no and i was looking at one for my children that was a 97 that only had 37 000 miles on it it was and it was beautiful they do hold their value yes so they are fairly expensive low mile used yeah yeah but you get what you pay for yeah and but you can get them another gentleman had uh another road track that had 94 000 miles on it which is you still have a lot of use out of that you do he only paid like i think he said 12 000 for it which is not that much when you have all of this so you can just look around 12 000 for a complete home is not bad and these x if it's an express they're easily good for 200 000 miles oh easily yeah easily so yeah i'm very comfortable with what i have well why don't we look inside i'll get over here and uh take a shot i'll go ahead and go on in and this is the roadtrek 170 versatile so this isn't a big one the big ones are 19 and 20. is that right they go up there they're between 19 and 22 i think some of them are being built a larger now but i wanted the smallest one because i wanted the good gas mileage i wanted the power um i didn't care i didn't need a big space so this was perfect for me so i i i love it i wouldn't go i wouldn't get a bigger one personally for me as a single person as a single person right so this is remarkably homey looking to me yes it's my home so i want it to be how i want it to be not you know not what anybody else thinks it should be i this is what i like at this time and i i just took stuff from the stuff that i had in my own home and i just made it smaller it's micro living which i love right so it's uh you know i'm a vegetarian so i you know decided i i use a lot of vegetables and fruits so i you know did a rack system so that that i could get you know use that i've got a great fridge it works very well it's beautiful yeah i mean it's not just something you tolerate this is a beautiful kitchen and then at me it's got a burner i don't use too much the burner too much but it's it's nice but i you know i might use it once a week to steam up some potatoes or some vegetable or something right because i eat mostly raw but um it it works well i had them take that it did have a what they call an armoire right here where the with this cabinet i mean where this uh bank of drawers is i had them take that out my rv guy and build these drawers and he did a beautiful job matching it and then it does have it does have a a pop-up part here uh for another extension of of the granite right here for the counter space but i found it was so heavy that even pulling it up and down was starting to pull it out so i went ahead and just bought a little bank of drawers here and put another cutting board so i still have about six feet of of space and it opened it up tremendously so if you like to cook this is ideal you're not suffering here at all and i actually i'm the one that usually has the stuff the entertaining stuff i've got the bowls i've got the tools i've got the and i have plenty that that if i ever really needed to adjust myself i could get rid of almost three a half of the stuff i have because it's just stuff for like partying and entertaining and because that's what i did you know so uh it's got plenty of room it's got plenty of space yeah yeah and so there was a microwave here and i took that out and just because i have a lot of of um you know blender and some other stuff that i use that i use all the time and i didn't use the microwave because i don't cook that much so and then in here is um this is the uh this is the bathroom good good one and uh this is the the bathroom and the showers right here and there's also a little tiny closet here as well so i didn't really i don't need anything more than that and do you use the shower i do you do the shower comes out here right here oh oh i see yeah so do that again it comes out the shower curtain comes out right here this door opens and goes all the way that way and then the shower nozzle is right here and there's a little place um underneath the rug there it's a drain and this is all fiberglass i just removed the rugs which is very easy to do and um then i just did you shower now when i'm boondocking i don't use the shower as much because obviously it uses the water right so but when i'm hooked up to water it's very easy to use and so it's your toilet otherwise uh yes yes and then i i it's not tiny or too cramped or no you think it's fine yeah it's totally fine um i um took out the regular toilet and put in a nature's head that's right composting toilet right so you don't you're not dumping black tanks i'm not and it works really really well really it's much better than having that toilet in there because the toilet smell i don't care how good your rig is i don't care how expensive it is it's always a problem and with this it works beautifully it works really really well a lot of people hear the price it's a thousand dollars and they say that's just crazy it's worth it there are people that have you know made their own but um i just just because i do have a small space this is all totally self-contained it's easy for me to just pull it in and pull it out and get you know and get it you know just dump it the the way this one is set up uh if you do it right it's when you take the lid off of the bottom the solid container it looks like potting soil it smells like potting soil so there's really really no no odor at all so i'm it was probably the best expenditure that i did i really you have no regrets none not at all so the thing with it is it's only good usually for one or two people my children do camp with me sometimes and we'll have they will have the tent and then three of us can actually sleep very comfortably in here but they do use the bathroom so i've kind of devised another system with the plastic bags like you do and we can they can still use that without using the composting part of it so that that ends up working really well so for a large group it overwhelms it it overwhelms it definitely and so it's not in there long enough to break down break no no so it just becomes you keep him piling poo open yeah which isn't nobody wants that it makes it more difficult to dump so no you don't really want to do that because you do need a chance for it like you said to break down so uh no i wouldn't recommend it for more than one or two people so you put a a a plastic bag in it like and it becomes a thousand dollar five gallon bucket yes it does oh boy yes it does but it's very handy when you have like i said a lot of people but then after that's done then i just go back to the you know what the way i'm using it and again you only have to dump it a bit once a month so that works out it works out very well really it works out well good good and and to me it would be worth it almost to never have to dump ah and the whole black tank no i just hate all that i had that removed i just had it removed yes you didn't need it and i only have the grate and i use all natural products so well i see you have an air conditioner behind you so you must have a generator i have a generator and this ac works really well in fact if i turn it on i have to get a sweatshirt on and a blanket it's so cold in here so yeah i don't and i i don't even i always like to be somewhere that i can if i have to use it which i don't you don't often unless i'm down kind of in phoenix or because i do stay in the arizona area mostly uh just because of family um so i don't i at night i turn it off and i just open up the windows and it's beautiful well if you've already got it cooled down during the day yes so that's the good that's the important up here i have the only way the only reason i've used it at all is if i turn my generator on i it has to have something to draw and so i that's how i do that to exercise the generator exactly and that's when i'm like trying i might be charging up um my ipad or something like that but even at night i don't use even the lights that much i use um ryobi yeah my favorite i'm a big fan of those things i love it i love ryobi i've got everything ruby um i use this and put like a scarf like a silk scarf over so it just looks like a nice little ambient light and then i have the fans that i use oh yeah the robbie fans i've got that exact fan i love this one this one's nice because it's it's dual i don't know what if yours is or not yeah it's exactly the same yeah it's got you can either plug it in electrically or you can use the battery so i use that if it really needs if the wind isn't blowing outside and it's not circulating i'll use that and that'll last two or three days with the battery i have the biggest the highest amp battery me too but they they work really well i'm very very pleased with myself yes yes i so i've got those i've got the fans and uh of course you know the fantastic fan is fantastic it really is there's no question about it get your money's worth with a family absolutely i i don't even know what you say about them they're just really really good so and i you know i have a tv and a dvd player and all the works just has an incredible surround sound in it um but i don't really watch tv that much and if i do it's usually um dvds so i'm actually thinking about actually getting rid of the tv and just getting a portable dvd player sure so it's very pleasant very very comfortable just up and and cozy feeling very cozy very cozy very comfortable and i'll stick my head in the toilet in the bathroom and it's it's tight you'd have to have the door open to to use it yes you did uh but so the door becomes kind of the uh one of the wall what do you got the the um shower curtain goes around yeah there's the shower curtain yeah this looks we're pretty tight here this is the shower curtain so it will just pull around and become the host do the whole circle and then uh and just shower out here pull back the rug and shower out here and there's the nature's head nature's head toilet 1000 toilet which everyone i know who has one loves it never no one has ever said oh what a big waste of money that was they've all said it was well worth every penny fridge uh full running hot water um nice storage above all around very great height uh even a fairly tall person could be in here i'm five eight and i got plenty of room i've had people in here easily six foot they do just fine anything other than that i think they duck a little bit yeah but nothing a little is not so bad no no no not at all but boy it feels good yeah it feels good i love it very very nice and then this uh uh passenger seat swivels so it comes around and you and this lounge is way back so you can really lounge kind of like a recliner and this this seat actually because this is this is um more storage but this seat comes forward like this so you even have it closer so that you can you know and this makes a bed as well oh really got some ways between them yep so it makes a bed easily and when i have family here this is where i sleep because i'm the shortest and uh and it's very comfortable very very comfortable well if you can adapt to the smaller space yes you you give up a little yes but you get so much you get 18 to 22 miles to the gallon i don't feel like i've sacrificed that's the thing i don't feel like i've sacrificed anything right i still you know the the big difference is instead of you know you when if you really think about it if everybody would analyze this they use very little of their home so very little of their home so all i do is all i've done is condense the walking space well it's a remarkable home thank you it really is i would i would be content to live here the rest of my life without his hesitation well thank you so much dude i just i'm just really really impressed you've really got a wonderful home thank you i uh i would be content for the rest of my life right here it's lovely i love i love it i can see why and and it's not stark or um sterile no i've been in a lot of rv's and i felt sterile yes this feels like love yes i love and it's because i do i love it so much i it's just something all i say to people is don't hesitate to do this don't you know just don't hesitate to follow your your dream or your adventure or whatever it is you want to do it's not it's not worth living just a a shuttle life you're shoving yourself from here to here to here to work to to there's i mean we all do have to work and we all have but find a way because there's so many ways open to us now that even when i was doing my jobs weren't open to us there's just so many ways now of being creative and being able to make a living that i encourage anybody i don't care how old you are or how young you are just to do it it's it's it's awesome that's all i could say that kind of summarizes it right there it's awesome well thank you so much jude i just really appreciate you sharing your home with us and your enthusiasm and your love for it and we'll talk to you later thank you [Music]

Channel: CheapRVliving

Views: 1,132,817

Keywords: live, living, car, van, RV, Fill-time, nomad, gypsy, camper, camp, boondock, travel, Roadtrek, Class B, tiny home, Sedona, Thousand Trails

Id: euQR2DjtPyY

Length: 26min 5sec (1565 seconds)

Published: Sat Nov 12 2016